Dynamic
Guard & Omo Plata Series Available
from grapplearts.com By
Jon Hegan, Krav
Maga UK ,
16 March 2004 At
the moment, Erik Paulson rules the instructional DVD market in my opinion. He
has a high production quality feel to his DVDÕs now and a humorous way of teaching,
especially when heÔs slapping around his training partners. On top of this he
always shows an abundance of teaching and training drills in addition to a technique
packed instructional. So with this in mind you've got to work hard to match Erik
for any of his DVDÕs. Although Stephen Kesting isnÕt there yet, heÕs close behind.
I
first read about Stephan and his Grapplearts organisation in Grappling magazine.
Stephan is JKD instructor under Dan Inasanto, a CSW coach under Erik Paulson and
a BJJ brown belt under Marcus Soares. As you can imagine these are very good credentials
to have. However, I wasnÕt a 100% convinced and thought he was just another instructor
under some big names peddling some run of the mill DVDÕs, so I didnÕt bother checking
them out. A couple of months later though, surfing the net one evening, I came
across some very good write ups for his Omo Plata series which seemed to be pretty
honest so I took the plunge and ordered a set. Grappling
is fashionable in martial arts now anyway and so are many particular individual
techniques within it. It used to be the triangle, then straight arm bars then
foot and leg locks. After Nino ÔElvisÕ SchembriÕs tendon ripping application at
the 2001 Abu Dhabi and Matt Õthe terrorÕ Serras many new ways of attacking with
this method in the UFC, Omo Plata is currently in vogue. Inspired by these people
Stephan has managed to produce this excellent double DVD set.
First off, IÕll start with the negatives: I always feel uncomfortable about grappling
instructors not wearing a gi whilst their partner does, I start wondering is it
a gi, a no gi or a street instructional and therefore this leads to a little bit
of confusion around what exactly is being taught. Thankfully the DVD is aimed
at the sport gi market. Stephen
doesn't quite have the same flow to his teaching as Erik as IÕd hoped, or the
same production quality feel but these are minor critisms considering the high
quality of techniques presented. This specialised instructional Omo Plata DVD
gives you an isolated look at a technique that until now I thought you would be
hard pressed to fill on a single DVD let alone a double DVD set. My own personal
experience of trying this technique has always being more miss than hit and frustratingly
on less experienced partners, so I had generally ignored it in favour of something
else. This was really down to my lack of knowledge on Omo Plata, but now I have
an extensive catalogue of set ups, entries and counters, in fact there are over
30 techniques in the first volume alone! The
first couple of techniques are the real basic set ups and within these are the
subtle little moves that really make the technique more workable and I found these
invaluable. Next there are some attacks from the closed, open and spider guard
all of which did not come across as anything other than highly practical moves
which you should get to actually work with some practice.
Volume 2 is finishes, follow ups, counters to the oma plata and then some counters
to the counters, again a very sound instructional. There is lots of good stuff
on these DVDÕs and other than a couple of techniques I found everything to be
practical to try out, regardless of the level of your opponent. I thought the
series was pretty good value for money and I would certainly recommend them to
anyone who wants to add to their guard attack game. | 
