I'm on the record as being skeptical about the effectiveness of online/video martial arts study, so I thought it only fair to post my review of the Gracie University online curriculum and what they seem to be doing in this arena.
Background - due to scheduling issues with the brown & black belts at my BJJ gym, I've recently taken over teaching our white belt/beginner BJJ classes. (I'm a purple belt in BJJ.)
Like many BJJ practitioners, I've learned by what you might call the "chaos method." I've taken classes from a wide variety of instructors with different approaches to the art. Typically these instructors have taught according to who showed up for class or according to whatever came into their heads on a given day. Beginner techniques, advanced techniques, sport techniques, self-defense techniques, gi, no-gi, agressive game, defensive game - I've got them all kind of blended together into a game that seems to work for me.
When I started teaching, I wanted to take a more organized approach for the sake of my students. I wanted to give them a comprehensive basis in the fundamentals starting with street combative methods before we moved on to advanced techniques or sportive methods. Once I got started, I realized that this was more difficult than I realized, because my own game was such a mish-mash of different parts from different sources (including my experience in other martial arts).
At this point I decided maybe it was worth checking out the Gracie University online courses for inspiration in organizing my curriculum. They offered a 5 day free trial period, so I figured I could check out the videos for free and then cancel my membership without paying anything. I had been impressed with the videos that Rener & Ryron offer for free on YouTube, so I figured they'd have something worth watching.
After getting started on the videos, I decided it was worth paying the monthly fee to maintaining my membership for the time being. Their course is aimed at students who are teaching themselves with a buddy without access to a regular school, but the videos are probably even more valuable to someone who has a regular training group.
I believe their ultimate goal is to have instructional videos covering all the way up to black belt, but right now all they have is material up to blue belt, 2nd stripe. That's still quite a bit of material. Right now they have 36 lessons (averaging about 1/2 hour each) for white belts and 68 lessons (averaging about 1 hour each) for blue belts. They also have additional material for women's self-defense and law-enforcement tactics.
I've been a collector of martial arts instructional videos for years and I have to say that Rener & Ryron's videos are better than anything I have ever seem before by an order of magnitude. Each lesson (1/2 hour to an hour) typically covers just one technique (with some variations) or a short sequence of related techniques. In the lesson, they cover the fine details of the technique, when to use it in a fight, the principles that make it work, how it fits in combination with other techniques the student may have learned, common mistakes to avoid, what to do when something goes wrong, safety precautions for practice, training drills, how to coach your partner and practice most effectively with your partner so that both of you progress as rapidly as possible. The wealth of information may be a bit much for those students who tend towards impatience, but for detail-oriented folks like myself it's great.
Besides the quality of the individual lessons, I appreciate the fact that the material fits together into a cohesive curriculum. The techniques and principles from one lesson feed right into the next lesson and the practice drills presented typically make use of material from previous lessons.
The 36 introductory lessons covered techniques that I was familiar with, but they reminded me of details that I had forgotten or that I was doing unconsciously. They also gave me useful drills for burning in pattern recognition and reflexes that my students have responded well to.
The blue-belt level lessons include plenty of techniques and details that I did not know. I've been applying that information for my own development and I've been seing the improvement on the mat.
I have no plans to pursue rank through the Gracie University, since I already have an instructor I'm happy with. I will say that I'm less skeptical than I was about students working their way at least to blue belt via GU courses and video testing. If someone has a modicum of athletic ability, at least one good training partner, dedication, and a really good attitude towards following all the instructions given in the videos, I could see them reaching competent blue belt level just with this course. (As confirmation, I posted a video a few weeks ago of the first GU online student taking his blue belt, 1st stripe test in person at the academy. He looked reasonably respectable.) I'm not so sure about someone reaching purple belt without a stable of tough, technical sparring partners to work with. Then again, I don't think anyone has reached purple belt through the GU online classes yet. When someone does, maybe I can check out the video and see what I think.
Background - due to scheduling issues with the brown & black belts at my BJJ gym, I've recently taken over teaching our white belt/beginner BJJ classes. (I'm a purple belt in BJJ.)
