No Holds Barred Fighting: The Ultimate Guide to Submission Wrestling

Rating:
Summary: taught a nig a lot
Review: this book was excellent..from the ground control to the submissions n escapes..however,mr. hatmaker i feel u should of demonstrated a few more takedowns lol, but it was good n for only 12.00 a nig learned a lot..don't worry ima def. get ur next submission wrestling book when it comes out..i highly recommend this book to all who r interested in submission wrestling..mark hatmaker def. knows what he's n he repped his style of submission wrestling well..thanks mr. hatmaker n now i wish mr. matt furey(catch wrestling) or mr. karl gotch were to come out with a submission wrestling book lol...farmer burns, karl gotch,mat furey, kazushi sakuraba (of pride fc), and mark hatmaker r the best submission wrestlers i've heard about n seen thus far...all respect thought to all martial artist

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for beginners and intermediate
Review: This book was exellent. ... It has excellent flow and graphics. I have to agree with LeftCoast that it does say No Holds Barred but only shows submission wrestling.. I guess to learn more about striking and such I will have to wait for the next book.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for beginners and intermediate
Review: This book was exellent. ... It has excellent flow and graphics. I have to agree with LeftCoast that it does say No Holds Barred but only shows submission wrestling.. I guess to learn more about striking and such I will have to wait for the next book.

Rating:
Summary: Get what you pay for....
Review: This book's best feature is its' price. Don't get me wrong it's not all that bad a book. However, it falls pray to the same sort of problems that many instructional book do. The issue is that the descriptions of the techniques lack detail. The average page has several photos (we'll talk about those next) and hardly a paragraphs worth of instructions. That's fine if you have already learned the move, but it will probably leave the beginner with more questions than answers. It would have been more valuable if there had been detailed directions.
The second problem has to do with the photos. My copy states that it contains hundreds of photos on the cover and it does. Unfortunately, due to the format of the book these photos are quite small. Some of them lack the detail needed for good instructional value. I realize that the format selected was probably meant to keep the price low. Still I would have paid an extra 5 to 10 buck for bigger, clearer pictures.
My final complaint is that some of the moves are likely to lead you into a losing situation. In particular there is a guard pass that sets your opponent right up for a triangle. Any guard pass that tells you to leave your head and one arm between your opponents' legs is going to get you choked out. Interestingly enough this same move is in the Gracie book.
As I said this book isn't all that bad for the price. But, I recommend you spend a little more and get Submission Fighting Techniques by Steven Iverson or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu - The Master Text by Gene "Aranha" Simco. [Amazon.com] doesn't carry the second book. They should look into it. It's probably the best book available.

Rating:
Summary: poor techniques
Review: This whole book offered approximately 4 to 5 good techniques. It offered a few more "ok" techniques. I gave the book away after owning it for a week, not much to offer in solid grappling skills. The authors are not experts in the grappling arts, they show poor techniques from even worse positions. The account of "no holds barred" fighting is not very good either. Anyone with more than 6 months of solid grappling skills, will see this book is not for the serious jiu-jitsu/grappling practitioner.