Product Review: New Wave Jiujitsu: A New Philosophy of Positional Escapes by John Danaher

Introduction

Skill improvement involves the lifecycle of learning through absorption, analyzing, and automating. The A-Game Engine (TM) provides skill development milestones to monitor throughout your learning lifecycle.

Instructional content provides plenty of opportunity to absorb new material and can vary greatly in depth and breadth of the topic covered. Your responsibility is to take the information you learn and weave it into your training where you can. So the improvement in skill really hinges on what you do with the material and the amount of hands-on, quality training you dedicate to strengthening the skills performed.

Instructional content reviews are intended to provide the consumer with the following benefits:

• 💡Hone in on the key insights the instructor is sharing to speed up the absorption of information that can change your game.
• 🔑 Share key details of skill execution that can fast-track the improvement of your specific game.
• ⭐️ Provide an overall rating and recommendation of the content to improve your purchasing power and investment in skill development.

We map the overall content to Jiujitsu Capability Maturity Model developed by A-Game Jiujitsu to provide a guide on where you may see the greatest improvement in the maturity of your skills. The orange bars represent broad, desired skill areas, and the vertical bars colored after the traditional Brazilian jiujitsu ranks represent desired capabilities and levels.

We use the following general definitions to guide our analysis of content when determining where it will most likely support the majority of practitioners:

Effective: The success rate of skills. It is the degree to which something is successful in production it the desired result. Effective skills rely on the creativity of the practitioner (e.g., artistic expression). The skills demonstrated “work”, however they typically require greater energy expenditure in movement and application.

Efficient: The ratio of useful work performed to total energy expended. It works “better”, meaning they have a level of refinement and precision that requires less energy and make more use of physics (leverage) and biomechanics (anatomical and biological limits).

Proficient: Refers to the overall advancement in knowledge and skill. In Jiujitsu this is the comprehensive set of effective and efficient skills that make up the “game” of the practitioner. Minimally, practitioners should be able to demonstrate increasingly effective and efficient skills (i.e., defend, escape, control, submit) from each phase of the battle (standing, guarded (open and closed guards), pins (mount, side mount, rear mount, knee-on-belly, north/south)).

Optimized: To make the best or most effective use of something; rearranging to improve efficiency. This is the overall success and level of precision you have across your entire game.

A-Game: This is the pinnacle of consistency in demonstrating your jiujitsu skills under the challenging of conditions with the highest degree of success. This also refers to the set of skills that you are known for.

Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF)

PROS

• Introduction material is useful in outlining the content. Consider this the syllabus from the professor.
• Danaher’s years of developing his systems and concepts come through with the idea of attacking immediately from a typically vulnerable position.
• If you are a previous student/consumer of the other attack systems of Danaher, this will fit nicely into those.
• If you study other materials from other instructors (eg., arm and leg attacks) you may see opportunities to architect some of these ideas together on your own.
• The more you watch the materials the more apparent it becomes that Danaher has refined his system to what he believes works best. If you follow his team, the results are undeniable.

CONS

• Individual learning preferences may not appreciate Danaher’s style of instruction. It is deliberate and concise.
• Each word must be paid attention to. To some, his voice tone is the direct opposite of “energetic”.
• Information absorption will determine your level of retention and working it into practice is left to you.

The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly

Good

• The content is thorough and thoughtful. Many people will find it useful to learn with this information structure (ie., big picture to more detailed techniques).
• The technical system itself is thoughtful and deliberate. Danaher’s philosophy comes through cleanly throughout.
• Simple analogy’s are used to describe concepts.
• Video quality is fine.
• Danaher explains details that can be game changers or keys to the success of executing his techniques. This is a critical feature of his teachings that should be paid attention to. In ecological circles, this is the equivalent of “coaching cues” that can lead you towards success.

Bad

• A summarized version of the main concepts used would be a great companion to support information absorption. There is over 8 hours of material to go through.
• While video quality is fine, the production value can improve. High quality graphical cues on screen as “key points” or takeaways from the instructor POV would be a welcome addition.
• Companion content such as graphical and written materials would be a great addition to support learning.
• The single camera point of view is limiting. There are higher quality video shoots with multiple camera angles found on YouTube.

Ugly

• PLACIDO 😂. Truth be told some of his mistakes make for comical breaks that show more of Danaher’s playful personality.

