Quality Grappling Media

**ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE** · Posted On: 11/10/2008 9:06am

I know we have a thread on gear and a reviews seciton but I'm asking something different here. I want to know what media people have seen online or bough, book or DVD, that has realy helped their game in some way at a higher level (i.e. after at least a couple of years of grappling). I'm curious because I used to be of the opinion that everything out there was basically the same, an incomplete encyclopedia of moves organised in a not particularly helpful way but recently I have come across a couple of things that were of a much higher standard than this.

I saw Rigan Machado's Triangle DVD, this really helped me with one small particular problem I had with one training partner who tended to defend the traingle by wrapping the leg and it annoyed me that I hd to transtiion to omoplata's (Which I suck at) The Machado stuff game me another simple option that I'd never come across before hand.

The other piece of media that really impressed me was Ed Beneville's series on the guard, I found the material was really well laid out, fairly in depth and more logically organised than anything else I've seen before on the matter. I liked it so mcuh that I'm considering paying the rediculous £140.00 for the first book in the series!

So, anyone else seen anything similar in quality? Not just encyclopedic refernces but stuff which can genuinely help you develop?

**Horus** · Posted On: 11/10/2008 11:24am

I found Demian Maia's Science of Jiu-Jitsu really useful as it breaks down the reason why certain techniques work instead of just showing how to do them, and he's one of the best BJJ practitioners in the world so you know you're getting the very best information.

Also, as a beginner I found Michael Jen's videos useful as they are explained in a very simple way and his drills are easy to do but really useful.

**RobT** · Posted On: 11/10/2008 1:39pm

Marcelo's X-guard book. Obviously for x-guard but it also has amazing info on butterfly.

Eddie Bravo's latest two books. I don't use a lot of the stuff but have picked up a few things which really help.

Jacare's DVD set... if you want to be able to smash through guards, get this.

**madmagus777** · Posted On: 11/11/2008 8:52am

Mario Sperry's Master series 1 & 2 helped my game a lot. So has Bas Rutten's Big Books of Combat (especially for submission escapes) and 1001 Submissions. Also, anything from victory belt. i'm eagerly awaiting their release of Saulo Ribeiro's book, "jiu-jitsu University".

i'd hold off on buying Ed Beneville's Passing the Guard. He has the second edition coming out in April of next year.

**Gabetuno** · Posted On: 11/11/2008 11:29am

Tim Burrill (C.Machado BB) has a fantastic Butterfly guard DVD. What I like best about it is Tim's game is very much about using your guard to recover a top/dominant position, which is very much up my alley.

Also I just took a seminar with Abmar Barbosa (certified badass), and if you like trendy gi tricks, his stuff is awesome. I asked him if he had any videos, and he told me he expects to release something in January, so keep an eye out for that. Abmar is highly decorated, and very smooth in his technique.