Ryan Hall's NEW DVD'S *Yep,

What is a Leo Viera-style pass?

Also, thanks for the review Drew!
 
Might have to pick up the Inverted guard one, I'm sure Uchi Mata would have an interest in that too!
 
So many people are messaging me or asking me questions about these DVDs in person haha. I literally have never seen anything on any of Ryan's DVDs.
 
I began watcing the inverted guard set last night and its incredible and for me looking to be the best set I've seen regarding the open guard overall. While the overarching thread is cross guard and inverted guard, he spends a large amount of time discussing the open guard, including concepts, structure, stability, points of control. He doesnt show specific moves, like a sweep from de la riva, but rather really impresses understanding how to move, keep yourself safe, off balance the opponent, etc.

Inverted guard is something I enjoy playing but I would have bought this just for my general guard game. The passing the guard set is fucking phenomenal but, due to me enjoying playing guard more, I think this will end up being more beneficial. I really like how he doesnt sugarcoat things when theyre a must for jiu jitsu. For example, when he discusses the granby roll (which oddly a lot of people dont), he flat out says you need to be good at it for a good guard.

Definitely worth purchasing.
 
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Just an FYI if you placed an order this week with World Martial Arts and didn't receive any email confirmations. I talked to a very nice lady over there that informed me that they got slammed and their system had some glitches. Turns out even though I wasn't notified my shipped days ago.

Just for those of you as impatient as me!
 
Drew Foster said:
I'm about 2/3rds of the way through the 2nd disc, and he's just getting into the Leo Vieira style kneeling pass sequences. This set what you would expect it to be. Very good.

The first disc is like all of Ryan Hall's first discs, they're conceptual. Everything here is focused on stability, posture, alignment, pressure, etc. A lot of time and attention is put on understanding that you can go over, under, around, or through the guard...and then covering the fundamental guard passing positions (both knees, both feet, or 1 and 1). It seems fundamental, but Hall explains that very often people will be in the wrong position for the pass they are trying to do.

It's very cool to see Hall covering some of the more "in vogue" style guards and guard passing, and he has some cool perspectives on the knee-up led drag (Mendes) vs knee-down leg drag (Galvao/Cobrinha) methods. There's a good bit about the importance of passing towards the back, away from their defenses, and if you have the back attacks or arm triangles sets, you'll have an easy time spotting lots of openings for your harness, chair sits, side chokes, brabos/darces, ezekiels, armlocks, etc. From the chapter list it looks like the 3rd disc will actually cover some passing sequences to the back or various arm triangle attacks.

There's no point in talking about too many specific passing sequences. They're awesome though. There's a Reverse De La Riva pass to counter the dragon kiss style inversion that I have not seen used or taught anywhere, and it's pretty bad ass.

Not sure what else to say. If you've had any of his sets then you know what you're getting. Last year he just put out the arm triangles set, and usually he puts out 2 sets at a time. Last year I had heard it was arm triangles and guard passing. I was disappointed the guard passing didn't happen, but it's out now, and was a cool surprise.

One neat thing is that it's clear Hall's MMA training is in play, because he's always stressing the importance that the pass or passing concept work in Gi, Nogi, or in MMA. He always points out when certain things are going to need to change based on what you're doing, or whether this movement or that grip may need to change if the gi is on or off, or if punches are flying.

Ryan Hall can talk a lot (like this post which I promise to end) but everything is for a purpose, and this is still a very concise set. Everything is clear and direct. Production quality is high, angles are good. Yeah...check it out for the holidays. It's awesome and whether you have a lot of experience or are a new student, there is definitely stuff here that will help you.

Like someone else said, with the discount I would buy it for the first disc alone. These are probably the only actual DVDs that I would buy as of 2013. There aren't many DVDs left, and this is a good one.

5/5.
Click to expand...


finally got a chance to watch more or less the whole thing.


