MY REVIEW: "The Guard" - Joe Moreira and Ed Beneville

tudor_bjj

Purple Belt
@purple
Joined
Sep 24, 2004
Messages
1,658
Reaction score
0
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Joe Moreira is a 7th degree BB in BJJ and a 3rd degree BB in judo. He gave BB to some of the most respected instructional makers on the market: Michael Jen and Roy Harris.
Ed Beneville is a BB under Joe Moreira. He is co-author of the first book in this series: "Passing the Guard" (remember me to tell you smth. about this one, too).

CONTENTS:
Fundamentals - Guard Pass Counters - Chokes - Sweeps vs. kneeling opponent - Armbars vs. stacking - Vs. upright posture - Vs. stalling posture - Flowing attack - Neck control attacks - Backroll & turtle - Snake knees & standup

If you ever think of learning TKD on your own, you better hope someone makes a book like this: "The Guard in TKD". But i think you'll never be that lucky. I was. Why? Because I'm learning BJJ on my own (there's no BJJ instructor in Romania) and these guys thought about making a book for people like me... disabled. Not without hands or legs, but without a guy (aka. instructor) who can point out what tou are doing wrong. I always wanted to know the little details that I realized not even the instructors are aware of. Now go to this link and focus on 2 things - the details and the layout: http://www.grapplingarts.net/theguard/samples.html. Now, that you came back let's get straight in it...

FUNDAMENTALS:
Snake moves! Also known as shrimping. That's what I'm talking: details. I guess with the upa kind of moves, this movement is the most important in BJJ. They focus on snake moves and their applications over 25+ pages. A lot of people claimed that one of Moreira's secrets was this move and the authors wanted to reveal as much as they could in a... book.
Leg movement drills! If you ever imagined the moves in a book could be smooth, then you were right. You learn how to use your legs to defend and regain your guard.

GUARD PASS COUNTERS:
Now, it's the time to counter the techniques your buddy learned from reading "Passing the Guard". What's Joe's bread and butter passing technique? Yeah, the smah pass. And the guy himself let's you know how to counter it and other types of passing the guard.

CHOKES:
I have a video of one of Joe's Choke seminars. It seems so easy for him, even when he rolls with Roy Harris at the end of the seminar... Poor Roy :) How does he makes them so effective, how does he transition to other subs, it's all here...

SWEEPING VS. KNEELING OPPONENT:
From "Scissors sweep" to "T sweep" (!)...

ARMBARS VS. STACKING:
If I only knew in the first tournament I entered how to stop that f****r pushing all his weight on my damaged spine (protrusion L4 - L5 :( ) after I caught him in the armbar. Daymn! The authors are showing you how to counter the different ways your opponent can drive his weight and the transitions you can make from this position.

VS. UPRIGHT POSTURE:
31 pages on attacking an opponent who has adopted posture! Good posture, I mean... To omoplata; to kimura; to armbar; to kneebar; to chokes; to sweeps, to re-counters and so on... You name it, it's in there.

VS. STALLING POSTURE:
Maybe you'll never fight Arona, but you gotta know how to attack the three most common variations on the stalling posture, when that SOB tries to maintain that 2 points he got from that sloppy takedown.

FLOWING ATTACK:
You'll never learn how to 'flow" from this book, but you'll have the tools to put them in practice. Hey, mum, look, it's even kimura to omoplata to footlock, my favourite one!

NECK CONTROL ATTACKS:
Here you get how to establish control over the back of the opponent's neck and pushin his head down. Very good for the deffense of passing the guard and after a single leg. Also crucifix, neck cranks, wing choke, sweep etc.

BACK ROLL & TURTLE:
He is passing your guard and you didn't read the first pages of this book. What you have to do? Telles, here I'm coming! Back roll or go to your knees. Here you have wrestler's sit out, duck under, fireman's carrry from knees and other techniques.

SNAKE KNEES & STANDUP:
Now, get up and go buy the book! No, wait there's one more chapter! What to do when you don't want to stay in the guard: snake move to the knees and snake moves to the feet.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT?
A little hard to learn how to follow the picture instructions and no "no gi" techniques. A lot of Joe's game depends on "gripping". Or maybe it's not a bad thing? You decide...

ON MY MARK, GET SET, GO: 8.5 (on a scale from 1 to 10. 10 being the book from which you become the next Rickson :) ).

MY ENGLISH: 3. (on a scale from 1 to 10. 1 being Borat's english)

ABOUT ME: I started BJJ one year and a half ago. I live in Romania (Eastern Europe). I practiced with some friends learning from DVD instructionals, books, watching footage of pro fighters and going to seminars in Europe. After less then one year I received my blue belt and one month ago I won the bronze medal in "Gracie Barra Hungary JJ Tournament" in the no gi division, + 76 kg category (I'm 82). I train 95% of the time no gi (because I teach a lot of MMA related BJJ), but I advise people to train both of them. Learning BJJ on my own I became very focused on the details: why this move works, what can I do to improve it for me, where do I place my hand, feet etc., how do I move my hips and so on...

NOTE: I don't have any connection with the authors, editors etc. Oh, wait, I don't have connections with anybody in BJJ. HELP, I need an instructor!!!

Let me know if it was useful, guys!
 
Awesome review man! It looks like it will be worth the money for my parents to buy me for christmas :D . Too bad you don't have a coach. Do you at least have training partners?
 
