I was excited to watch Felipe Costa’s documentary The Path to Success because it promised to show how an average BJJ fighter could become an expert competitor. Through three sections, “Felipe’s Story”, “Old Mistakes”, and “Techniques”, The Path to Success offers a new take on jiu-jitsu documentaries by showing how three aspects of jiu-jitsu combine to make a great competitor. Unfortunately, the actual content left me wanting more.

Attack of the Killer Butterfly & The Human Crucifix!
This is a preview of the upcoming Jiu Jitsu Theater Double Feature 3 disc DVD set featuring Nino Schembri, available soon at www.Budovideos.com

Attack of the Killer Butterfly & The Human Crucifix!
Two Movies, One Admission, Multiple Submissions!

In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the turtle historically has been seen as a conduit to either recovering guard or getting your guard passed (or possibly being submitted). However, over the last few years a lot of these views have changed as the turtle has become an offensive staging ground for sweeps, reversals, and even some submissions. While some have been slow to accept this changing paradigm shift about the turtle, others have embraced the unique aspects of this game. Nowhere else is this change so obvious than in the two Turtle specific volumes by Josh Russell and Eduardo Telles. Following is a cross comparison review of both instructionals where there can only be one winner and it isn’t the hare.

Recently, two of the largest jiu-jitsu instructional producers went head to head with nearly simultaneous releases of the newest Marcelo Garcia vol. 4 instructional and the highly anticipated Braulio Estima set. Although the timing is certainly hard on the wallets, these instructionals couldn’t have been any more different and both are definitely worth checking out.

Marcelo Garcia vol. 4- As the latest iteration of the famous franchise, Marcelo breaks new ground in this volume entitled New Game Jiu-Jitsu. Gone are the x-guard, back attacks, and arm drag DVDs of volumes 1-3. In its place is a whole lot of submission grappling specific omoplata, guillotine, and crucifix attacks. This is definitely new ground for the series.

With the incredible success of current Alliance fighters like Marcelo Garcia, Tarsis Humphreys, and Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles, there has been an increased focus on the teaching skills of their instructors, Jacare Cavalcante and Fabio Gurgel. With only a few other instructionals from these great instructors, the time was right for some new material in the form of their recently released seminar DVDs.

When looking at the current crop of champion factories in the BJJ and MMA world, one cannot overlook the powerhouse Cesar Gracie Competition Team. With champions and fighters like Dave Terrell, Gil Castillo, Nick and Nate Diaz, Jake Shields, and Gilbert Melendez, it is clear that Cesar Gracie offers something important as an instructor. To discover what this special “something” is, we are going to be diving into Cesar Gracie’s DVD legacies, his 3 disc Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Instructional by Ultimate Imports as well as the self produced 6 volume Gi-Less Jiu-Jitsu set.

When it comes to instructionals, there are usually two major subcategories that arise: 1. Encyclopedic- including the macro every move under the sun as well as the micro/position specific instructional and 2. Game specific- where the player tries to give insight into why his/her jiu-jitsu works so well. However, sometimes the dividing line between these subcategories becomes hazy and this is definitely the case with the recently released Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles Vol. 1 and Cobra Jiu-Jitsu 2 instructionals by Bull Terrier out of Japan.