“A beautify opportunity” - to learn some effective positional escapes (long review)
Thomas Rozdzynski advises that this instructional has been created to help older grapplers who are having difficulty freeing themselves from compromised positions after their explosive approach of pushing and pulling for escaping starts to fail. Techniques selected for this instructional have been chosen to allow you to escape mechanically (e.g., leverage, frames, wedges, etc) rather than relying on strength. Specifically, escapes are taught for mount, technical mount, side control including hip control (i.e., hip on hip opponent facing you) and reverse hip control (i.e., same as previous but opponent facing your feet) and half guard. The content is logically ordered. The instructional is taught in Gi and has a total runtime of 2 hours and 26 minutes. What sets this instructional apart from other escape instructionals is that there is more than just a series of effective techniques. Thomas Rozdzynski teaches his approach to escaping, which includes what to do and what to avoid; the different stages of escaping; understanding the position that you are in, which includes your opponent’s balance, their control points, whether their weight is distributed or centralised, the requirement for framing; and the need to use mechanical escapes rather than pushing and pulling the opponent; and he discusses the concepts of escaping the key positions covered in this instructional, including distributing the opponent’s weight prior to escaping, framing and controlling the position of the opponent, and before attempting to escape, the importance of keeping your opponent’s hands busy so that it is hard for them to attack effectively. Thomas Rozdzynski as shown in this instructional, is an effective instructor. He speaks clearly and logically and remains focused on the subject matter. His demonstrations are clear and consistent, however his demonstrations for this instructional are generally only filmed from either a side on view or a head on view. There were times I wished that different angles had been filmed and for the camera to have been focused on the instructor to better see the detail of a technique. The instructional was filmed with a fixed camera. Video (quality including lighting and focus) is good, however at times range could have been better (i.e., instructor and uke to fill the frame and less background). There are no issues with sound. From my perspective what is taught in this instructional is good BJJ for people of all ages. Key requirements taught for an effective positional escape include engaging the mind; not to reactively respond with force; and to instead respond with appropriate techniques that rely on good mechanics.
