Over the past week, we’ve been reviewing How to Defeat the Bigger, Stronger Opponent, the latest BJJ instructional release by Stephan Kesting and Emily Kwok. If you missed them, here are reviews 1-3:
Today we’ll look at the first bonus DVD, which is a Q&A with Emily. It is edited together from footage taken of a semi-private class that Emily gave to brown belt Ritchie Yip, the head instructor at InFighting in Vancouver, along with Stephan and several other students. Ritchie asks most of the questions, but there is an open Q&A at the end.
I really enjoyed watching Emily run a class, and it’s evident how talented and passionate she is as a teacher. The warm-ups looked fun, and I will definitely be borrowing her drills. She has good command over the room, and is very hands-on while taking questions and answering them. Watching it, I’d have liked to been in this class too.
Because she is answering questions, Emily covers a wide range of techniques, including ways to salvage failing butterfly guard sweeps, how to pass x-guard, what Marcelo taught her about back control, finer points on the guillotine, and even how she does the Ezekiel choke. A few techniques from earlier in the set make a reappearance, but that just proves Emily shows what she gives her real students.
As you can tell, the material covered is all over the place, but everything is well taught. Emily always ties back into her core philosophies about efficiency of movement, staying on the offensive, and not letting your opponent decide the terms of the fight, which saves the lesson from feeling scatterbrained. Even if individual techniques don’t interest you, her advice in between should.
If this lesson were 30-45 minutes longer, I could see other publishers releasing it as a standalone DVD, as is often done for seminars. As it is, this DVD makes a great bonus to an already good set, and gives me even more reason to recommend it.
My final verdict on How to Defeat the Bigger, Stronger Opponent is that it is a well-crafted instructional set that showcases Emily’s skills as a teacher and Stephan’s as the creator of the best grappling videos on the market. Beginners around white or blue belt will benefit from these DVDs the most, but higher belts can still pick up techniques and learn Emily’s philosophies on studying, training and competing in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
(Note: I doubt I’ll be reviewing the last bonus DVD, “An Introduction to Total Body Stability by Roy Duquette,” or at least not any time soon. Fitness programs fall outside my area of expertise, so I’m not comfortable reviewing this one without putting it into practice first. I suspect the material is fine, and from what I have watched, Roy is a good trainer, but I’d like to try the program before I review it.)