Just watched this DVD and it is really cool. I got interested in Cobrinha after hearing about how he beat Feitosa pretty solidly at this year's mundials. To put this into perspective, I roll with Feitosa a lot and he tears through big brown and black belts that come through and he DROPPED down to Pena to face Cobrinha in the finals. Cobrinha was able to pass Feitosa (something I never see) and almost armbar him (again, something I NEVER see). In other words, Cobrinha is solid.
I know he is a black belt under Terere and that he trained a lot with Galvao. I think his game looks to be HEAVILY influenced by Galvao and Terere, more so than Telles. The positioning is really cool.
This might be one of the last DVDs we see for a while from a former TT guy, so in my opinion its worth it.
About the DVD... I only watched it once so far, but it is mostly guard work with a focus on omoplata's, combinations, and attacks. A lot of mobile open guard techs. I think most will get a kick out of the capoeira influenced techs too. The theme I'm picking up on is jiu-jitsu creativity. I wish that TT was still around, because these guys seemed very open minded in their training.
The only draw back is that it is in spoken Portuguese with Japanese subtitling. Still, it was relatively cheap for 50 or so moves for 39 bucks and Im a pretty good visual learner. For me the language thing isnt much of an issue. Also, some of the moves are more advanced in terms of grips - but i'd imagine a lot of the newer moves in Brazil are advanced as well. Still, I think most are pretty easy to try out.
Also, if any of you are like me you will LOVE the workout on the Swedish ball for mount and top game balance and the sparring session. The warm-ups are plain crazy. Man, CObrinha loves the omoplata. Also, the capoeira armbar is solid gold.
The Mat Pimp - Yeah, I'm a pretty big fan of Leo Viera and Andre Galvao so I bought that one too.
I liked it a lot. It has some cool techniques in the book portion. Galvao shows a series of techs off of when you stop the one arm under guard pass. He starts from that posture and shows a bunch of sweeps and subs. Leo shows some cool sweeps and back attacks - I haven't seen the some of the sweeps, but the back attacks are standard Leo (I.E. jumping bridge stuff). It's cool to see Leo and Galvao training together in the pics.
The DVD makes this a great deal. A ton of footage, I was really impressed by the Japanese Paraestra in house tournament (at least that's what it looked like). Obviously, the Galvao and Telles footage is pretty cool too.
I ordered both of these as well - they should be in next week. Luckily, I have a bunch of brazilian friends who will give me the translation while watching it together. If you could kcher, please give a comparative review - I imagine it is a lot like the other japanese DVDs (draculino and alberto crane) in the amount of time spent on each technique (about 2 minutes). The Jiu jitsu spirits DVD is listed at 4 hours - is that accurate? Is it mostly tournament footage as opposed to techniques? Does it resemble the first Arte Suave in the TT section? Thanks again for taking the time to write a review.
I've watched this a few times and here are some of my observatrions...
Quality/Production Value- I'd say the picture quality of the instructional portion is good. Overall decent lighting and you can see both players very well. The lighting is a little darker during the Swedish Ball portions and sparring footage, but it really isn't so drastic that you miss any detail. Actually, the Swedish Ball and Rolling stuff is pretty gold IMO. You can see how dark in the pics at www.budovideos.com. The camera work is good, you see the detail that Cobrinha wants you to focus on, even if you don't understand the Portuguese.
As far as DVD layout, Each section shows a particular series of attacks. Each attack is shown a few times (Quick replays) and this is followed with either Swedish Ball or sparring footage. All of the replays are from different camera angles and include different finishes to keep it interesting. There is a good flow of techniques and each move is chaptered.
What I like about this dvd? It is more about how Cobrinha moves. He is very dynamic and creative in how he sweeps and everything goes through to the submission. It reminds me of that class footage of Galvao in Arte Suave where he is working the sweep to the sub.
I spent a lot of time with the guard pass stuff last night and I really enjoy this style as well. Here is an example of what i'm talking about. Cobrinha starts in the oppts sitting up guard with the oppt hugging the leg, Cobrinha initiates one pass, pulls on one of the legs, switches to the other side for the pass (securing the top 1/2with far leg trapped), then adjusts the oppts arm and changes his top posture and immediately goes for the back, and finishes with a choke. Everything is shown drill style with the oppt making decisions that Cobrinha counters to get to the best outcome. Very positive drilling IMO.
One thing I picked up from Cobrinha and Galvao's game from this is that they like to end up in a mount with the oppt's arm trapped in a kimura like position (from here they finish by bending it from the mount, omoplata-ing it, or going for triangles). The oppt is almost on their side like they are being kimura-ed from the NS. Anyone else notice this position with them?
Also the sparring includes Cobrinha going with a blackbelt and at the end there is a longggg section of Cobrinha sparring with students at some school in Japan (blues, purps, etc). Cool rolling footage, he is very well rounded.
I was looking at this. I'm an instructional freak.....I may end up getting this even though I don't speak the language at all. I like these dvd/book sets.
scrappy- Just so you know, this isn't a book/DVD set. I'd hate for you to get the wrong thing. This is just a DVD.
mchapman- To do a comparison is difficult. The book/DVDs are a great value, but so is this. There are well over 50 moves, some brief seminar footage - w/ Swedish ball stuff, warm-ups, and movement, and sparring footage as well. I got it for around $39 and the only drawback is that there is no English track. I think in terms of value, there is a lot here for so little money. I think that more people should check out the stuff coming out of Japan -a lot of good stuff.
Out of the book/DVDs it compares well with Crane's because there is a lot on open guards, omo-platas, and various passes.
How is this different than all the other things you have seen with open guard, etc.? Well, it may not be. I'm sure some fellow bjj encyclopedias that watch every DVD will think that they have seen some of the stuff. But for me, a lot of the set-ups, movements, and strategies were unique. To me, this stuff is straight up fun jiu-jitsu.
I think this is what bjj should look like. I think its a good deal.
"One thing I picked up from Cobrinha and Galvao's game from this is that they like to end up in a mount with the oppt's arm trapped in a kimura like position (from here they finish by bending it from the mount, omoplata-ing it, or going for triangles). The oppt is almost on their side like they are being kimura-ed from the NS. Anyone else notice this position with them?"
I didn't really understand this part of the post until I saw the vid. Cobrinha really does end up in the top mount with the arm trapped a lot - a submission I havent included in my game (until this week) - I really enjoyed this DVD from the cool tecnhiques to the minute of swiss ball footage to the way he just dominates in sparring footage. Great stuff.