I did an earlier review
of Erik's DVD, his game development
series. If you read that then you will have realised that I have a very high
regard for Erik and his teaching ability. I bought this tape on the strength of
knowing that I would probably get my moneys worth with anything that Erik is flogging
and this, I'm happy to say, was no exception. The tape is 90 minutes long and
dedicated solely to the mount position, its control, set ups, counters and escapes.
It is aimed at Erik's chosen submission wrestling style of grappling and therefore
has no suitable techniques using a gi.
Lets
start with the bad bits first. The quality is it has to be said is pretty poor.
It is filmed inside a gym using a hand held camcorder and basically the guy walks
around taping the action. Unlike the Roy Harris series, little time is spent in
post production and this gives the whole tape the feeling that you've just watched
a home video rather than an expensive ($50.00) instructional. A couple of the
techniques you miss because your at the wrong angle to see but Erik does try to
explain as best he can. Some of Erik's students demonstrated some sparring drills,
unfortunately I thought this was a bit of a time filler, if they had to be shown
at all I would have preferred Erik to have shown the drills as the students were
not particularly skilful.
But
what about the good bits. Ok, I have to admit that although I was initially studying
the tape for new information and techniques, I couldn't help being drawn to one
of Erik's assistants Lisa. Lisa wears incredibly tight fitting lycra shorts and
very nice she looks too. At first, so long as Lisa was in the shot I couldn't
really have given a monkeys what Erik said. However, this distraction aside I
did manage to view the rest of the tape.
Erik's
teaching is very cool, although I'm sure he has a script to work to he seems to
just cruise along talking and teaching, he does however have a knack of giving
some excellent techniques and tips, some of which I had not seen and were the
answer to many of my common problems. On top of this Erik has a great sense of
humour and although it may seem amateurish to crack a joke and have the cameraman
laughing in the background, it does give you the feeling your there being part
of the gang.
Erik
breaks down holding the mount position, knee on stomach drills, counters and escapes.
He also does some Vale Tudo variations that are pretty good too. There are a few
demonstrations of how to strike and a couple of submissions but this isn't really
what the tape is about.
I
like this way of isolating a certain position covering it in detail, although
there was plenty more he could have added it still gave me plenty to be getting
on with. I wont give the tape a particularly high mark as compared to the Erik's
DVD it lacks the professional production, if I said 5/10 for quality that would
equate to the DVD and 8/10 for the content that I think would be fair.
I
have trained with Oleg Taktarov and Erik in the past and thought they were both
very good not just for what they were teaching but how. They are some of the few
people who can really make you crack up whilst teaching a technique and this method
I prefer, so even as a teaching tool I think the tape is excellent.
