Mastering Rubberguard Quick-Review

Dan,
Dean Lister seems to think rubber guard can be useful in MMA, as shown
by the vid from that Japanese grappling mag. Considering his experience
in grappling and MMA, that's seems like a pretty solid endorsement of
that system. Your thoughts about that?

"Honestly, some of those names are super fucking stupid. Some anti-semitic, lots of drug addict references, the "retard" positions, etc."

No shit I hope they don't have kids classes.. can you imagine being at a tournament and hearing them yell out some of those names??? "drown the jew!".. "goto the retard guard!"... fuckin no class whatsoever.. how old is this guy again like 40??

Buddy,

David Loiseau thinks spinning back kicks are useful in MMA and has proven they can be effective.. does that mean you should work on spinning back kicks all day instead of fundamental boxing and basic muay thai?? Of course not.. The reason David can use those techniques is because he has a solid foundation in basic striking.. infact he would have probably been better off starting in a boxing or muay thai base as alot of the tae kwon do hurt him in some of his fights.. ie: all the running away from rich franklin..

Dean and Shinya are able to use alot of these moves because they are blackbelts with a solid foundation of BJJ and in Shinya's case Judo.. however I still think both of them would also be better off getting more comfortable with basic striking than working on those novelty moves..

Just work on your basic jiujitsu, those novelty moves are good for when you get bored..

"Honestly, some of those names are super fucking stupid."

They may be stupid, but they're memorable, which I think is important when learning something. In the course of my training, I've been to several BJJ schools and a Renzo seminar, and I always felt that was one of the things BJJ lacked, and that was names for moves/positions. They're are names for basic submissions and positions, but there is also alot of stuff that seems nameless.

I believe the name of the move was Drowning Jiu,not "drown the jew".If you guys already knew all this stuff why didn't you write a book about it?

"David Loiseau thinks spinning back kicks are useful in MMA and has proven they can be effective.. does that mean you should work on spinning back kicks all day instead of fundamental boxing and basic muay thai??"

And Cro-cop thinks kicks to the head are useful in MMA and shown them to be effective, though there are a majority of fighters that don't attempt them, train them, or come close to ending a fight with them. Are we going to start calling head kicks "novelty" and only train them when you're bored? And let's throw out training the muay thai push kick completely while we're at it, since it's virtually never used in MMA competition. And let's throw out most of the Muay Thai standing elbow strikes since those are ridiculously rare now adays (more rare than ruber guard subs.) It's all novelty moves right?
And are we going to start saying,"Only world class strikers can effectively kick to the head...don't bother training it unless you're bored because it'll never work for you"?

No one is saying don't train your fundamentals...if Eddie was saying that he would have come out with a book that has only rubber guard, instead of saying,"You also need strong butterfly, half-guard, etc." and filling the book with an appropriate mix. Will training rubber guard increase your sub percentage in MMA? Yes. Will training only rubber guard all the time increase your sub percentage in MMA? No because they're going to be piles of holes in your game. Thus, the book called "Mastering the Rubber Guard" is full of a bunch of other techniques to fill out your game.

"Dean and Shinya are able to use alot of these moves because they are blackbelts with a solid foundation of BJJ and in Shinya's case Judo.. however I still think both of them would also be better off getting more comfortable with basic striking than working on those novelty moves.."

They're ending fights with rubber guard...quickly. Sounds to me like the time they spent on those moves paid off. I bet you those fights wouldn't have gone down so well if they would have traded that time for more time spent training striking.
If they ended those fights with head kicks and someone came on and here and said,"Ya, but head kicks are novelty moves and that training time would have been better spent working on their double-wrist control guard" it would look just as ridiculous.

On the side of using Eddie's material, we have Randy Couture, Jason Miller, Karo Parisian, Dean Lister, and Shinya Aoki.

On the side of not using Eddie's material, we have Mac Danzig and dan black.

Gee, I wonder which side has more credibility.

Wow, spoken like a true white belt. Will a scissor sweep work in a MMA match against a D1 wrestler? Did "basic jiu jitsu" keep Nogueira (one of my heroes btw) from getting pounded in the face by Fedor? No. "Basic Jiu Jitsu" is not as effective as it should be in no gi tournaments and MMA because so much of it is based on collar and sleeve control. Rubber guard provides you with a set of handles you can use to control an opponent without the gi. If you doubt its efficacy, ask Shinya Aoki or Dean Lister. Or better yet ask Joachim Hansen. Aoki and Lister are sick grapplers with out the rubber guard, but with it they are absolutely lethal.

Way to go dan, taking an old post from mac from over a year and a half ago out of context to try and prove your point.

