Company: Boxergenics
Tape Name: Mastering Grappling and Groundfighting, Volume 2, Grappling Fundamentals
Tape Cost: $49.99
Length of Tape: 36 min.
Number of Moves/Techniques: 21 plus some variations
Return Policy: Video tapes are non returnable. Defective tapes will be replaced with same title only.
Experiences in dealing with this company: Excellent
The Instructor: Scott Shields
Company’s Address: 335 Billingsley Road, Charlotte, NC 28211
Company’s Phone Number: 1-800-774-6284
Web Page: http://boxergenics.com
E-mail: boxer@concordnc.com


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: 9
5. Score on delivery vs. Hype: 9
6. Degree to which we would recommend this product: 9
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: 94% (Good = 3.5 stars)


Secondary Grading Criteria:

1. Beginners benefit: Excellent
2. Intermediate benefit: Fair
3. Advanced benefit: Poor
4. Time to benefit: Immediate
The need to buy additional tapes to understand this one: None


Written Summary:

This video is Volume 2 of a 6 video series entitled Mastering Grappling & Groundfighting by Instructor Scott Shields. This volume deals with Grappling Fundamentals. This tape is clearly meant for beginners. If you are an intermediate to advance student you will want to pass on this tape. If you are a beginning student this video does contain a lot of very good basic information for someone interested in grappling. This series draws from a combination of Jiu Jitsu, Sambo, Shootwrestling and Dumog.

The first 16 minutes of this video is dedicated to stabilizing the various positions. The positions covered are the mount, cross body, scarfhold and the guard. A lot of tapes fail to cover this area of ground fighting and just show various submission holds without first covering the basics. Mr. Shields gives a good explanation of how to control someone from each of these positions. He also shows how to properly protect yourself from punches when you have someone in the guard position. I would of liked to of seen Mr. Shields better explain the importance of switching from position to position while your opponent is trying to escape. He does briefly cover this but I felt a better explanation of this would of been helpful. Maybe this aspect is covered on one of the other tapes in his series? At the end of the video though there is a excellent segment where Scott demonstrates how to control and switch from position to position.

The next portion of the tape is dedicated to solo and partner drills. These are all excellent drills and will improve a persons grappling ability. Here is what you will see. Hip scape, dragging hip exercise, 4 corner drill, shoulder bridging, leg extension drill, reverse squats and a spin drill. Mr Shields also explains the practical use of each of these drills.

On a final note I would say that this video is quite expensive as it is only 36 minutes long and I feel that $49.95 is asking a lot. The entire 6 tape series sells for $250.00. I could think of a few other tape series I would like to own for that type of money ie Mario Sperry series 1 or 2 (BTW I also think that Sperry’s are overpriced). If the price was lower on this series it would be graded higher. There actually is a lot of very good (technically sound) information on this tape. Also I would of liked to of been able to review the rest of the video’s in the series. This video is obviously just one piece of the puzzle and we at MAVR and our readers would be able to get a better idea of how good this tape set is if we were able to review the entire series.

M.O.


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