Like many BJJ practitioners, I've learned by what you might call the "chaos method." I've taken classes from a wide variety of instructors with different approaches to the art. Typically these instructors have taught according to who showed up for class or according to whatever came into their heads on a given day. Beginner techniques, advanced techniques, sport techniques, self-defense techniques, gi, no-gi, agressive game, defensive game - I've got them all kind of blended together into a game that seems to work for me.
When I started teaching, I wanted to take a more organized approach for the sake of my students. I wanted to give them a comprehensive basis in the fundamentals starting with street combative methods before we moved on to advanced techniques or sportive methods. Once I got started, I realized that this was more difficult than I realized, because my own game was such a mish-mash of different parts from different sources (including my experience in other martial arts).
At this point I decided maybe it was worth checking out the Gracie University online courses for inspiration in organizing my curriculum. They offered a 5 day free trial period, so I figured I could check out the videos for free and then cancel my membership without paying anything. I had been impressed with the videos that Rener & Ryron offer for free on YouTube, so I figured they'd have something worth watching.
After getting started on the videos, I decided it was worth paying the monthly fee to maintaining my membership for the time being. Their course is aimed at students who are teaching themselves with a buddy without access to a regular school, but the videos are probably even more valuable to someone who has a regular training group.
I believe their ultimate goal is to have instructional videos covering all the way up to black belt, but right now all they have is material up to blue belt, 2nd stripe. That's still quite a bit of material. Right now they have 36 lessons (averaging about 1/2 hour each) for white belts and 68 lessons (averaging about 1 hour each) for blue belts. They also have additional material for women's self-defense and law-enforcement tactics.
I've been a collector of martial arts instructional videos for years and I have to say that Rener & Ryron's videos are better than anything I have ever seem before by an order of magnitude. Each lesson (1/2 hour to an hour) typically covers just one technique (with some variations) or a short sequence of related techniques. In the lesson, they cover the fine details of the technique, when to use it in a fight, the principles that make it work, how it fits in combination with other techniques the student may have learned, common mistakes to avoid, what to do when something goes wrong, safety precautions for practice, training drills, how to coach your partner and practice most effectively with your partner so that both of you progress as rapidly as possible. The wealth of information may be a bit much for those students who tend towards impatience, but for detail-oriented folks like myself it's great.
Besides the quality of the individual lessons, I appreciate the fact that the material fits together into a cohesive curriculum. The techniques and principles from one lesson feed right into the next lesson and the practice drills presented typically make use of material from previous lessons.
The 36 introductory lessons covered techniques that I was familiar with, but they reminded me of details that I had forgotten or that I was doing unconsciously. They also gave me useful drills for burning in pattern recognition and reflexes that my students have responded well to.
The blue-belt level lessons include plenty of techniques and details that I did not know. I've been applying that information for my own development and I've been seing the improvement on the mat.
I have no plans to pursue rank through the Gracie University, since I already have an instructor I'm happy with. I will say that I'm less skeptical than I was about students working their way at least to blue belt via GU courses and video testing. If someone has a modicum of athletic ability, at least one good training partner, dedication, and a really good attitude towards following all the instructions given in the videos, I could see them reaching competent blue belt level just with this course. (As confirmation, I posted a video a few weeks ago of the first GU online student taking his blue belt, 1st stripe test in person at the academy. He looked reasonably respectable.) I'm not so sure about someone reaching purple belt without a stable of tough, technical sparring partners to work with. Then again, I don't think anyone has reached purple belt through the GU online classes yet. When someone does, maybe I can check out the video and see what I think.
I bought Joe Moreiras videos before I started bjj in the '90's. Joe told me over the phone that he had a brown belt student (which was a high rank back then) teaching in San Jose. I didn't head there though. But I attended a leglock seminar in that school and it turned out to be the guy that Joe had told me about. After the seminar I signed up. It turned out to be some real solid training that led to many classes taught by both Joe Moreira and Roy Harris when they came to town along with 1 on 1 training with the both of them. Joes videos were exactly the same as the way he teaches in person. Although I can't say how he teaches his advanced classes as I didn't take it in that direction.
