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The
Secrets of Collar Chokes
by
Joe Moreira
From
RoyHarris.com
Price:
US$39.95
I
came across Professor Joe Moreira early on in my grappling
career selling his panther productions BJJ tapes. Like
many other people I bought these on due to the fact that
there was little else on the market. I have bought many
Panther tapes in the past and would not recommend them
now because most are pretty poor, I actually thought the
Joe Moreira ones though weren't too bad. Since then and
even at the time I had read many mixed reviews about Joe,
his students and anyone connected with him. The main criticisms
are that he has churned out more black belt instructors
than most and that their quality is shall we say, questionable?
To some a Moreira black belt and a Gracie black belt is
like comparing a top of the range Ford and a top of the
range Skoda. Both work and have lots of extras but differ
in terms of quality. Also his early appearance in the
UFC didn't exactly set the world alight. I recently saw
him at a UFC looking a little overweight in someone's
corner, they did win though. So with all this going against
poor 'ole Joe, one would think that anything he has on
offer wouldn't really be worth a look in, not so though.
The
secrets of collar chokes was a Roy
Harris production, (Roy is 2nd degree black belt under
Joe) basically a seminar by Proff Joe. The downsides are
as you would expect at a videod seminar, you tend to miss
things because of the camera angles as Joe is teaching
a class and not the camera, the other thing is Joe himself.
Joe speaks English but not good English, in fact at times
you haven't a clue what language he is speaking. It is
funny to hear him explain something to the class at length,
completely inaudible but end the sentence with 'You understand?'
Of course no one does but they all nod and say yes anyway.
Fortunately Roy comes to the rescue by providing the main
points on screen. These are very handy as I gave up trying
to decrypt what was been said after about 10 minutes.
The
good points are though some very handy hints on how to
apply chokes correctly, some good counters and generally
some nice techniques. There is much in the way of solving
common problems and I have already managed to get them
to work in sparring. I have been stuck with some of these
problems for years and here they are answered on one tape.
To some they may be obvious answers but I have not come
across much of this material elsewhere. At the end Joe
rolls with Roy. Obviously this is not full on but Joe
does some neat little moves and Roy does some nice counters,
stuff you have to look hard for as they don't teach it
on the tape. Whatever people think about Joe, I think
he knows his stuff, is willing to share it and it shows
in this seminar.
So
in a nutshell, poor production quality and hard to understand
Joe's thick Brazilian drawl, but some excellent techniques
and tips. I would certainly recommend this tape to beginners
to grasp the basic mechanics and even advanced students
as there is plenty there.
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