💡10 Key Insights 💡

Key insights provide focal points for absorbing and analyzing the material. They are meant to help you get the most return for your time spent studying and applying content.

🔑 Key Details 🔑

Here is a breakdown of our review notes of some of the material. This material will be linked into the Jiujitsu Capability Maturity Model framework for future analysis.

Main Ideas

Step 1: Defensive responsibility begins with you being contracted under pins protecting your arms and neck. This leans gaining inside position.

Step 2: Kuzushi / movement vary when you do it. It can occur throughout the sequence.

Step 3: First Frame (foot in the door)

• Side: near side hip or far side hip (with elbow) or under armpit. First frame is foot in the door.
• Mount: forearm frame inside knee. Or heels of hands on hips.
• N/S: elbow frame on clavicles. Next double hip post.
• Rear mount: thumb inside choking arm.

Step 4: Primary entry point (determines success)

• Side: near side knee first. Once it gets inside hip you are 90% of the way there.
• Mount: knee inside their knee wins.
• N/S: clavicles. Get your knee inside clavicles.
• Turtle: elbow to floor you’re out.
• Rear Mount: elbow on the floor you’re out.

Step 5: Majority inside control: Obtain majority of control inside. You’ll win the escape.

Step 6: Your Choice

• Re-guard: a traditional choice. We escape from a pin to a guard and then work our sweeps and submissions from those positions. A good choice but predictable.
• Attack! This is our new focus. From the primary pins, there will always be options to attack their limbs.

The Pins: A Summary of Primary Functions

• THREAT: Your opponent setting up wedges underneath you to limit movement and escape options while using weight to keep you pinned. THIS IS HOW PINS ARE MADE.
• PREVENT advancement to submission, you need INSIDE position. THIS IS HOW PINS ARE BROKEN.
• You get this by setting up your own wedges (frames at hips)
• Using PRINCIPLES of CONNECTION and KUZUSHI sets up escapes
• Contract your body: don’t allow extension of your body.
• Get guy out of balance (KUZUSHI)
• Gain inside position.
• Once you sense it….attack with intent.
• Win inside position through framing, sensing and timing.
• The 2 arm dominant pins attack the arms and the leg dominant pins attack the legs.
• You can not simultaneously protect your upper and lower body.
• If head is on same side as hips the pin is ineffective.
• Body configurations matter.
• Points to recognize:
  • Mount: forearm frame inside knee. Or heels of hands on hips. Knee inside their knee wins. Chin control in the mount. You can’t kip effectively when your head is controlled. Keep the shape of a rocking chair or banana.
  • N/S: elbow frame on clavicles. Next double hip post. Get your knee inside clavicles.
  • Rear mount: thumb inside choking arm. Get undertook side elbow to mat and you’re out.
  • Side: near side knee first. Once it gets inside hip you are 90.
  • Turtle: elbow to floor you’re out.

Attacks: Submissions From the Escape

• When attacking from leg dominant pins, most attacks begin from single-leg X-entry.
• If head moves away you get outside ashi.
• If head moves closer we elevate and do (knees apart) cross-ashi to (knees together) Inside sankaku.If they step back, enter backside 50/50.
• Space of one knee is all needed to enter.
• Knee wedges setup the leg attacks
• Position knee in front of opponents knee (key). If not the knee will slide away.
• Facing your opponent during the attack is a risk . You want to protect your head and hands away from opponent.
• Points to recognize:
  • Upper body attacks chain to lower body attacks. For example, the CLAMP position attacks using the triangle/shoulder locks/armlocks and defending those leads to lower body exposure.

Overall Recommendation

We assess several areas to help you match your current skill level, needs, and investment in time and dollars to make an informed decision about this product.

An overall rating of 4 or higher indicates a solid product that is currently leading the way in the industry when compared to it’s peer group in this content category and content provider. This is strongly worth your consideration.

A 3 rating indicates there is value in the product, however their may be suitable alternatives for your time at the current price point.

Any rating lower than a 3 is not recommended due to the quality, content, price, or available options within the domain.

Note that this assessment does not contain other content providers or content sources. However, this analysis can be used to compare to other products to obtain a similar assessment result.

Technical Quality: Professor Danaher is top notch at instruction, depth of knowledge, and developing highly robust, effective, and efficient systems to common jiujitsu problems. He has honed his systems and core principles into firm beliefs that drive his philosophy of cast iron defense into action.

