Reviews: Roy Harris

Minnesota and Vermont BJJ Seminars DVD by Roy Harris

This DVD is condensed to 2 hours from over 6 hours of BJJ seminars Roy conducted in Minnesota and Vermont during 2005.

What is covered are the basics for which Roy Harris is known including but not limited to side mount escapes, posture, and positions, collar chokes and much more. There are question and answer sessions that most white to blue belts would find very informative such as take downs from the knees as well as when to open your guard and why. Did I mention escapes?

Want it? Get it at Budo Videos

Takedowns from the Knees DVD by Roy Harris

When I started my takedowns from the knees consisted of the head tuck and pushing over the opponent and as you can guess this got very predictable. I found this little gem and it was expanded my toolbox of takedowns greatly.

Roy covers 2 on 1, elbow and collar, butterfly type takedowns to name a few in gi and no gi variations. This DVD has a nice menu so you can skip to where you want and there are easily over 20 techniques. At the end there are some sparring so you can see him in action.

My only minor gripe is that the music was a bit 70’s porn style, but the quality of instruction is typical Roy Harris, top notch.

This is a quality instructional that is long on knowledge and short on filler.

Want it? Get it at Budo Videos

Soon I will be posting a review of Roy Harris' Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Over 40.

Takedowns from the Knees

One of the things that comes up often in grappling message boards is the topic of takedowns from the knees. A lot of times training partners spend must of the time grunting, pulling and pushing or one just jumps to guard.

Starting from the knees is an opportune time to work on basic sweeps, throws, and exploring kuzushi.

A few weeks ago in class we worked on Tai otoshi, Push-pull, Scissor and Butterfly sweeps from the knees.

Tai otoshi from the knees

1. Get a sleeve grip and lapel grip.
2. Bring your knee up (lapel side) between theirs.
3. Kick your back leg strongly to the rear.
4. Step to the outside of their knee (from the middle knee up) and rotate keeping your arms in front of you.
5. Establish side control.

Push-pull

1. Get a sleeve and high lapel grip.
2. Strongly pull the sleeve while pushing the lapel side.
3. Establish side control.

In the video below (at 1:44) this techniqueis shown except it is demonstrated with a large step to the rear and fall into Kesa gatame. For me as funny as it may sound it require too much flexibility and just doing the above three steps worked well too.

Stephen Kesting does a beautiful job explaining the Scissor sweep (at 0:35) and Butterfly sweep (at 1:35) from the knees in the video below.

Obi Tori Gaeshi

This one I picked up from the book, Attacking Judo. The video below clearly shows in detail the mechanics.

You can modify it as a sweep by doing the following:

1. When in guard and your opponent is posturing up sit up and get an underhook.
2. Pull and then push and get a foot in.
3. Push hard again and the opponent will resist by straightening up or pushing back.
4. Fall backwards and kick to the rear and if done correctly they will fly.

I did this the other day in class and I bounced my training partner against the wall and landed on him in side control. The first time you pull this one off correctly it can be bewildering because it is very easy to throw someone with almost no effort.