First of all, I respect BJ Penn's heart and technics, he is one of the greatest pound per pound MMA fighter up there, together with Fedor Emalianenko, Lyoto Machida, George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva ( all are Affliction or UFC champion in different weight classes and have been reigning for the last two years, Fedor and Lyoto still undefeated!!). BJ's accomplishments are awesome, the progress, power and speed, technics are top notch.
The book is amazing! explaining from very basic to intermediate skill of striking and grappling, best of all, he blends them very well, great teacher and great technics but.... here's the hard part, sorry, BJ. In the introduction he shared his experience when he loss his second fight with Matt Hughes mainly caused by his blown off ribs when he tried to get Hughes's back at the end of second round which he said he has less than a minute to finish Hughes up. Then Hughes utilized BJ's broken ribs so that BJ had to protect his ribs than his face and arm. I'm not sure I remember that, so I watched the fight again and it's clearly that BJ's out of gas on the third round and Hughes just keep punching and mauling BJ on his heads, not a single punch intentionally aimed to BJ's ribs. And the previous round, BJ has almost two minutes when he almost control Hughes's back.
But BJ did a superior job in this book, the way he explain his opinion and technic are great. Just a little bit misleading reason in why he loss his second fight with Hughes. I and almost all people will still admire and respect him evenif he admit that in that fight he wasn't well prepared for the stamina, it even make him a bigger man. That factor makes me give this book 4 stars , other than that, 5 stars!! Fedor's book is also very awesome, not as structured as BJ's but show and teach exactly what he does in the ring in a lot of his battles, great technics but not as much great introduction (or reason) for finding our own strength and training samples. One thing that I admire BJ a lot, he never really got cut or battered even when he loose, Fedor is undisputed till now ( and the next two years,too, probably) but in some fights he got battered, though (ex: Cro Cop fight, Nogueira even Hong Man Choi), winning riskier fighter ?? or BJ, mostly winning safer fighter? your choice. I admire them both but hopefully all of us can be better MMA learner or fighter (even analyst) from keep learning from the best. Thank you Victory Belt Publisher.
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The Aging Athlete is not a negative term, it's a project whose goal is to teach how to thrive thru the aging process.
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2016
I picked up the book nearly a decade after its release.I studied BJJ for 13 years as a recreational BJJ practitioner. BJ (and his co-authors) mentions training at 80% and that when he and others went beyond that on a regular basis in training, they compromised their focus, their health, and their balanced lifestyles. That is a philosophy I have studied for more than three decades and have written about since 2008. (See Sedentary Nation on Amazon) When I interviewed Ken Shamrock for my book, THE AGING ATHLETE, I asked him how many times he went into a fight at 100%?He replied, "Not once. I was always hurt from new training injuries or relapses of old injuries." Touché for BJ, Erich, and Glen for pointing that out and for producing a book that is a trove of philosophical and actionable lessons of MMA and grappling. This book is a high production value produced by true artists of martial arts and book publishing.
Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2016
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Mr A Carroll
Probably the best book of its kind out there
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 17, 2013
