Review Of No Holds Barred BJJ

[CKD]

Just got the book No-Holds Barred by Rodrigo Gracie. I thought it was a very good book for the nhb market. There are very few books about NHB on todays market you have plenty of bjj, wrestling, and thai boxing books but few that focus on MMA. The only ones I can think of are The Fighters Notebook, Bas Ruttens Big Book of Combat, Mastering Jujitsu by Renzo Gracie sort of focuses on MMA, BJJ for experts only has a small section on NHb, and Vale Tudo by Pedro Calvarho.

The Good
The book is organized into several sections making everything easy to find. It has techniques for free-movement, clinch, and ground. What I really like is the fact that in the section on guard techniques all the moves take into account that your opponent can strike. A lot of other people act like it is impossible for a person to do any real damage to the while they are in the guard. But this book takes into acount how dangerous a striking opponent can be. A lot of people make the mistake of treating fighting on the ground in MMA the same as submission grappling but when a person can strike it changes the grappling game dramatically. Rodrigo emphasizes that you need to take into acount these faactors. Another thing I liked is how Rodrigo talks about how people simply need to do more that crosstrain for mma and that they have to modify there techniques for the mma enviroment. For example striking changes a lot when the possibility of the clinch and takedown is there. For example there tends to be less bodyshots, the kicks are modified for the possibility of a takedown, shorter combos, and ect. The takedown game changes because of the strikes for example you have modify the takedown forstrikes coming in, you set up the takedowns with strikes, ect. We already mentioned how the ground game changes in that you have to be able to both defend and use strikes on the ground and how many techniques need to be modified. He also mentions how MMA has certain things like striking on the ground, getting up while you are down and your opponent is standing and striking, setting up takedowns with strikes ect. that can not be simply taken and modified from other arts. He also tells how you should train groundfighting on days you are taking it light (light palm strikes to make you aware of the possibility of strikes), how your mental state should be and other things. I also how he adds some chute boxe flavor to some of the techniques and shows you can avoid grappling and just stomp them to death. Another thing I found great is that he chained most of the moves together instead of isolating them.

Things I did not like
He showed mount, side mount, back, but nothing on how to prevent a person from striking you when you are mounted, side mounted, ect or how to escape these positions. Also he mostly showed heel strikes when striking from the guard and I thought he should have included punches, and elbows when you are on bottom. The next thing is more of an opinion related thing. He shows several leg locks while you are on top and I personally do not like to use them on top because you risk losing the top position. Some mma groups like CSW and Shooto advocate leg locks from the top while other groups like Militech Fighting Systems do not. Both sides have reasons why you should or should not do them. Another thing I did not like was how he advocated that you should specialize in an art like Gracie Jiu-jitsu, thai boxing, or wrestling, then modify it for mma(or find a trainer to teach you how to modify it) then learn the rest by taking mma classes, or by crosstraining and modifying the other arts and somehow figure out for yourself how to do the aspect of the game that can not be borrowed or modified. I suggest taking MMA, Vale tudo, Shooto, Pancrase, or whatever mixed martial art style you can think of classes so you do not have to modify the arts and figure all the aspects out by yourself. Learning how to modify the techniques and learn other aspects of the game is hard to do without a mma trainer. It also takes a lot less time then specializing in something and learning the rest. While you are taking mma classes you will find yourself better at one aspect of the game anyway. I think part of the reason Rodrigo said you should specialize is because of his loyalty to BJJ and his family and obviously he does not want bjj gyms to be replaced by MMA gyms just as bjj has started gaining popularity. Right afterwards he also says that BJJ is the best art to specialize in for mma and I think that kind of confirms my point. Although todays mma competitors are about 50% MMA trained and 50% specialized in one thing then either went an mma trainer/gym or crosstrained, modified, and learned everything else, I think in the future we will see more people coming from mma gyms. The reason it is around 50/50 now is because gyms teaching mma are pretty new thing and most people heard about the UFC later in there carreer in another martial sport. Most people that specialized and then went to and mma gym or took the modifying road say they wish they could have just done mma as a style and learned all the aspects. I hope to add more to the review later.

[Ahoym8e]

great writeup!

Thanks!