Are you old and tired of younger guys smashing you in rolling? Time to take your revenge with the brand new Bernardo Faria Instructional. “Jiu-Jitsu For Old Guys” covers awesome old-school secrets on how to play guard and half guard and annoy young, athletic, heavier, and stronger opponents.
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Overview
The best time to pick up an “old guys” BJJ DVD is not when you’re one of the old guys. It would be a very smart thing to get one while you’re still fighting in the adult divisions. That way, you’ll be able to prepare better for anyone that is stronger and faster than you, and when the time comes, younger than you as well.
“Jiu-Jitsu For Old Guys” is a Bernardo Faria instructional that covers how you can play bottom positions against, well, pretty much everyone, without having to use athleticism, strength, or speed. The focus of the instructional is on the half guard and closed guard, as some of the most often used positions in Jiu-Jitsu.
Apart from covering why the closed and half guard are the best options for “senior” grapplers, Faria also shows how to use them to get the most out of both guards. he demonstrates how to get from one to the other, as well as how to pull closed and/or half guard for those OGs still looking to compete.
Instructor Background
Bernardo Faria is one of the most easily recognizable faces in Jiu-Jitsu, mostly because of his ultra-popular BJJ fanatics DVD production service. THere’s also his “Huge honor for me” slogan that is unmistakably linked to the charismatic Brazilian.
From a more athletic standpoint, though, Faria is one of the most decorated and most successful BJJ black belts ever to compete at heavyweight and super-heavyweight. He is a Ricardo Marquez black belt (Carlson Gracie lineage) with 5 World titles to his name. Faria also has 4 Pans, 3 Europeans, and 1 Brazilian Nationals title to boast with.
Representing the Alliance Jiu-Jitsu team, Bernardo has one of the best guard passing games in the entirety of the sport, especially when it comes to over-under (Miragia) passing. He is also a true half guard virtuoso, with very few people able to claim they have passed his guard.
Bernardo’s official record has 95 wins and 26 losses. Apart from managing BJJ fanatics, Bernardo is currently running his own academy in Bedford, Massachusetts (the Bernardo Faria Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy).
Subject
This Bernardo Faria instructional is pretty straightforward. It provides a complete bottom game based don’t the closed and half guard, mainly aimed at older practitioners. Throughout five volumes, Faria shares his “Jiu-Jitsu For Old Guys” tricks to control, sweep and/or submit most people from the guard, without much effort.
Instead of creating scrambles and power-based exchanges, Bernardo’s system introduces you to the world of tricky BJJ. He shares a bottom game that flows between the closed and half guard constantly, easily dealing with any brute strength attacks from the top. Moreover, there’s a perfect link between sweep and submission attacks from both guards that is not intended for just OGs.
Complexity
Bernardo is one of the best teachers in the BJJ world, and all of his instructions are very easy to follow. While there are details that will be extremely useful even to black belts, all of the content is white belt friendly. in fact, I’d say that white to purple belt older practitioners is the ones that’ll benefit most from this Bernardo Faria instructional.
Most of the techniques are very basic, including stuff like the knee shield half guard, Omoplatas, the simple guard pulls, and some awesome closed and half guard drills anyone can do.
Faria speaks great English, although with a recognizable Brazilian accent. he is concise and easy to follow, creating easy connections between the material throughout the volumes/
Technical Details
The “Jiu-Jitsu For Old Guys” instructional has five volumes, each covering a specific subject in relation to either closed or half guard. Basically, Faria begins with the half guard and moves on to transition to the closed guard. After addressing the closed guard he covers ways of going back to the half guard, before wrapping things up with guard pulling tactics and approaches.
The video and sound quality, as well as camera work, are at the level we’ve grown to expect from BJJ fanatics. The instructional is available both as DVD and digital download.
Detailed Analysis
DVD #1
Bernado Faria kicks everything off by explaining why he chose the half and closed-guard positions for this DVD. Even though many people like to play funky stuff like lapel and inverted guards when at risk, they still revert to closed or half guard variations. The reason for it is that they work for everyone and are highly reliable.