This escape system delivers on that foundation and will provide many practitioners with a solid framework to achieve the ultimate form of jiujitsu: turn the tables on them putting them on their heels when they think they are winning.

Practitioners may need to review the material in their own learning preference to absorb much of the content and develop a training plan to ensure they are gaining the hands on experience to develop their skills.

Coaches will appreciate the analogies and metaphors used by Danaher to explain his overall philosophy and technical details.

Overall, this content broadly links to the set of “Grappling Skills” within the Jiujitsu Capability Maturity Model. You will learn aspects of how to Defend, Escape, and mostly Submit your opponent from pinning positions.

If you seek solutions to develop your skills from positions other than pins, or need to see greater levels of detail on breaking mechanics of submissions, other products would serve this purpose.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Production Quality: BJJ Fanatics produced this content. They have long corrected the audio challenges of most videos. The video quality is also fine. However, for the level of sophistication that this content delivers can be improved, in terms of the limited single camera point of view, and interactive on-screen learning cues through post-production editing.

In addition, the addition of supplementary learning aids, such as flip books, infographics, or guides, with key learning objectives, takeaways, and target emphasis points, leaves the consumer wanting more.

Video quality on social media and YouTube is often better and will compete for your time and attention to study in-depth materials such as this. Production editing would make these seminar-format, longer form instructionals impactful for the learner. BJJ Fanatics can incorporate these lessons learned into a more complete offering in there future.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Customer Experience: This is a shared responsibility of the content producer and the instructor. If people have a hard time learning, watching, or using your product in any way, they will search for something easier. Content production on this platform may vary between BJJ Fanatics providing production resources, to others providing their own resources and then partnering with BJJ Fanatics to distribute.

For jiujitsu practitioners and coaches that have been to seminars before, this is similar in format except you don’t have breaks to practice the hands on portion of learning. You should be aware of where this falls in your learning lifecycle.

With the relative ease that technology can provide for content producing, social engagement, and real-time user engagement, the partnership between BJJ Fanatics and instructors will help enhance future attributes that are meaningful to the customer experience, leading to greater attention, awareness, sharing to others, and retention for other product offerings. BJJ Fanatics and instructors may benefit from this by developing a product roadmap for their platform to include other forms of the product, new products that focus on enhancements from user feedback.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Return on Investment (ROI): This is measured by answering 3 common questions that all consumers have to weigh in purchasing a product:

• Will this save me time in learning?
• Is there a better option for the same or better price? What value will I receive for my investment in time and money?
• What are others saying?

Will this save me time in learning? The total amount of content amounts to over 8 and a half hours of instruction. That is a significant amount of content to digest. Learning involves multiple aspects to absorb new material, analyze the effectiveness of it in the gym, and them developing efficiencies to automate it. This system will give you plenty of options to focus on, but do not expect overnight success.

Is there a better option for the same or better price? What value will I receive for my investment in time and money? Trade offs are part of any decision. In this context, we are really answering the question of whether there is similar content that is just as good if not better for you.

A current search for “Positional Escapes” on BJJ Fanatics will return over 125 results that you can filter by price of highest to lowest. Further refinement of the content provides these instructors with the same current price point: Craig Jones, Garry Tonon, and Bernardo Faria (Note that prices for content and specials can alter this result at any time).

The scope of the content for this price point vary in depth and breadth from positional escapes and submission escapes to specific defense and escape options such as leg lock defense, submission escapes, and front headlock escapes. A summary comparison is included below.

Ultimately the decision is yours to make and depends on your learning style, how much content you can absorb and apply, how much time you are willing to devote to study, and what other options you have at your disposal to learn (such as gyms, instructors for privates, seminar options, etc.). If you can achieve the desired results with a smarter investment in time for the same money, you will have made a solid choice.

For the simple comparison of price to amount of quality content, knowing the John Danaher puts out quality material, you would be making a solid investment for this current price point.

What are others saying? BJJ Fanatics contains a rating system from verified purchasers. That said, it is like any other rating system filled with good and bad feedback. Currently, Danaher’s materials are ranked consistently higher with more verified feedback than his peers in this category.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Overall Rating is 4 out of 5, or an 80% strong recommendation rating.

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