Karel Silver Fox PravecFluid BJJ: Scrawny "Middle Aged" Guy's Guide to Getting Submissions

Great book, simple step by step moves.

As a BJJ practitioner of over 10 yrs and Renzo Gracie brown belt (as well as being too close to 40 for my comfort), I've long been a huge fan of Professor Karel's overall approach to jiujitsu - one in which you seek to overcome your opponent not through brawn or attrition, but rather by using finesse, precision, and movement.Master Pravec calls his book a "guide to getting submissions." But here he understates his material. Fluid BJJ is actually a blueprint of his jiujitsu mindmap, and an answer to one of the fundamental questions of jiujitsu: "How can the smaller, weaker person prevent defeat by a bigger, stronger opponent and go on to win the fight?" And - I would add - how does he do it and stay in one piece?The overview section covers the basic principles Master Pravec uses in his jiujitsu and describes the keys to "outfoxing" your opponents. He then follows up with several chapters using his pet techniques to illustrate these principles in actual combat sequences. The guillotine and armlock sequences are particularly useful if you're an intermediate BJJ player who has had difficulty in winning the transitions and haven't yet fully mastered the skill of "flowing" from one technique to the next.What will perhaps be the most unappreciated section - The Solo Water Drills - is conceptually one of the most important sections of the book. Here Professor Karel details one of his most valuable tools for continued BJJ improvement and physical restoration. If even a fraction of readers begin to implement this practice into their routines, they would likely see a significant bump in performance (similar to the performance improvements in the athletic world when Aladar Kogler popularized Ideomotor Training).Make no bones about it, being adept at Brazilian Jiu-jitsu requires physicality and effort. But Professor Karel's book shows you how to make the path constructive rather than destructive, ensuring your journey will last a lifetime.

This is a great little handbook because it takes a few of the most common submissions/positions Karel prefers to utilize and elaborates on them heavily so that no matter how the opponent reacts, a submission opportunity presents itself. The techniques don't require strength, speed, or athleticism; rather, they rely on timing and momentum (two key components of Silver Fox's jiujitsu style). I'm currently going through the techniques with an adult BJJ class I teach and there are weeks and weeks worth of material. I've already started utilizing a number of the concepts and they really do make a difference.And for those who don't learn well by looking at still pics, the book comes with a discount code to order the full videos at Digitsu.com (which are excellent and well worth studying!).The fact that Silver Fox is highly regarded by people such as Renzo Gracie, John Danaher, Firas Zahabi, Matt Serra, and Georges St. Pierre speaks volumes in and of itself.

This book is not really what it claims to be: a systematic explanation concerning positions and principles for how a fit but older practitioner should roll to maximize momentum and minimize injury. Rather, Karel essentially concentrates on his favorite techniques (Guilltotine, omoplata, bolt cutter, cross side attacks), given in isolation from each other and with no real theory on why it is good as a "middle aged" guy's technique. Some of these techniques seem to work better as "muscle" techniques too, so it's particularly confusing on why they were included in this book.The techniques themselves are quite reasonable, and presented from a number of positions, follow-ups, and triggers. However, the picture quality is quite low and the explanations essentially assume that you know how to do the techniques to begin with. (i.e. Step 1: Open Guard, Step 2: Attack with the bolt cutter, etc..) This wasn't too much of an issue if you're looking for technique chains, but you really should be at least a mid-level blue belt to get anything from the book -- as the pictures and text aren't close to manual quality.The water drilling concepts were interesting -- I simply couldn't get much traction out of it after a week of attempts.All in all -- the book isn't bad if you take it for what it is: Karel's personal four favorite technique chains explained to those who understand the fundamentals already + some water drills. What it isn't is a "middle aged" guy's guide to getting submissions.

As we age, and the miles start too add up on our bodies, its important that we evolve in our approach to training. If we do not listen to our bodies, and find lower-impact ways to train, we will put serious limitation on our ability to advance our technical proficiency, and even risk having to give up the sport we love much sooner than necessary. What Karel has been doing here is an incredible, innovative way of training and exercise that will both sharpen our techniques, and keep us in shape, and on the mats for many years to come. I highly recommend this book to any practitioner seriously intending on making jiu jitsu a part of the rest of their life.

This book is full of gems—not just technique, but even the concepts laid out at the beginning of the book are fantastic. I think Silver Fox has a really useful and effective approach to grappling that you can see in the successes of his students. He comes from one of the best camps on the planet in RGA and it shows. I have the DVD as well and would recommend his stuff to anybody, beginner to advanced.

As a BJJ student Mr Pravec's concept is an interesting one with enormous (in MHO) potential to apply in practice.The book limits its potential by being graphically limited. Often times I wished pics angles were a bit more creative and larger to clarify ideas.That is my only reason for giving 4 stars, otherwise I definitely recommend Mr. Pravec's book to help your Jiu Jitsu.

I don’t understand why 90% of the book consists of unreadably small pictures. You would have thought they would have tested this.

Great book, good Bjj combos that I already started to use in my game.

Like all of his seminars, Professor Pravic’s book is gold. Period.

Fantastic book! really helpful and effective techniques. Easy to read and understand highly recommend this book. A must own for every martial artist/Bjj enthusiast :)

Awesome details and techniques. I do wish the pictures were bigger.