The first technical chapters of the “Jiu-Jitsu For Old Guys” Bernardo Faria instructional cover the knee shield half guard variation. Attacks from the knee shield range from the Faria sweep, to single leg takedowns specially tailored to work for non-athletic people. Lots of the finishes from the knee shield go to the single leg, but Faria has a sneaky and lazy way of setting it up from the knees, no wrestling required.
There is also a chapter on the dog fight position, which is basically a safety checkpoint for anyone not looking for scrambles. The volume ends with a chapter on playing half guard when your back is on the ground.
Oh, yes, there’s of course some deep half guard stuff there as well. After all, this is a Bernardo Faria instructional for old guys – both mandatory deep half guard boxes checked there.
DVD #2
Part two picks right up where the first volume ends, looking into ways to connect half guard to the closed guard if all else fails. Or if you choose to do so. Bernardo goes over three different transitions in this portion of the DVD:
- Going to closed guard when you’re back is on the mats in half guard;
- A way into the closed guard directly from the knee shield half guard;
- Getting to the closed guard when a single leg takedown/sweep attempt is not working out for you.
Easy, simple, and already connected to the volume coming before and after this one.
DVD #3
Bang in the middle of the “Jiu-Jitsu For Old Guys” DVD, Faria explains how to use the closed guard without too much hassle. Along with his over-under passing and half-guard magic, the Omoplata is one of Faria’s signature moves. No surprise that he uses it as his main closed guard attack.
Half of the third volume of this Bernardo Faria instructional is about the Omoplata, with some really cool secret details that will improve most people’s understanding of the submission.
The second portion of volume 3 has to do with sweeps. Faria begins with the belt grab sweep before exploring shoulder bump options. The final chapter in this instructional is my favorite – trapping the legs to seep from the closed guard.
DVD #4
Another transitional volume, this time covering how to get from the closed guard into the half guard. Once again, there are three chapters that cover pretty much every question you might have up until this point of the “Jiu-Jitsu For Old guys” DVD.
- Going to half guard when they use elbows to open your guard;
- Going to half guard to counter a standing opening;
- Connecting closed and half guard transitions both ways.
DVD #5
The final part of the instructional has two sections. One focuses on guard pulling tactics that include both the closed and half guard. Since Faria’s subject is how to successfully pull guard as an OG, his approach has no unneeded movement or explosive exchanges. Rather, he shows how you can jump guard, and fake takedowns to get easy guard pulls. There’s also a very sneaky way to pull half guard that you most likely have not seen before.
The final part of “Jiu-Jitsu For Old Guys” contains some bonus chapters on how to set up closed and half-guard drills. An outro wraps this Bernado Faria instructional up.
How We Grade The “Jiu-Jitsu For Old Guys” Bernardo Faria Instructional
Considering this Bernardo Faria instructional DVD’s technical aspects and quality of content, we come to an overall score for this instructional that I’ll deliberate in short below.
Technical Quality: 10/10
The sound and video quality are at the usual level expected from any release from BJJ Fanatics. Camera work and angles are also high-quality, with nearly every chapter presented from several different angles.
Quality of Content: 8/10
Faria is a great teacher and has lots to teach, but unfortunately, only goes in one direction in this instruction. He does cover both the closed and half guard from an interesting standpoint in regard to older practitioners. The quality of the techniques he teaches is beyond the question, as is the closed-half guard system he presents. However, he only covers things from one perspective, not allowing too many options past the knee shield, Omoplata, and a few sweeps.
This Bernardo Faria instructional is quite short in total running length, despite containing five different volumes. The first volume is the longest, with a running length of an hour. The second and fourth volumes, containing transitions, each last barely more than 10 minutes. The third and fifth volumes last around 30 minutes each. In total, that is around 2 and a half hours of running time for 5 volumes, which seems insufficient.
Another aspect of this DVD is that it is a Gi-only instructional.
Overall: 8/10
Given the short running time of the “Jiu-JItsu For Old Guys” Bernardo Faria instructional, and the focus only on Faria’s favorite positions, this DVD gets 8/10. It is still a worthwhile buy, especially for anyone above 40 and interested in primarily Gi Jiu-Jitsu.
Wrap Up
You will benefit from instructional by someone as experienced and decorated as Bernardo Faria is. If you want to learn how to play closed guard and half guard the lazy way and be able to fend off the attacks of younger, stronger grapplers, then this is one instructional that can help.
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