Mac has never said anything to me but good stuff about eddie and joe and the rest of the guys. He even trains with them from time to time i think.

not cool imo.

Grabs diet dr. pepper

Mac is listed as one of the instructors at Legends, actually.

Exactly. I know Eddie and a few of the 10th planet guys helped Mac get ready for buddy clinton. like I said, they train together now, and what he said wasn't really bad either. whatever.

From: Scott Epstein

Date: 01/18/07 11:16 PM
Member Since: 05/29/2002
2646 Total Posts Ignore User

dan .i wish i was but im not .black..your review is not going to change the fact that mr BRAVOS book is the number 6 seller in all sports related book this last month .and number 1 in martial arts related books.thats right son !now go eat some muddy vag.

Curious,how does Matt Furey and Mark Hammaker's books rank?

With the increasing popularity of subgrappling/BJJ tourneys,both arts are going the way of Karate and Judo.The self defense aspects are being minimized for tourney success IMO.Ive always said that the quickest way to have success in tourneys up to the blue belt level is to master the halfguard.Few people train it and even fewer master it.A perfect example is Laimon's team.They kill in tourneys and their guys excell with half guard and open guard.They definatly are advanced in these positions and win tourneys,but havent had success in MMA.Eddie Bravo's team does fairly well in tourneys and I think his guard techniques are valuable for subgrappling but definatly asking for trouble in MMA.In MMA the guys that are successful are good at basic core techniques.Halfguard,rubberguard,etc gets guys killed in fights.Traven was a word BJJ champion and know as the king of halfguard but got subbed by Mir(an overweight purple belt) in a fight.If you look at the top fight teams(Gracie Barra,Chute Box,Cesar Gracie's,Militech,Jackson's Gaidojitsu) they all use basic techniques.Jake Shiels has one of the best halfguards ive ever seen but he NEVER uses it it fights.Nick Diaz has a sick halfguard game as well but you will never see him jumping to halfguard.The idea that you WANT to get your opponent into the rubberguard is a recipe to get pummeled IMO.

"Halfguard,rubberguard,etc gets guys killed in fights."


Name a time rubber guard has gotten someone "killed" in a fight.


"The idea that you WANT to get your opponent into the rubberguard is a recipe to get pummeled IMO."


The idea that you WANT to get your opponent into the guard, period, is a recipe to get pummeled IMO, but if you're going to be in the guard in MMA, rubber guard is one of the useful places to be.

".. once again Edgar renames a bunch of old moves and acts like he invented them.."

Maybe you know them because of him. You seemed to have left out the part where Carlos Gracie jr was in Torrance giving a seminar and was showing the latest greatest new technique from Brazil, and it turned out to be, "old school" (single-leg sweep from lockdown).

Jean Jacques and Rigan Machado turn to Eddie and say, "That isn't new, that your move Eddie."

Eddie had been doing that move for six years already, and had used it over and over in tournaments. It then trickled it's way down to Brazil, where they just assumned THEY invented it.

And though lockdown iteslf existed, can you tell me of anyone you know of who ever used it before Eddie showed it to be functional?

No way man. If anything doesn't work 100% of the time, just throw it right in the trash. Don't even bother with it.

I think this thread is only going to make more people more interested.

Why not include an homage to the herb in the book? Obviously Eddie has found it to be helpful in his life, and wants to give credit to the beautiful plant. It's like starting a book with a page that says 'for Mary Jane without whom much of this would not be possible'

"Regardless of how often you train them, they are still low percentage moves."

I think Cro Cop actually finds it to be a high percentage move for him.

"Unless you are already a kick boxer with great high kicks, then you should not make high kicks a training priority."

Most people that actually kickbox know this, however the only kickboxing experience most of these guys have is watching a K-1..

"I think Cro Cop actually finds it to be a high percentage move for him."

Yeah especially when he is fighting guys with horrible striking.. don't get me wrong he is good enough to land it on good fighters as well but most of the guys he has fought in MMA are no where near his level so he can do what he wants.. you didn't see him throwing any high kicks when he fought Hoost..

"your review is not going to change the fact that mr BRAVOS book is the number 6 seller in all sports related book this last month."

That isn't suprizing, there are alot of stupid people out there.. If they were smart they would've just downloaded the PDF.. :)

"Aoki has proven that the rubber guard works in mma."

LOFL.. dude Aoki is so much better than most of the guys he has fought he could make fuckin Aikido work in MMA..

you know I once saw Genki Sudo do a Giant Swing achillies lock.. I've used it and tapped out quite a few people with it.. infact I saw Takaharu Murahama tap out Chris Brennan with it.. but it is still a novelty move..

Dan Black, he made Hansen look like a white belt.