Thanks! Yeah, I have some training partners. But I feel I can't make it this way to purple. If you don't have an instructor, you should have at least training partners better or at least at your level.
 
I have both, and they are so much vastly better than any other gi-bjj books that it's not even a contest ...

Only thing that disappoints me a little about The Guard is that there isn't much material on more exotic open guards -- spider, de la riva, butterfly, x-guard, etc. But I suppose it would get much too long, and it's already long enough as it is. It's awesome.
 
I got it too, I agree with you on almost all points. One thing I don't like is that a lot of his moves are based around gripping the gi. But I can't complain it's a great book and it focuses on something a lot of people forget..SHRIMPING.

Pedro Sauer told us at his seminar that (he didn't have a name for it but it is described in The Guard book) the "snake to elbow" move where you post on your elbow and scoot your butt to your armpit saved his life many times and he was mad that it took him 30 years to figure it out.

The move helps a lot, a lot of times I would be getting my guard passed while they have one leg underhookd and I would just sit there trying to fight it when I could have did the snake elbow move.

Excellent book
+ Clear pictures
+ Multiple Angles
+ Little helpful tips
+ Overlooked fundamentals stressed
+ Drills
+ Countering the passes from Passing the Guard (Mad props for sharing all their shit)

- Pages smell like shit
- To many grip focus only moves
 
Everyone at Global JJ, including myself, appreciates Johney B.'s asswhoopings on a weekly basis.
 
kuroMaguro said:
Everyone at Global JJ, including myself, appreciates Johney B.'s asswhoopings on a weekly basis.


I just moved out here, and just started at Global JJ a few weeks ago. This is a great school, the instructors are really cool and the class is great. I went to a couple others in the Orange County area and this school is the best IMO. Meeting Joe Moreira is also a plus :)
 
Jinzumkei said:
I just moved out here, and just started at Global JJ a few weeks ago. This is a great school, the instructors are really cool and the class is great. I went to a couple others in the Orange County area and this school is the best IMO. Meeting Joe Moreira is also a plus :)

Andy?
 
Thanks for the review. I have been looking for some good JJ books and it looks like I have found my next purchase. :D
 
I have both Passing the Guard and just got the Guard.
Both are excellent books, and may arguably be some of the best instructional books for BJJ on the market today, considering the content, organization, and sheer QUANTITY of pictures and techniques compared to other books.

My only gripe with the new book is that the pictures are not as clear nor of quite the same quality as in the first book. It's almost as obvious as the difference between an inkjet color print vs. a laser color print. Some pics are a bit darkened, poor contrast, etc. Not blurry or anything...just not as crisp overall as in the first book.
But the photo angles, captions, and attention to detail in the instruction are SUPERIOR.

Definitely worth the $30 (I got the pre-order sale price!)...
 
tudor_bjj said:
Because I'm learning BJJ on my own (there's no BJJ instructor in Romania) and these guys thought about making a book for people like me... disabled. Not without hands or legs, but without a guy (aka. instructor) who can point out what tou are doing wrong.

tudor_bjj said:
If I only knew in the first tournament I entered how to stop that f****r pushing all his weight on my damaged spine (protrusion L4 - L5 :( ) after I caught him in the armbar.

tudor_bjj said:
ABOUT ME: I started BJJ one year and a half ago. I live in Romania (Eastern Europe). I practiced with some friends learning from DVD instructionals, books, watching footage of pro fighters and going to seminars in Europe. After less then one year I received my blue belt and one month ago I won the bronze medal in "Gracie Barra Hungary JJ Tournament" in the no gi division, + 76 kg category (I'm 82).

NOTE: I don't have any connection with the authors, editors etc. Oh, wait, I don't have connections with anybody in BJJ. HELP, I need an instructor!!!

Good review, but I have some quesitons:

How did you get a blue belt if you don't train with an instructor?
If there are tournaments in your area, how are there no instructors around?
 
I got my blue at one of the seminars. From Royce.
The tournament was in Hungary (neighbour country) "Gracie Barra Hungary JJ Tournament". They put whites, blues and purples together and made only 2 div. under 76 kg and over 76 kg. They have an instructor (brown belt) from Gracie Barra. But Hungary it's like 1000 km away from me.
The first tournament was "Copa de Espana" held in Barcelona by Gracie Barcelona (Robin Gracie head instructor).
 
tudor_bjj said:
I got my blue at one of the seminars. From Royce.
The tournament was in Hungary (neighbour country) "Gracie Barra Hungary JJ Tournament". They put whites, blues and purples together and made only 2 div. under 76 kg and over 76 kg. They have an instructor (brown belt) from Gracie Barra. But Hungary it's like 1000 km away from me.
The first tournament was "Copa de Espana" held in Barcelona by Gracie Barcelona (Robin Gracie head instructor).

Cool. At least you have some training partners. I will probably pick this up.
 
DMcKayBJJ said:
My only gripe with the new book is that the pictures are not as clear nor of quite the same quality as in the first book. It's almost as obvious as the difference between an inkjet color print vs. a laser color print. Some pics are a bit darkened, poor contrast, etc. Not blurry or anything...just not as crisp overall as in the first book.

Exactly. The book is awesome, and I like it alot, definitely worth the price. However I see a lower quality paper, with less crisp, contrasted pictures compared to the first one (Passing The Guard).

Is this common to all printings? Do latest printings use higher quality paper?

I may very well buy a new one and give mine to my training partner :)

(mine reports "First Edition, 2005")
 
Back
Top