Review of "The Short Guy Guard" by Alec Baulding

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Continuing my journey into instructionals, I found The Short Guy Guard by Alec Baulding. I don't really follow the high-level folks, so I did my research. Alec is 5'4 and has won worlds as a purple and brown belt. I figured this would be an excellent series for me (at 5'5, maybe 5'6 on a good day). He also has a no-gi version, which I have not tried (and probably will not, for reasons that will be clear through my review).

What I was hoping for with this instructional was any or all of the following:

• Guard positions, systems, or techniques that are well-suited for short guys.
• Variations of the above for short guys to utilize positions, systems, or techniques that generally favor tall guys.
• Strategies and tactics when your opponent is taller than you.

Instead, what I got was an absolute mess. It's basically a guard compendium with various guard positions, attacks, and follow-ups. I would describe it as "The Guard by a Short Guy" and not "The Short Guy Guard." Here are some of the issues I had with this instructional:

• It's clear he's not comfortable speaking to the camera. There's a lot of nervous laughter at odd times, filler words, sentences or words oddly drawn out.
• He doesn't seem to have a script. There's a lot of "also, there's X" add-ons. He'll list a handful of options from a position and then do them out-of-order from what he described. It seems chaotic and scatter-brained. It was very hard to follow. It seemed like he wanted to brain dump everything he knew about guard instead of providing a structured lesson.
• Some techniques he will show in detail, others he will gloss over. I wish he edited out the techniques he was glossing over, because I didn't get much out of that. Sometimes he'd just show a position, sometimes the attack, sometimes a follow-up. It seemed random. He would often describe counters opponents might use, and then just not talk about how to deal with those counters.
• A lot of the techniques he showed he described as techniques for tall people, or "people with long legs like this technique". Those techniques should have been edited out of a "short guy guard" video series. (Techniques such as an omoplata with the supporting leg hooked under the opponent's body and far arm or leg).
• He filmed the instructional on a very small mat. To the point where several techniques he simply couldn't demonstrate because he didn't have enough space.
• Some techniques he demonstrated several times from the same angle, an angle which our view of everything happening is completely blocked. For example, when he describes the Matrix guard, his uke is standing with his side facing the camera, and the uke's leg blocks the view of Alec's leg. He demonstrated the entries into this position 3 or 4 times, all from the same angle.

It isn't all bad. I did pick up a few details and concepts that did elevate my guard game. So all-in-all, I'm glad I purchased it. But it is a slog to get through. He approaches things from the technical level only (nothing at the conceptual level) and for a technical compendium it's very disorganized. I feel it would have been much better if he had a bigger space, if he had a better prepared script, and if he edited the content to focus on what would be the best help for short guys. I also think it would've helped to go into some concepts such as how to modify techniques if you're short, or how to deal with taller opponents.

Overall, I was disappointed in this instructional. While I did get some things out of it, there was a lot more that I was hoping to get. I rate this a D-tier instructional.
Tiers are F, D, C, B, A, S, SS.