+ production quality is great (as with all WMA stuff)
+ Conceptual way of presenting material teaches you to think on your own.
+ Brings home the concept of moving between passes and switching sides to finish pass
+ Nogi/gi all in one
+ Ryan's explanations are top notch
+ moves are mostly all standard stuff used in today's modern guard passing sequences
- Ryan is a little wordy on disc 1 and could be more brief
- Not meant for torreada or "speed" legdrag passers.
- not meant for halfguard passers.

First, I can second Drew Foster's review.

I love this set.

DVD 1 is Ryan talking concepts - stability vs pressure and so on. Ryan appears not to like to teach the torreada style of passing or leg drag speed passing so if that's your style, this is not for you. He then goes into different passes, treating them as positions (not finishing them just yet) in terms of his concepts that he presented earlier - the cross knee, same side knee, over/under, leg drag, stack, and longstep. He points out (within his system of concepts) how similar the over/under and same side knee passes are. Ryan favors the "Galvao" style of leg drag finish, but shows and explains the "Mendes" style also. He ends the DVD with pure gold - switching sides when your opponent counters. How many DVDs do you see assuming the opponent is stupid and is just going to sit there as you pass? Ryan shows general things to do when the opponent hips out, the opponent jams your head in the ground, or swings the leg over. These are all high percentage things that I've drilled and are well-known to work at high levels of competition.


Disc 2 is Ryan talking grip breaks, and that includes leg hooks. Great section - he also notes the difference between good grips that you need to break and grips that don't mean anything that you can ignore. Then he goes and talks about finishing his passes he showed earlier. Some of the technique nitty-grittys different from what iI've learned (he puts his head on top of the opponent's chest in the cross knee for example; the over/unders pressure is on the knee instead of the chest); I'll leave it to better BJJ'ers to comment on different technique details. He ends this DVD with the "Leo Vieira" style passing, which is basically Galvao's torreada but on the knees. What I love again about this is that Ryan doesn't assume that the opponent is stupid and is just going to give you the pass. He's assuming the opponent will counter, and if the counter gives you an opening or forces you to switch, you should switch passing positions. He also uses the stuff he shows on DVD1 so it's all connected together.

Disc3 is different ways to finish (leg drag to back, to side, to mount, you get the idea).

There are too many moves and transitions for me to have drilled already.
But I tried a few out and they seem solid and ones and were ones I did not think of before.

One great aspect of Ryan's approach is that even though I learned those passes somewhat differently,
i can still use his transitions, I can still use his method of changing between passes, and I can still use his way of thinking about
stability and pressure within the position. It's not "I don't pass the cross knee that way, this whole section is useless".


As has been said, Seph is kind of creepy.


Explanation ability is the highest level - same class as Rafa, Braulio, and Saulo.


I will disagree with Drew Foster on the KOTD counter - I think Seph does the KOTD wrong on purpose to make Ryan's counter easier. I think it's a lot harder when the opponent keeps the leg tight (as Rafa recommends). Also, Ryan's lasso counter is correct (Braulio teaches the same one) but is hard to pull off as Rafa and Gui say in their videos.

But those are nits. This is a great DVD set. If you watched the entirety of mendesbros online, mginaction, and bjjlibrary, you could probably get the same info, but it would take you 10x as long. And even then I think you'd get something out of this DVD set.


If you have his arm triangle DVD (I don't) I think you'd get even more out it than I did.

This is the modern guard passing DVD set we've been waiting for.
 
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Yeah, your job is to sit there and not draw attention to yourself while the guy is explaining the technique. You'd be surprised how difficult it is to sit still for a prolonged period of time while doing nothing and not look strange in some way.
 
GordoBarraBJJ said:
how so?

everyone who is the grappling dummy comes off kinda weird in videos.
Click to expand...

If the previews were any indication, he just looks like he's put on 5 years since the arm triangles set. Sullen eyes, blankish stare, dark circles.

But the dude's probably just hungover.
 
I also have the DVD it's some good stuff. For the people who have and seen the "flop" series.....what are your thoughts on this style of passing? Does anyone use it and with success? Really Im looking for some footage of high level guys using this.....for anyone who doesn't know what Im talking about its like a backstep pass variation but he shows a few techniques from there.
 
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