Company: Straight Blast Gym Productions
Tape Name: Attacking the Back/Tape 4 & Escaping the Mount/Tape 5
Tape Cost: $44.95 or $299.00 for the 12 tape series.
Length of Tape: Tape 4: 50 minutes & Tape 5: 51 minutes
Number of Moves/Techniques: Tape 4: 17 techniques & Tape 5: 9 techniques
Return Policy: Unknown
Experiences in dealing with this company: Excellent
The Instructor: Bob Bass/Rick Williams
Address: 1812 Ne 43rd Ave Portland Oregon 97213
Company's Phone Number: 503-230-79248
Web Page: http://www.straightblastgym.com/
E-Mail: info@straightblastgym.com

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Primary Grading Criteria:

1. Production/Tape Quality: 10
2. Instructors demonstrated skill level: 10
3. Comprehension Score/Immediate Understanding: 10
4. Degree to which this will make someone a better Martial Artist: 10
5. Score on delivery vs. Hype: 10
6. Degree to which we would recommend this product: 10
7. Wasted time (The higher the number, the less "fluff"/repetition: 9
8. Playback Score/Watching it over and over again: 9
9. Would I purchase more of this company's product: 10
10. Overall grade based on cost vs. Value: 10

Grand Total: 98% (Excellent = 4.5 stars)

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Secondary Grading Criteria Series:

1. Beginners benefit: Excellent
2. Intermediate benefit: Excellent
3. Advanced benefit: Very Good
4. Time to benefit: Some Immediate, greatest benefit with practice
5. The need to buy additional tapes to understand this one: None, although the entire series would benefit one the most.

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Written Summary:


For an overview of the entire 12 tape series please see Passing the Guard Tape #1 (Review #279). Tape 4 deals with attacking the back mount and tape 5 naturally follows with escaping the back mount. This is a very comprehensive look at these two areas of grappling. Here are my finding for tape 4. This video covers attacking the back mount and attacking the back. It has fewer techniques than the previous three video’s that we have reviewed from this set but also included two sections of Bass and Williams doing some light sparring. Approximately 5 minutes of running time was dedicated to the sparring session. With the long introduction and conclusion on all the tapes (11 minutes total) this brings the actual running time of the technique/concepts portion to 34 minutes.(less the short interview time). The fight footage I thought was good and the background music was pretty cool but I think it would of been an improvement if either Mr. Bass or Mr. Williams was commentating on what was happening and explain their strategy. A very minor suggestion that I would of liked to have seen on the tape. Overall tape 4 was excellent with superb detail given to the techniques shown.

The video starts off with an explanation on how "put the hooks in" and shows how to perform a neck crank from this position. Be careful while performing this neck crank (as with any neck crank) as you could seriously hurt someone with this technique. Rick next details how to properly perform a carotid choke while in the back mount position. Most people push down on the back of their opponents head with one hand while applying this choke but Rick explains that to perform this technique with the best desired effect one should push their shoulders back and put their chest out. This is another example of what makes this entire set so good. It is the small details that are shown that really make the techniques work. Other things shown are as follows:

- how to turn someone over using the gi (nice move)

- what to do if a person is up high on his knees right into an arm bar (I can’t wait to try this one in class)

- various gi chokes

- what to do if your opponent attempts to roll. The importance of not leaving any space between you and your opponent and not to let your opponent get this shoulders to the ground thus helping him to escape.

- when you are seated behind your opponent with his back towards your into an arm bar (cool move).

- same as above except into a shoulder lock.

- a choke from this position making use of your knee to really sink the choke in tight.

- a setup from the arm bar to a choke.

A lot of the above moves have not been seen on video before.

Now onto tape 5 Escaping the Back Mount. I liked this video a lot, it presented a number of escapes that to my knowledge have never been seen on video before. Although the number of techniques on this video were not many the concepts and break down for escaping from this position were well presented. I would sooner see a fewer number of techniques on a video with all the small important details included than to have a larger number of techniques which show the submission but not really explain all the details involved. Here is what is on this video.

- A thorough explanation of what to do when a person has your back. Explained are the importance of trapping at least one of your opponents arm when falling to the side to effect an escape and avoid the choke. To date this is the best escape that I have seen from this position.

- Just about everyone has seen the counter to the rear choke when your opponent crosses his ankles (only a beginner would do this). As usual and to their credit, Bass & Williams take this one step further by showing how to obtain an ankle lock even when your opponent is not crossing his ankles. They also demonstrate that you can cross your opponents ankle yourself.

- How to prevent your opponent from getting mount while your attempting an escape.

- How to get side control from the escape.

- How to obtain a knee bar on your opponent. This move is pretty slick.

- How to escape by sliding your butt away and turning toward the person.

- How to protect your neck from the choke.

- How to open your opponents legs and roll back over them. Nice move.

There is also some class sparring footage and some footage of Bass and Williams sparring eachother. The total running time for this footage is about 9 minutes. Again I felt it was good to watch the sparring footage and see some of the techniques applied however it would of been nice to have some type of commentary after the fact explaining what the various strategy was used. Also I noticed that some of the short interviews that were shown had been seen before on previous tapes. I really did not see the need to show a particular interview more than once. These were minor negative points at best. Another excellent video!