Mastering The Rubber Guard Review

[Go Private]

REVIEW FROM LOCKFLOW.COM. MASTERING THE RUBBER GUARD IS AVAILABLE AT WWW.VICTORYBELT.COM.


Mastering the Rubber Guard by Eddie Bravo

Posted by spewy

October 19th, 2006 at 5:51 PM

Most people who have been involved with Jiu Jitsu are familiar with the name of Eddie ‘The Twister’ Bravo. I myself came across him whilst looking through a late night book store in London finding by chance his first book ‘Jiu Jitsu Unleashed’. ‘Mastering the Rubber Guard’ is Bravo’s second venture into publishing and is far more ambitious, the large format book containing 272 pages in full glossy color and hundreds of high quality photos. This book covers Eddie’s Half Guard, Butterfly Guard, Rubber Guard, Spider Web and Escapes to Guard games in a logic flow path of techniques. A second book based on the rest of Eddie’s system is planned for the future.

As is the norm for anything in Bravo’s system, each technique has a querky name to help the practitioner remember each move and also to help them whilst rolling as it is a lock quicker to shout ‘Electric Chair!’ than it is to shout ‘Extend your leg and put hiS base onto his arms whilst grabbing his other leg and stretching his groin!’. Other examples of extravegant names are ‘The Powder Keg’, ‘Super Stomp’, ‘Mission Pump’ and ‘Night of the Living Dead’.

The idea of this book is a flow of techniques where one leads to the next and if a submission isn’t succesful the next technique in the flow is applied, you continue to climb the ladder of techniques until you are successful. This progression is also how the book is organised in clear order providing a myriad of options which to be honest is rather overwhelming given the amount of techniques on show. One of the best features of this book is that each technique is broken down into several pictures from two angles with close up shots of important details if required. I must admit I didn’t truly understand some of Eddie’s techniques from reading his first book, but things are a lot clearer and more concise in this presentation. Given the rise of the sport there are sections dedicated to MMA applications too.

Being critical of the Jiu Jitsu information in this book it is quite hard to do and my only gripe is a minor one that techniques like the ‘Kamakazie Calf Krank’ that appeared in ‘Unleashed’ are absent.

Before finishing this review there is one part of this book that must be discussed. The publisher Victory Belt gave Eddie complete control over content and Eddie has taken this as an ideal moment to champion his views on Cannabis quite extensively. The chapter on this subject precedes the Jiu Jitsu content and only takes a small portion of the overall book. Now this chapter is certainly going to cause some controversy amongst the less liberal practitioners amongst us. My own personal view is that free speech is to be respected and I agree in part with Eddie’s views. Regardless of your view point on the first chapter, positive or negative, ‘Mastering the Rubber Guard’ is an excellent book on Eddie Bravo’s revolutionary No Gi grappling system.

Price : $29.95 ($24.95 from www.victorybelt.com)

[Oma'sLeftTesty]

Originally Posted by Go Private

REVIEW FROM LOCKFLOW.COM. MASTERING THE RUBBER GUARD IS AVAILABLE AT WWW.VICTORYBELT.COM.


Mastering the Rubber Guard by Eddie Bravo

Posted by spewy

October 19th, 2006 at 5:51 PM

Most people who have been involved with Jiu Jitsu are familiar with the name of Eddie ‘The Twister’ Bravo. I myself came across him whilst looking through a late night book store in London finding by chance his first book ‘Jiu Jitsu Unleashed’. ‘Mastering the Rubber Guard’ is Bravo’s second venture into publishing and is far more ambitious, the large format book containing 272 pages in full glossy color and hundreds of high quality photos. This book covers Eddie’s Half Guard, Butterfly Guard, Rubber Guard, Spider Web and Escapes to Guard games in a logic flow path of techniques. A second book based on the rest of Eddie’s system is planned for the future.

As is the norm for anything in Bravo’s system, each technique has a querky name to help the practitioner remember each move and also to help them whilst rolling as it is a lock quicker to shout ‘Electric Chair!’ than it is to shout ‘Extend your leg and put hiS base onto his arms whilst grabbing his other leg and stretching his groin!’. Other examples of extravegant names are ‘The Powder Keg’, ‘Super Stomp’, ‘Mission Pump’ and ‘Night of the Living Dead’.

The idea of this book is a flow of techniques where one leads to the next and if a submission isn’t succesful the next technique in the flow is applied, you continue to climb the ladder of techniques until you are successful. This progression is also how the book is organised in clear order providing a myriad of options which to be honest is rather overwhelming given the amount of techniques on show. One of the best features of this book is that each technique is broken down into several pictures from two angles with close up shots of important details if required. I must admit I didn’t truly understand some of Eddie’s techniques from reading his first book, but things are a lot clearer and more concise in this presentation. Given the rise of the sport there are sections dedicated to MMA applications too.

Being critical of the Jiu Jitsu information in this book it is quite hard to do and my only gripe is a minor one that techniques like the ‘Kamakazie Calf Krank’ that appeared in ‘Unleashed’ are absent.

Before finishing this review there is one part of this book that must be discussed. The publisher Victory Belt gave Eddie complete control over content and Eddie has taken this as an ideal moment to champion his views on Cannabis quite extensively. The chapter on this subject precedes the Jiu Jitsu content and only takes a small portion of the overall book. Now this chapter is certainly going to cause some controversy amongst the less liberal practitioners amongst us. My own personal view is that free speech is to be respected and I agree in part with Eddie’s views. Regardless of your view point on the first chapter, positive or negative, ‘Mastering the Rubber Guard’ is an excellent book on Eddie Bravo’s revolutionary No Gi grappling system.

Price : $29.95 ($24.95 from www.victorybelt.com)

Ive emailed back and forth with him and his myspace page and yes, he smokes the chronic lol

[JkD187]

I cant wait to get this book!