This review focuses on a new dvd instructional set from Robert Drysdale, a Brasa team black belt (under Leo Viera), who recently won the 2007 ADCC Submission Grappling Championships in the absolute weight division.
The six dvd set is called "The Nth Dimension - No Gi Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for the 21st Century" and has a running time of approximately 45 minutes per dvd. As this was Drysdale's first instructional set, we were excited about the prospect of learning the techniques that such a great competitor used to win the most prestigious submission grappling tournament in the world. However, as you will see below, we were seriously disappointed and rate this one of the worst jiu jitsu instructional sets in recent years from World Martial Arts (the production company).
We have outlined the content in these chapter-by-chapter maps in the pdfs below:
Chapter-by-Chapter Maps (Click on the Titles for the PDFs)
or CLICK HERE for the entire series map in pdf
As you can see from our chapter map, the first disc focuses on the fundamentals of attacking someone's back, mainly as they turtle up to avoid a guard pass. Most of the disc discusses controlling the position and getting the hooks, and although Drysdale gives a reasonable amount of detail, the overall content of this dvd is very average.
The second disc begins with more back techniques - what we could generally call solid fundamental Jiu Jitsu that Drysdale used in ADCC competition. But after that point, the dvd pretty much turns sour. He begins to teach a position that Eddie Bravo, founder of
10th Planet Jiu Jitsu in Hollywood, California, calls "the Truck". As most people know, Eddie is famous for his Twister submission, a move he learned in high school wrestling - the Truck is a transition position on the way to the Twister.
Incredibly, Drysdale notes that
"There's a lot of talk about this position. How this guy invented this, invented that - there's no such thing. The position was always there, you just got to see it." The fact is that no one was doing the Twister in Jiu Jitsu prior to Eddie Bravo, and since then, Eddie wrote several books on the subject, but now strangely Drysdale is teaching it even though he's not known for using it in competition.
The reality is that Eddie Bravo doesn't claim to have invented the Twister, but it is slightly odd to have Drysdale not give credit to the person who is widely acknowledged to have made the move popular. More disturbingly is that, in our opinion, these techniques are taught poorly on Drysdale's disc, with a lack of sufficient detail - our suggestion is to read Eddie Bravo's "
Mastering the Twister" and you will see what we are referring to. The rest of this disc has techniques on attacking the back when the opponent is sitting up - these are decent at best. Overall, we feel that techniques shown by Drysdale were of higher quality when he taught from his own game, rather than someone else's.
In disc three, Drysdale attempts to teach his version of the Rubber Guard (another position that Eddie Bravo is famous for), but after a poor disc two, our expectations were low. Again, somewhat strangely, Drysdale talks about how
"someone else" didn't invent the position, and he has been doing what he calls rubber guard since his early days as a blue belt. We have two reactions to this. First, who invented it is irrelevant although it is pretty clear that Eddie Bravo has designed an entire system around a clinching and controlling rubber guard game. Second, it is hard to believe that Drysdale, who is a world class grappler, has actually been using these techniques for a long time because they are simply not very functional in the form as presented on this dvd.
Overall, there are crucial details missing as Drysdale doesn't even discuss the importance of putting your lower foot on the opponent's hip, using leg curls to keep the opponent controlled (rather his leg is either planted on the ground or otherwise loose), or constantly squeezing your legs together to help keep the opponent broken down - all of which are critical in terms of using the rubber guard effectively. Further, he doesn't focus on controlling the opponent's posture when he has both of his hands on your chest (Mission Control). In fact, Drysdale has the audacity to mention that he can't understand why people show the position with the opponent's hands on the chest, rather than on the mat. This is a bizarre comment because anyone who has ever rolled against someone playing rubber guard proficiently, knows that it is important to keep your hands off the mat or you will be in serious trouble - even white belts in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu are taught to never put their hands on the mat to avoid Kimuras - any living, breathing, and resisting opponent would naturally do anything they can to avoid being broken down. This is why a significant part of the rubber guard game is about learning the basics such as setups to get your opponent's hand on the mat - without it, a large part of the attacks from rubber guard are nullified.
We think this disc is terrible, and we cannot even call these techniques "rubber guard" because Drysdale completely misses out on the importance and details of clinching/controlling your opponent. Drysdale's presentation simply looks like a closed guard with random omoplatas and gogoplatas being thrown at an opponent who is simply going to stay low and allow you to work your techniques without much resistance. For anyone really interested in learning more comprehensive, detail oriented, and practical rubber guard techniques that will work against resisting opponents, we highly recommend Eddie Bravo's
book or
dvd set set both entitled
"Mastering the Rubber Guard" from
Victory Belt.Drysdale's fourth disc presents some solid techniques mainly focused around chokes such as guillotines and the darce (brabo). The only issue we have with this disc is overlap, as today, we live in a world were it isn't difficult to find videos teaching brazilian jiu jitsu techniques on the internet. Go to youtube.com, type in a technique, and you will see numerous videos, some in competition, some from instructionals. So although this disc is decent, almost everything Drysdale shows can be easily found in other places. This would be overcome if Drysdale's teaching was detailed and excellent in his dvds - but unfortunately, it is not.
The fifth disc focuses on leg attacks, and it is probably the best disc in his set with knee bars and heel hooks being the highlights. The sixth disc is focused on a position he calls "the Body Lock", which is essentially an inverted triangle (and its variations). We haven't really seen Drysdale use this move effectively in tournaments, and since he never displays these moves in full speed, it is difficult to guess at how effective his setups are versus resisting opponents.
Overall, in terms of production quality, the dvd set is the standard level from World Martial Arts - no real complaints, although in the future we would look to see improvements in their production to include more advanced elements such as different camera angles and close-ups etc. Although Drysdale's English is fine, there is no doubt that the overall professionalism of the dvds would be improved if his training partner understood English so he could more naturally follow what was going on. Lastly, as mentioned, this instructional set would greatly benefit from real time demonstrations of the moves similar to the way techniques are presented in other grappling dvds.
We are pretty disappointed with this set in terms of quality and it is most obvious on the rubber guard section - which makes us think that these techniques cannot really be a part of Drysdale's world class jiu jitsu game. We feel like Drysdale is trying to go against conventional jiu jitsu not for effectiveness, but just to be different or perhaps to capitalize on Eddie Bravo's popularity. If we didn't know that Drysdale has won ADCC 2007, we wouldn't have guessed it based on the awkwardness of the techniques he presents in this dvd set. We would rather watch a Drysdale dvd set that discusses the gameplan that he uses in competition, rather than watch him try to teach techniques he seems unfamiliar with, and that were made famous by Eddie Bravo (and his
10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Academy). In this context, Drysdale ends up looking somewhat petty for naming this set
"the Nth Dimension".
Overall, we cannot really give a recommendation of Drysdale's dvd set for anyone looking to learn the rubber guard or twister game. Perhaps those curious about Drysdale's back, choke, and leglocks game could get some value out of these discs, but at $150, there are likely better and more comprehensive options out there. No doubt that Robert Drysdale is an awesome grappler, but perhaps his dvds prove that being a world class black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu does not necessary make someone a good teacher.
For further information on purchasing this dvd instructional series, check out the product page on World Martial Art's website
[click here for the link]
This review examines Dynamic Kneebars, a dvd by Stephan Kesting - naturally, this is an instructional completely focused on kneebars.
