For the past 18 months to 2 years, my co-author, Graham Barlow, and I have been writing a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu guidebook aimed at beginner to intermediate-level students. It comprises over 970 of my line art illustrations and over 50,000 words of text written by both Graham and I.
Buy your copy here.
At 268 pages thick, we believe we have covered a wide range of fundamental jiu-jitsu positions, techniques, submissions, escapes, defences, transitions, and concepts typical of most BJJ schools around the world. We also briefly cover the history of BJJ (with citations!) and name-drop a number of notable athletes and pioneers who have helped shape the sport as we know it today.
The softback cover is made from a pliable, yet thick, cardboard cover coated with a matt anti-scuff layer – ideal for when chucking the book into your training bag, or proudly displaying on your coffee table.
If you’re curious to see inside, we created a flipbook-style preview of a chapter here, and another one here. [note, the previews differ slightly from the final version]
Earlier in the year, we made a very limited run of hardback editions of the book and the feedback we received from those books has been truly amazing! This second edition book features a few minor text and image changes, including the fact that the wonderful John Will, who wrote the foreword, was promoted to 7th degree black belt just after we printed the first edition. Congratulations to John!
I’d like to use this space to answer a few commonly asked questions:
Q. Why is this book not on Amazon?
A. Our aim was to offer an independently published product. This gives us total control over the quality of the book, where we can sell it, and for how much. I wasn’t too happy about the print on demand books I bought from Amazon, I mean they’re great for giving indy writers a platform to sell to a very wide audience, but the print and production quality just wasn’t what I had in mind.
Q. Why don’t you have an e-book edition or PDF for sale too?
A. Sorry, I’m just not a fan of e-book versions of instruction manuals. It’s just not a format that looks good on a Kindle reader, or a mobile phone. It might be ok for a tablet user, but another concern I have is the easy way electronic titles can be ripped off and shared. Graham and I have put in way too many hours of work into the book, and it would be heartbreaking to see it ripped and shared online. That being said, I’m not ruling it out at some point in the future.
Q. Is this book applicable to me?
A. Graham and I wrote the book to appeal to newcomers and early stage students. The real-world feedback we got from purchasers of the hardback was more surprising. Yes, the newer students found our book to be a great help. But we also received delightful feedback from more experienced students and even other coaches who loved our approach to explaining details. Some coaches even told us that they’ve used the book to help them plan a lesson! We also had feedback from people who have no desire to train BJJ, but just love martial art books – and they loved ours!
Q. I missed out on the hardback, will you print more copies?
A. No, the hardbacks were intended as a limited edition collectors only run. The softbacks will be re-printed when we run out.
Q. Who are you?
A. Ok no one actually asked us that. But in case you were curious and didn’t already know, I (Seymour) am a third degree black belt in BJJ who started in 2003. I teach regular classes at Roger Gracie South Herts and I also teach seminars. Graham Barlow is a second-degree black belt who teaches at Gracie Barra Keynsham. For over twenty years Graham has also established himself as a journalist, editor and writer for technology publications. Together, we combined our cumulative experience and knowledge to create this book. It wasn’t easy, we spent many late nights and long conversations over what to include and how to depict the techniques. But we truly believe it was worth the effort.
We believe that the way we have illustrated and presented this book makes it unique among BJJ publications. We hope that it helps you in your jiu-jitsu journey for many years.
