Customer Reviews

Submission Wrestling: The Martial Arts Guide to Grappling

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

The book is one of the worst books on grappling and submissions ever written. The author has faked all of the positive reviews but everyone who has any legitimate grappling experience has openly stated this book is worthless. The author makes a lot of claims but do not waste your hard earned money on this book.

Why on earth would anyone want to learn martial arts from a con-man? The author's only intent is to ride brazilian jiu-jitsu's wave of success. Prior to it's popularity, the author was anti-grappling! Other highlights in the author's career include calling the cops on visitors of his school and allegedly beating up his wife (ironic thing to do for a rape prevention instructor). The author also holds the dubious distinction of getting 'banned' from 5 martial arts discussion boards due to his bad attitude. Spend your money on the 'Fergie Follies' instead.

People, this book is terrible. All of the positive reviews here have been done by Robbie Ferguson himself. He is a notorious conman who doesn't know anything about grappling, only how to lie and promote himself and make money. Don't fall for the stuff this snake oil salesman is pawning. Save your money and buy Ferg Follies tape instead.

SUBMISSION WRESTLING: The Martial Arts Guide To Grappling ByRobert Ferguson

Review by: Michael "KempoMike" Gonzalez

SubmissionFighting Underground Forum member

First let me say that this was a difficult task. Much more difficult than I realized when I first made the challenge to Ferguson asking him to allow me to review his materials for the Underground Forum. Due to my professional bias against Ferguson, I had a difficult time not reviewing this book and his instructional videos, at face value. I actually read the book twice and had a third, unbiased party, read it as well. In the end, we came up with the same conclusion. I checked and double checked my notes that we kept during the reading of the book and once again came up with the same results....

If you are looking for a book to learn submission wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Sambo, Judo, or free style wrestling submission techniques...then this is NOT the book for you! Ferguson's book has very little, if any, submission techniques. You would be better off buying the Fighter's Notebook or Gene LeBell's Encyclopedia of Finishing Holds. Your money would be better spent with either of these two books.

The book is solely for the person who absolutely no knowledge of grappling and who is looking for a place to begin reading to get a basic introduction to the art of grappling.

In the book, he has covered some important aspects that are often over looked. I will give them mention because I think they deserve mentioning....

One of the chapters, entitled "The Evolutionary Process To Becoming A Martial Artist" is short but insightful. Basically he states that there are 5 stages. He describes, briefly, the five stages. I will only name them as they are named in the book...Stage One: Acceptance of Cultural Influence.....Stage Two: Learning the Instructor's Art.....Stage Three: Becoming Creative With What's Learned.....Stage Four: Become Well Traveled (this refers to cross training with other instructors and styles - not about geographical travel)......Stage Five: Become Well Learned.

The Next Chapter is also of importance in the book and especially to a novice that is using this book as a guide to do a little research from. The chapter is entitled, " CHAPTER TWO: Finding A Good Instructor. This is probably the best chapter in the book. In fact, I would have liked to have seen more time and effort put into this chapter and the one mentioned above. A whole book could be devoted to these two chapters. He breaks this chapter down to sub-headings and briefly describes each...these include....Personal Experience.....Know What You Want To Learn....Use Common Sense....What Instructor Should You Visit......There Is No Best, Most Complete, or Most Authentic Grappling System.....Believe Only What You See and Not What You Hear.....Just Because An Instructor Is The Best You Have Seen, Doesn't Mean He Is The Best There Is.....Just Because A Teacher Is A good Grappler, Doesn't Mean He Is A Good Teacher....Don't Be Intimidated......Don't Get Wrapped Up In Fantasy.

Again, Ferguson should have really turned on the literary freedom here and let loose. This book could have been great on these two chapters alone....but....it lacks because of the brief text.

Ferguson then goes on to show some pictures of other famous martial artists and does a little name dropping. Hey, fine...it's his book after all. Chapter Three is about conditioning and drilling. I was really hoping to see some great drills here but other than writing about the importance of conditioning there are only ten exercises given in a list and they are not explained at all....no words, no pictures. Bummer.

Chapter Four: Six Basic Skills.......Ferguson adds a little meat to his text. (finally) Not too bad. He does a fairly good job of explaining what these are and their importance...but again, it is rather brief.

Chapter Five: Champion's Forum. I really didn't care much for this chapter. It has some short biographical text and pictures of Randy Couture, Frank Shamrock, Santos Flaniken, and once again, a lot of name dropping and photo opportunities. Nothing really here...at least not for me.

Chapter Six: Ground Positions.....ahhh, back to the meat again. I had to look at this over and over for a couple of reasons....one, Ferguson's positions are a little different than those of my BJJ training. Approx. 95% are the same but what he calls positions are sometimes just slight variations of a core position...but hey...I am a BJJ guy, so I can look over that one. The next disappointment is that throughout the book the photos are too dark and are mostly shot from too far away. This is one of the most important chapters and it is hard to see what Ferguson and his partner are doing due to the photo quality. Ferguson attempts a great teaching strategy here by showing how to position and flow to other positions. This is actually a great drill but the photos do not do it justice. He also covers this on his videos which I will review in another thread. This is a great idea and all instructors should teach their variation of this BEFORE any submissions are ever taught. Nice try Ferguson...but the photos leave it a little flat. If it wasn't for my experience in BJJ, I would have had a very difficult time interpreting what was going on in the photos.

