A tale of two seminars: Jacare and Fabio Gurgel…
With the incredible success of current Alliance fighters like Marcelo Garcia, Tarsis Humphreys, and Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles, there has been an increased focus on the teaching skills of their instructors, Jacare Cavalcante and Fabio Gurgel. With only a few other instructionals from these great instructors, the time was right for some new material in the form of their recently released seminar DVDs.
Having more instructional material to compare to, we will begin by looking at Fabio Gurgel’s BJJ Summer Seminar in Atlanta. First and foremost, this DVD has zero overlap with Fabio’s previous DVD instructional, Fabio Gurgel’s Greatest Techniques (which I also recommend) and his Basic Jiu-Jitsu book. Whereas Greatest Techniques and Jiu-Jitsu Basics focus on a broad spectrum of favorite techniques or core moves, this seminar is incredibly focused on a very special area… attacking off the guard pass. Though there are a few caveat passes at the end that are more than worth it, the attacks from the guard that make up the bulk of the instruction are worth the price of admission alone.
The moves themselves are what only can be described as current. He has triangles where your use the heel off of the back of their collar to make space, armdrags to leg picks off of the pass, and it looks like Fabio can hit submissions off of almost any pass. This is content that is somewhat rare in the instructional market and it is good to see a focus on submissions from the pass prevention.
With that said, there are two glaring problems that severely impede the viewability of the seminar. The first problem is that Fabio’s audio track is set way too low throughout the seminar so expect to turn the volume way up. Fabio’s English has improved markedly over his Greatest Techniques interviews, so his instruction is more than sufficient. The second problem (combines with the first one to make a nightmare for the ears) is that there is no way to advance chapters or “Play All” on your DVD player. Basically, you have to select your move at the menu screen (all moves are well described so that is good) then turn your volume way up to listen to Fabio, after the technique is over it ejects you back to the menu screen where the menu start up music is blaring!! This means that when you watch it, you have to have your volume control in hand and have a quick twitch to ensure that you pick a new move before you lose some hearing. Unfortunately, this annoyance does get in the way of an otherwise good DVD. I would prefer to just hit play and chapter forward and back.
The Alliance 2004 Jacare Seminar in NY DVD was another one that I was looking forward to. Filmed entirely in NYC, I was excited to see some details from the head of one of the most successful schools in competition. As a comparison point, there is relatively little in the form of media instructionals by Jacare with the exception of his parts in Comprido Medeiros’ set, added details in the Leo Vieira Georgia seminars, and his recent BJJ Fighting Strategies book; none of which really compare to this seminar. In actuality, this only piqued my interest for the seminar and what he may show.
Personally, this was a really hard DVD to review. On the one hand, I thought the moves were good, high percentage stuff that you would expect to learn from a black belt of Jacare’s stature. On the other, the production is not very good- at all. The entire seminar was edited onto one entire timeline without breaks. Basically, you put the DVD in and press play and it goes from one end to the other. In itself, this is not the end of the world, but in the age of DVDs and easy editing software, this does become less than acceptable. The other problem is that the entire film was filmed using what must be a tripod-less handy cam. What does this mean to the viewer? Expect grainy footage and shaky movement from time to time. Unfortunately, with this less than stellar production, the opportunity was missed to capture what is otherwise a good seminar.
Getting off of the negativity bus, I should emphasize that Jacare does teach some very good pointers, especially on the pass. The gripping strategies and movements are basic, but don’t mistake that for low percentage or inadequately taught. One moment that I particularly enjoyed was seeing how Jacare starts a knee slide Margarida style pass and when the opponent slides his outside knee across the abdomen to defend, Jacare just loops the leg, pressures and passes off of their next reaction. This is good stuff - nothing fancy; most moves are well known by most intermediate players, and they are put together to create a logical game or drill. The xguard moves have been done before, but it still of value to get Jacare’s perspective and detail. In the end, it is these little details that make or break any DVD for me.
Would I recommend these DVDs? Yes and no. Content wise they are both good. Fabio teaches an area of the game that is really important and often missed in other instructionals. However, the structure of the DVD does make it somewhat annoying. The Jacare set has high level basics strung together to showcase good movement and fundamental BJJ, but the picture quality and lack of chapters also make it hard to watch. For me, yes I would buy them because I enjoyed the content (especially that of Fabio’s), but I do think the production and in particular DVD authoring and filming is subpar.
One thing is obvious after some later introspection on these DVDs. Both Jacare and Fabio are two of the best in the world at teaching and competing in jiu-jitsu. Hopefully as they tune things up on the production side, they will be able to create a DVD that is better suited to showcase their amazing skills.
Happy Training,
Kevin
Tags: Jiu-Jitsu DVD Instructionals
