has anyone seen...

[kiddbjj]

has anyone seen any of matt thorton's 'alive' vids? are they any good?

[JkD187]

I train at sbg in NY.Matt's tapes are very good and always filled with basics followed by some variations and explaining why the technique works then usually by fight clips demonstrationg the move when sparring.Matt's alive series is just the philophsy we live by and train by with in depth explinations on why we do that,after that is the stand up section of the series which deals with the basics of punches kicks knees elbows takedown defense the straight blast and combos.The clinch tape is basically just greco freestyle and muay thai with a twist or two.The ground tape is bjj basics and wrestling basics.Matt has a very different way of coaching then most mma gyms,he breaks down a technique and explains the do's and don'ts...the 5 fundimentials for controlling a person on the ground,the concept of an active guard and why its important,positions and transitions most people never even heard of like killing the arm,promission(position+submission).All in all a very good tape set but dont take my opinion on it you can check this link if you want a more in depth review. http://home.att.net/~erik.mann/sbmta.htm p.s you can check on that site for many other video title reviews.

[kiddbjj]

hey thanks for a great reply mate. i've been a big fan of matt's philosophies on training for awile now and usually check the website now and again.

can i ask how often you train there and how long a typical class is? how much of that class is free sparring and how much is doing alive drills specific to a certain range or group of techniques.

i do BJJ and some standup. mostly i think what we do is good because we spar/roll regularly and have many drills that are based on resistance and play rather than just dead reps.

always looking to improve though. what about weapons and multiples. how do you guys train for that?

[kiddbjj]

also dude do you have a copy of the BJJ syllabus that you guys work off?

i would love to see one because as far as i know my school doesnt have one.
let me know if its cool. thanks!

[JkD187]

no prob kid i enjoy these type of posts compared to some of the bs posts some people do.A typical sbg ny class is about 2-3 hours long with an open mat time at then end for like 45 mins to spar or drill.About 80% of the classes are drills that are trained with progressive ressistance,that basicaly means you start out with no resistance then increase the resistance as time goes on..like you start to try to not let the guy get it at first...then you might try to pull guard or roll him or escape...whatever the technique is its trained from 0% resistance to about 90% resistance then to sparring with 100% resistance.Each group is broken up into days, Mon is no gi jits/mma/self defense,Wed is gi jits,Thurs is shoot-box which is basically muay thai with takedowns.In the self defense portion of the class we cover defenses/offenses from headlocks standing and on the ground...tackles,haymakes,grabs,holds,chokes whatever else i didnt mention.As far as weapons and multi we dont really train it that much once in awhile we do it but i train weapons on my own all the time, i have burtons high performance weaponrary tapes and had a couple of months of full contact kali training so i just spar and build upon that on my own.Multi people is hard to train for but the basic idea we have for it at sbg is just run like hell.