MG's X-Guard book, Rooney's Training for Warriors book

[lowCofG]

Just wanted to post a quick, out-the-box note on these two titles as looking quite impressive on first flip-through viewing.

Martin Rooney's Training for Warriors goes into an interesting study of what all pieces of an MMA fighter's make-up go into the puzzle. He spends a chapter looking at each body part or muscle group, why it's significant to your game, and then lists a series of exercises for improving each group. Lots of pictures, but sometimes not enough on some moves. Large, descriptive text throughout. At times reads as though written for the newbie, but still a nice book. I can see the instructors at my gym probably snagging several drills and exercises from this text.

Marcelo Garcia's X-Guard from Victory Belt is on par with the other titles coming from Victory Belt these days, which is to say it's very damn nice. Laid out much like the other titles-- color-coded pages for what approach is being discussed. Butterfly guard is also discussed pretty thoroughly here, as Marcelo considers it a critical pre-cursor to anyone's x-guard game. If you have seen either Eddie Bravo book, BJ's book, or Couture's wrestling for mma book by Victory Belt, you have a good idea of what to expect here. If not, well, there's well-shot pictures, plenty of descriptive text (often including anecdotes as to when a move is/has been used in competition), and great attention to detail. Oh! And each move is "graded" as being either suitable or unsuitable for gi and for no-gi. Helpful.

I've only leafed through both, but again, both seem to be really nice books. I ordered both from Amazon, and it shipped out same day as my order. Pricing as good as anyone else's, I suppose. As I get through either book, I'll add to this review as necessary/relevant.

Interesting from the x-guard book was an updated list of titles coming "soon" from victory belt, now including Minotauro Nogueira, MMA by Anderson Silva, Guerrilla JJ for MMA by Camarillo, Arm Drags by Marcelo Garcia, Competition JJ by Andre Galvao, Karate for MMA by Lyoto Machida, and JJ by Saulo Ribeiro. I'd not seen those titles mentioned elsewhere, so it seems there's plenty more to come from Victory Belt.

at least their work always is worth the wait.

 

[Farnsworth]

I heard that the X-guard book is well-done, but doesn't really differ from his DVD's. So, I suppose it depends on what you already own, or what kind of learner you are.

 

[Bobby Jacobsen]

On that note how good are his dvd's (Garcia)?

 

[lowCofG]

I've not seen his dvd's yet, so I've no idea.

In trying some of the x-guard stuff, I was surprised at how much "easier than it looks" most of the moves have been for me thus far. Some moves you look at and think "no way in hell" but you know, you plop the book down on the mats nearby and try until you surprise yourself, I guess.

I'm mostly just excited to have a resource for something that caters so easily to the short of leg.

 

[crossdx]

His DVDs are awesome, well worth the money. But I'm going to be getting the book too. Victory Belt makes the best instructional books imo, and it's nice to have another format available for Marcelo's great instructionals.

 

[tucker713]

The book is awesome and I've already learned alot with it. I also went back to his DVDs and there is a little cross-over there.

I'm studying his book like crazy and making X-guard one of my go to positions.