Chapter Seven: Submissions......I already stated that there are no submissions here. There are only pictures of a rear naked choke, an ankle lock, and an armbar (Juji-Gatame). THAT"S IT!!!! Nothing explaining the execution or application of a submission. Chapter fell very flat for me.

Chapter Eight: Counters, Reversals, and Escapes.......This chapter should have immediately followed Chapter Six: Ground Positions. It would have made a great combination had he really done the homework. He does teach some reversals, escapes, etc....BUT....once again, the photos don't do him justice and if not for my experience, I couldn't have interpreted.

Chapter Nine: Submission Strategy With and Without The Uniform......Here Ferguson covers the difference between the two but only gives single shot photos of submissions not sequences showing the execution of a technique. He does a little name dropping here with Photos of Walt Lysak Jr., Fabio Gurgel, and Mericar Ocampo.

Chapter Ten: Set Ups and Combinations......This is a nice chapter detailing strategy but is very short. NOTE: The one nice thing that Ferguson does here is talk about Bruce Lee's Five Ways of Attack. He very briefly...too briefly ....explains their relationship to grappling. Nice job. The five ways of attack are not just for striking. I liked that a lot...unfortunately....he is too brief. Ferguson could have done half a book with this stuff.

At the end of the book Ferguson gives an appendix...in it he gives the rules for sport submission wrestling. Nicely done....he also gives URL addresses for other websites. He covers the Gracies, Submission fighting, Machos, Grappling, and various URLs for Sambo, NHB, Judo / Jiu-Jitsu, etc. This is a great addition for the person who needs to do more homework and wants to see what other grappling styles are out there. This is a wealth of information. Nice touch Ferguson.

FINAL ANALYSIS: The book is for the very inexperienced who are looking for a good place to start. Intermediate and Advanced grapplers will not benefit overall from the book but there are a couple of small highlights. The photos are too dark and shot from too far away. Too bad, because they would have made the book better. Another note: On the cover is a blurb citing that the book is endorsed by the American Freestyle Grappling Association. I find this ironic, mainly because Ferguson IS the A.F.G.A. Using the Amazon.com rating method of 1 - 5 stars.(1 being the lowest and 5 the best) I give the book 3 stars. A little more attention to detail and some more time explaining text and this book could have been really good. Keep Training Hard.....Michael

I have had dealings with this man (recently) He in my opinion is just trying to cash in on the grappling wave that is cresting currently in the world today!! I saw and read his book. What a farce!! I teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and would NEVER recomend this piece of garbage to my students. 1. Submissions? 2. (legitimate not fantasy) submission ground positioning? 3. Self promotion plain & simple. 4. By the way since when is Ron Van Clief a grappling authority??

Rafiel Torre East-West Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Please, if you are already a student of the submission game, do not waste your money on this book. It is non-descriptive and lacks any real substance.

I was very disappointed with the book. First of all, the book was small and I was able to read it from front to back in only a couple of hours. Which would be okay had it been jam packed with information or techniques - but it wasn't. In fact, there were only about 6 techniques involving arm bars or joint locks - definitely not what I expected from a book titled plenty pictures of the author with big names, and he does his fair share of name dropping, but as far as teaching the reader any techniques, forget about it. Oh, he does discuss his 12 ground positions (what he terms "position flow"), but big deal - so I now know new names for 12 positions I already knew names for. What the reader is not told is what joint locks and submissions are available from these positions - which was the whole point in buying the book! So anyway, after reading over half the book, I was thrilled to see the chapter heading on page 101 - SUBMISSIONS. Guess what. The chapter ends on page 107.

There is very little worthwhile content in this book, but a LOT of self-promotion by Ferguson. Don't waste your money on it. Also, all of the five star reviews for this book are faked by the author and his associates.

I bought the book and read it from cover to cover. From a publishing stand point, the books pictures are cheaply printed into the book, making them hard to see. And, the quality of the pages are worse than a comic book. Contentwise, I was extremely disappointed. I have been involved in grappling for more than 13 years, so I think I have some idea of what I am talking about (though not enough to write a book). The book showed almost no techniques whatsoever.

When you buy a book called submission wrestling, wouldn't you expect to see a lot about submission holds? Well, maybe some people wouldn't, but I did. Though his book doesn't give out false, or bad information, the information within could be easily found on a few websites involving submission fighting, submission wrestling or brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Perhaps the next book will contain more information about submissions and control and less self-promotion. I doubt I would risk spending the money on it. If you want a more comprehensive book I'd go with Gene LaBels new title or the fighters notebook, which contain more unique and well illustrated submissions that I can count.