Company: Straight Blast Gym Productions
Tape Name: Tape 8 Escape from the Bottom (mount)
Tape Cost: $44.95 or $299.00 for the 12 tape series.
Length of Tape: 40 minutes
Number of Moves/Techniques: 13 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: 9

Grand Total: 97% (Excellent = 4.25 stars)

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Secondary Grading Criteria Series:

1. Beginners benefit: Excellent
2. Intermediate benefit: Excellent
3. Advanced benefit: 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). Tapes 9 deals with escaping from the Mount position and is up to par with the other video’s in this series. There are a number of techniques on this video that have not been seen on tape before. This video does an excellent job of covering escapes from the mount position. It begins with a look at preventing your opponent, who is in the crossbody position, from gaining the mount. Most tapes just show the importance of keeping your leg up on your knee to prevent your opponent from getting the mount. This video goes several steps further than most and shows you how to bridge or roll your opponent while he is trying to get mount. They also show the setup to the roll. This is excellent footage. Of course timing and knowing what to do when is a very important aspect here, can you say MAT TIME. Now for some food for thought. I think that this video could of been combined with the previous tape on Escaping from the Bottom (side control). Less wasted time with the introduction and some of the interviews (as I have previously stated, the interviews are a nice touch, just not the same interviews). I would personally rather see longer tapes with less wasted time such as on Straight Blast Gym’s Functional Jeet Kune Do series by none other than Matt Thorton. There also seems to be a growing trend lately in the video tape market to offer a large number of video tapes for a very reasonable price. One such example is the Ultimate Street Fighter series by Ricardo Dela Riva and Marcello Grosso. This set has 10 videos for $99.00! Other examples are World Martial Arts (typically the most expensive video’s) newest series by Catch Wrestler Tony Cecchine. He also has a 10 tape video series out for $199.00. Marco Lala, who is another favorite here at MAVR, even went so far as to offer his video’s tapes on the Underground Forum (www.submissionfighting.com)for $14.95 each plus $5.00 shipping for up to 9 tapes. The trend as of late seems to be to make more for less. The consumer does benefit. Because of this recent trend, which seems to becoming the norm, I have dropped the overall Grade vs. Cost from a 10 to a 9. This still gives this tape a very respectable rating of 97 percent which is an excellent score. Bottom line: if money is not a consideration then this video series is still the best to date that I have seen for Sport BJJ.

Here is some of what you will find on this video:

- how to prevent your opponent from obtaining the mount from the cross body position.

- how to set your opponent up by letting him attempt to mount from the crossbody but countering with a bridge. (Nice move).

- how to counter when someone has the hooks in.

- what to do if someone is mounted and has the hooks in.

- Excellent explanation of the umpa. What to do if your opponent is riding low on you or is higher up on you.

- Covers elbow knee escape.

- mount escape into a heel hook

There are also 2 sparring sessions on this video.

Two thumbs thumbs up for this video.

M.O.