Mastering the 21 Immutable Principles of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

At the time of the writing of this review, I am new to BJJ as a sport, wearing a white belt, but I come to it with 15 years of experience practicing a high-end competitive Judo and instructing in Judo a superb, 6x BJJ world champion, another BJJ black belt, and several upper degree BJJ practitioners. In other words, I am new to the art/sport as a formal practitioner, but I am fairly experienced and qualified to judge, and with plenty of "hours" in submission grappling to know what I am looking for when it comes to a BJJ book. With all of these experiences in mind, when I started BJJ I started looking for the source that is not showing me the umptieth complicated technique and the latest variation of the x,y,z guard, but the one that tells me what makes BJJ really work. What are the principles of the sport/art ... what fundamentals underlie the techniques. What is the closest to the essence of BJJ as one can find. I looked for this because I looked before and found similar sources for Judo which really helped me "made" my Judo, (Judo has dozens of techniques too, but there are also some core principles that are far more valuable to learn to become an expert than to learn every variation of every nage or ne waza technique). This book gave mostly did accomplish to give me that access to the "wisdom" that I was looking for it. Not talking about the particular variations of techniques but really teaching you what makes BJJ a BJJ, what is its practical philosophy, what makes it work, and how should you absorb it. It is also an interesting general read. Paulo Guillobel loves chess, and he quotes the chess masters throughout the book, which I find it extremely fitting, and just satisfying. Furthermore, he truly decomposes the principles and gives a very good breakdown of the fundamentals in every area - positioning, techniques, anatomy, etc. Beware, it is a short book, and it is more a book of practical wisdoms than a in-depth tutorial. It complements very nicely Saulo Ribeiro's Jiu Jitsu University. Finally, it is also well written. Non-pretentious, but competent and engaging. Only thing left desired are better photos, but the book comes with a free access to videos of the demonstrated principles which more than compensates for the OK photos. With all this said -- I give it an easy five. For fellow Judoka or those familiar with Judo books - I would compare this book to "Judo Heart and Soul" by Hayward Nishioka.

Di certo non si impara una disciplina complessa da un libro. Però da questo libro puoi capire i principi fondamentali per apprendere la tecnica. Quindi lo consiglio. Inoltre è possibile visualizzare dei video che spiegano tali principi.

I like the analogies, it is an easy and insightful read. I will be perusing this book for many years to come on my BJJ journey.

Good read

This is mainly about the flow of the game, or how to build your game out of the movements you learn individually in training. I read it in about 4 hours, but it's a book that I see myself reading 2 or 3 times every year, because it put some things in perspective.