"There aren't many single person BJJ drills, you need a partner to practise grappling". When was first told this by a BJJ coach, it was more or less true, at least as far as I knew.
It’s just not true anymore.
Scott Sonnon, distinguished master of sport and head coach at RMAX has followed on from his phenomenally successful Grapplers Toolbox to bring out the Grapplers Toolbox Reborn DVD.
The DVD consists of a series of biomechanical exercises designed for fighters (particularly for BJJ fighters, we tend to be wound tighter than guitar strings) to increase their range of motion, strength within motion and to help us flow with our techniques that much more. Think of this as a kind of "shadow grappling", where you utilise the ground (and occasionally the walls) to provide resistance that a drilling partner would normally give you.
Coach Sonnon is astoundingly smooth in his execution of the technique, but it's his teaching ability that makes this DVD shine. Most DVD's, no matter how good they are, stick to the "Keep It Simple Stupid" idea when it comes to teaching. Coach Sonnon assumes you are smart enough for the material and manages to pack ten times the amount of instruction onto one DVD because of this.
While the individual exercises are great (the shinbox series alone has improved my guard work out of sight) there is a lot of focus on working the individual exercises into chains of techniques, or "flows". In this you are only really limited by your creativity as it is quite possible to put together a flow chain lasting for fifteen minutes or more.
There was the odd editing error; which jarred slightly on the presentation, but overall the production values are excellent. I never once found myself unable to understand what was going on and in particular the sound production was top notch.
If you are looking for submissions then this isn't your DVD (The MMA Saddle is your DVD if you want submissions) but the biomechanical exercises will help with every aspect of your game, in particular going from position to position smoothly and maintaining control over your opponent.
The exercises presented aren't about stretching as much as they are about developing strength throughout a range of motion, while at the same time increasing the range of motion. You will definitely feel a difference in your hips, knees and other joints. This is something you need to stick with, but that's true of everything. Coach Sonnon does go into utilising props, including Clubbells and a heavy bag to help apply your flows to your fighting (watch out for the scorpion exercise applied as a guard pass in this section). The heavy bag section was my favourite on the DVD, it's that much easier to apply these concepts when you have a stand in for an opponent.
I also have the RMAX Prasara Yoga DVD, which ties in superbly with this Grapplers Toolbox Reborn, so if you are considering buying this then it's well worth looking into getting both.
I almost wish RMAX would put out a bad product, then I wouldn't look like such a fanboy, but so far I'm just going to have to live with it. Grapplers Toolbox Reborn gives you everything you could want in an exercise DVD; lots of exercises, well instructed, specifically geared towards grapplers. Two gloved thumbs up and if I could grow a third hand it would probably get three.
Visit the website at www.rmaxi.com.
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