Trust the B-Team to do unexpected stuff in the world of Jiu-Jitsu. Nope, it is not another crazy CJI announcement by Craig Jones, but rather a very productive Jozef Chen DVD instructional covering a subject most people not named Danaher does not even attempt to approach in a DVD – engagement.
How to connect yourself to your opponent in a way that puts you in a dominant position is the key to winning BJJ exchanges. Since every roll and match is just a collection of these exchanges, and distance management is crucial in each of them, you understand how a resource such as the Engaging Without Regrets DVD has been sorely missing.
Chen’s one and only BJJ instructional to date covers this subject in a way that black belts should be envious of. Check out what you can find inside in our review below!
Key Takeaways
- 2-part No-Gi BJJ instructional with nearly 2 houses of material.
- A rare resource for managing distance from top and bottom in BJJ.
- Contains games for developing distance management skills in grappling.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 9 out of 10.
ENGAGING WITHOUT REGRETS JOZEF CHEN DVD HERE!!!
Distance Management in Jiu-Jitsu
The most useless you can feel as a grappler if you find yourself in a situation where you can’t engage with someone. You’d be surprised how often this scenario appears on the mats, particularly during the standing portion of rolls and matches.
Grappling martial arts such as BJJ only works if you can literally grab your opponent. During exchanges between two grapplers, given how dangerous grips can be, it is not strange to see a wary approach that is all about outmaneuvering the opponent’s grip game.
This is very intricate and complex which is why sometimes there is just no way to get grips on an opponent who does not like to fight against them. Such exchanges often end up frustrating at least one of the grapplers, which is why distance management and ways to engage are so crucial concepts we need to address in the BJJ World.
As I constantly teach my students, when you can’t get grips, get closer! Movement is what is going to open up opportunities and break down the opponent’s defenses. It is noticeable in the style of some of the world’s top grapplers, and how much attention they devote to distance and engagement training.
One such rising star of the professional Jiu-Jitsu circuit is Jozef Chen, a young grappler who has been taking the world by storm. His style is evident in his fights, and his thoughts on the subject are now available in his ‘Engaging Without Regrets’ Jozef Chen DVD.
The Latest Grappling Prodigy – Jozef Chen
Jozef Chen is the one to watch in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu these days. And I mean that literally. Watching Chen compete is always an edge-of-the-seat experience, as the B-team representative blends together the crazy movement of Garry Tonnon with the crazy high submission rate of Craig Jones.
At the moment (2024) still only a brown belt, Chen has submitted a bunch of ultra-high-level professional grapplers, such as Tommy Langhaker, Oliver Taza, and Elijah Dorsey. He conquered the -77kg division in the latest ADCC European trials, also winning the Breakthrough Athlete of the Year award by Flo Grappling.
Chen, style, while still in development, is proving to be the big talk of the BJJ World these days. So far, the German-born grappler has not shared many of the tips and tricks up his sleeves, until he released this first Instructional. The Engaging Without Regrets Jozef Chen DVD is what we are going to review very thoroughly today.
Engaging Without Regrets Jozef Chen DVD Review
This NO-GI instructional is put together in a way that is unusual for BJ DVDs these days. It contains only 2 volumes about an hour each, with lots of short chapters, similar to how wrestling instructionals are formatted:
JOZEF CHEN DVD ENGAGING WITHOUT REGRETS DOWNLOAD!!!
Part 1 – Posture and Folding
As the very first ever Jozef Chen DVD instructional kicks off, Chen starts off strong by talking about the underlying concepts that help you figure out engagements in grappling. Posture is his first focus, presented mostly from the perspective of seated guards.
I enjoyed that his entire instructional is organized as some kind of an analysis. The first few chapters covering posture, for example, revolve around analyzing both the risks and advantages of playing guard seated and supine and how they relate to posture.
The larger part of the instructional builds off of this foundation, moving on to explore what makes pins tick, and the best practices for keeping your opponent down. As promised, the instructional focuses on showing you how to engage with an opponent from the top, mainly by recognizing and dominating the grip fight game.
Part 2 – Using Movements & Game Design
The second, and regrettably, last part of the Engaging Without Regrets Jozef Chen DVD is another 1-hour long volume with lots of content. In it, Chen covers how to deal with different guards, such as the shin-on-shin, sit-up guard, and modern inverted and leg lock guards.
Half of the volume dissects the guards and covers specific movements, such as the cross step and back step as means of engaging while simultaneously conquering space. As a backup in case passing engagements fail, Chen offers what I believe to be the best top-game strategy: how to prevent the opponent from standing up.
The DVD concludes with nearly 30 minutes of footage demonstrating games to help integrate the concepts above. I appreciate that Chen uses games with both partners active, rather than boring old drills, as I find them to be the perfect tool for learning. grappling.
Engagement Tactics
At the end of the day, you’re only going to be as good as you connect to your opponent. While grips have a major role to play in this area of grappling, they are most definitely not the only thing to consider as you try to outsmart your opponent.
Managing distance, timing, and direction are key concepts that allow you to fold your opponent, breaking their posture from both top and bottom, as you get yourself to dominant positions and/or submissions. The problem is, not many schools teach this.
It is true that most of the “feel” for distance and engagements is going to happen as you put time on the mats, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t plan your engagement tactics as part of your game plan. How you move is going to dictate what you and your opponent can grip, which later sets the tone, and often the outcome of the entire match.
Conclusion
I am pretty careful with conceptual framework BJJ DVDs as they can leave you more confused than when you started. This Jozef Chen DVD, fortunately, is not such an example. In fact, I appreciate the efficient order and format in which he delivers the info, not wasting any time.
it is safe to say that I can’t wait for more material from the young prodigy, and I expect nothing but fireworks if Engaging Without Regrets DVD is the standard. Finally, an instructional I can use as a coach to help make my students better at getting the first grips!
