AJ Agazarm is hardly anyone’s favorite character in Jiu-Jitsu, but he is good at it. He has held the spot of one of the best competitors for going on 10 years now and shows both intentions of stopping, despite perhaps not having a Gordon Ryan-like career. AJ is notorious for not tapping out and frustrating opponents with his game. Now, you can learn all of his defensive secrets through the latest AJ Agazarm DVD “Don’t Get Got”.
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Overview
This is a three-part No-Gi BJJ DVD that covers escapes from bad spots, mostly submission holds, named almost as weirdly as 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu techniques are. Jokes aside, this AJ Agazarm DVD is probably the only DVD you should get from him. After all, he avoids taps when everyone thinks he’s done for, so who better to teach you how to be cocky than the master of cockiness himself?
Instructor Background
AJ Agazarm is a Gracie Barra team representative and coach. He earned his black belt from Eduardo De Lima. When he began training he was so good that Carlos Gracie Jr. offered to take him to Brazil and make him a champion. Agazarm did not accept the offer as he was chasing Division one wrestling glory at the time.
Agazarm got his black belt in 7 years, after he won the Brazilian Nationals in No-Gi, becoming the first non-Brazilian to ever achieve the task.
AJ has a very aggressive and versatile game and a seemingly endless gas tank. He never stops or slows down when he is competing and has gone toe to toe with some of the very best grapplers in the past decade. He has not been submitted in quite a while with just 15 of his 84 losses coming by way of submission.
The “Don’t Get Got” AJ Agazarm DVD outlines his approach to defending when you’re in really bad spots.
Subject
Defense is an aspect of BJJ that is often overlooked in favor of offensive techniques. The people that decide to focus on defending, can end up frustrating even the best submission hunters in the world, as AJ Agazarm has proven over and over again.
AJ’s focus is mostly on submission defense, featuring armlock, leglock, and choke defense from some of the worst positions imaginable. He shares a bunch of moves that work just as well in stand-alone mode, as they do in combination with one another.
Complexity
This AJ Agazarm DVD focuses mostly on fundamental positions (back, mount, guard, Ashi Garami) and submissions which makes it a good fit for everyone. Since most black belts are purple belts at best when it comes to defense, this BJJ instructional is going to be both challenging and informational for almost anyone involved in Jiu-Jitsu.
Technical Details
“Don’t Get Got” features three volumes, each lasting approximately 30 minutes, which brings the full running length of this AJ Agazarm DVD to around 90 minutes.
The way AJ presents things is a bit frustrating, as he is going through lots of things as if they are a given, which leaves people struggling if they have no idea what he is talking about.
Apart from the fairly short length and lack of progressive structure, all other technical aspects of this instructional are on point, from camerawork, video, and audio quality, to cover art and available formats (hardcopy DVD, and digital).
Detailed Analysis
DVD #1
Opening this DVD is a great section by AJ Agazarm on body mobility. These are crucial in allowing the body to move in the desired direction when it comes to submission defense.
The techniques covered in the DVD starts with the hitchhiker armbar escape and continue into Omoplata solutions to break the attacker’s submission chain. He also covers Kimura defense as well as ways to shut down arm triangles.
DVD #2
Part two of this AJ Agazarm DVD covers leg lock defense, something that people both need and AJ know to perfection. He does demonstrate some slick ways of defending toe holds, and ankle locks when direct submission threats are in question.
His take on dealing with tight controlling heel hook positions like the 50/50 and the knee reap is also an interesting one, and makes sense, especially for those that have no working understanding of how leg locks work and only want to learn how to defend and escape them.
DVD #3
The final part of the “Don’t Get Got” Aj Agazarm DVD instructional focuses on the back mount, side control, guard, and mount, offering ways of first shutting down submission threats from the positions before safely getting away from the bad spots themselves.
There are a couple of chapters dedicated to each position, with plenty of references to the previous two volumes where the focus is on submission defense.
How We Grade The “Don’t Get Got” AJ Agazarm DVD Instructional
Considering this Don’t Get Got 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: 8/10
Technically speaking, the fact that the techniques only cover No-Gi moves, and he short length of the instructional leave you with a feeling like something is missing from this instructional, like maybe a couple more volumes.
Quality of Content: 7/10
AJ’s defensive techniques are effective, but he only shares them in specific scenarios and does little to connect the material he presents in a system that people could apply immediately. There are positions and submission holds that have completely been left out, leaving blind spots when it comes to having a strong defensive game.
Overall: 7/10
A solid instructional if you’re looking for specific defensive strategies and approaches to dealing with certain positions and submissions. Great for people with no defensive experience, but will hardly turn you into the unsubmittable monster grappler that AJ is.
Wrap Up
If you have no idea how to defend submissions, you’ll learn a lot quicker from this short DVD. If you want to learn positional escapes though and understand defense in a more deep fashion, this is just a stepping stone toward a truly powerful defensive game.
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