Not Danaher for me but he has some big positives.
Jury is still out but I’ll give you my latest (sorry long post incoming).
I went through Danaher’s latest 4 DVD 7 volume Gi set on pin escapes. Super theoretical in creating concepts that back up the techniques. And some of the techniques are really really really excellent.
1.5 of the DVDs are so repetitive that I won’t watch them again. The rest is so poorly organized (more drawn out and not labeled well than bad organization) that I will have to really focus my notes and identify just the parts of video that give the most summary run through of stuff.
So my big complaint about Danaher is he has the massive brain that gets into the theory of mankind on BJJ but it’s not applied to the process of learning BJJ in an efficient manner.
My opinion is that this type of theory is good for understanding concepts so you retain a bit better but it’s not going to make you invent moves on the fly while grappling, that comes from instincts born of years of grappling, combined with targeted and progressive positional grappling / trigger training, not theory. So the danahaers and rob bernaki’s miss the mark here for me.
I have been thinking of getting Stephan Whittier stuff for a while because unlike Danahaer, his theory is focused on how to learn/ progress the game faster. I only hesitated because he is the 40 plus BJJ guy and well, who the fuck is this unknown dude teaching old guys how to last longer in BJJ life, I mean snore.
However I had seen some short you tube clips that I was able to implement against better opponents right away. So I got a very short DVD of his (BJJ accelerator course) and I think it’s brilliant. As an aside he is the east coast director of SBG, and his style reflects that’s. He breaks every position down to fighting to have the right posture in that position so that your opportunities for technique execution are maximized and your opponents are diminished. He then stresses that the 80/20 rule applies here, in that 80% of your time should be spend learning how to fight for this posture. Once position and posture are won, the remaining 20% can be spent learning the moves employed from these postures (the possibilities part) that fit your style. He of course also stresses Rickson style connection throughout.
He tops it off with a progressive style of positional sparring (opponent starts at 10% effort and slowly escalate t to max) to a) test position posture and then b) test transitions / subs / escapes / sub defense / etc from that position.
He starts off with SM bottom. I spent 10 minute watching it and it transformed my defense over night. Guys my level are not staying out of my guard retention from SM bottom or they are getting single legged, and much better guys are focusing 100% to flatten me out or advance to another position (and it takes them time to do it if at all):
Not all of his stuff are we game changing but they are still pretty good. He is my new guy for now and the 40 plus label he uses is silly. Anyone could benefit from this stuff.
In summary. Theory of BJJ = meh to ok for me. The theory off learning BJJ = great. DVDs that focus on learning how to control / protect the base of a position and how to ensure you can use it as a platform to launch whatever techniques you prefer for your style are the best. In retrospect my favorite dvds do this to some degree (Brandon mulling / Stephan Kesting bigger stronger opponent guard dvd specifically does this. So does Stephan kesting’s SLX set).
Ok sorry end rant.
