Ultimate Fighting Techniques Volume 1: The Top Game

This book will teach you a lot of very basic drills and ways to move from an offensive position to a stronger offensive position and in many cases teaches you how to defend those same advances. The book has very little about armbars, leg locks and figure 4 triangle leg chokes (although it does have a really cool one to use if you're already mounted past your opponents guard). You'll become efficient at understanding terms like guard, half guard, mount, back, side control and how to move from one position to a stronger using proven techniques. I give the book 5 stars because the techniques presented are well taught using pictures and easy to understand language. This book focuses mainly on techniques used to attack your opponent, today I'm ordering the second book of the series on ground game defense, after all, there's nobody better at defending a ground position than Royce.

As the other writers here have commented, this is a well written, very clear, and complete presentation of the most important jijitsu techniques. The book is beautifully illustrated with superb photos on nice, high quality, glossy paper, unusual in a martial arts book. But they obviously want these books to stand out both technically and in terms of the book production qualities. That makes them about $8-$10 more expensive than your usual large format paperback, but it's worth it. The organization is good also, making it easier to see the overall picture and "the hierarchy" of positions, as Gracie calls it. In these days of inexpensive DVD's one has to wonder why anyone writes books at all. But the Gracies make an important point, which is that a photo in a book can show you the exact and correct position, which might easily be missed watching a video. I'd never thought of that and it's in interesting and I think valid point. Also, books still serve an important purpose in being able to explain in more detail the more technical and theoretical points, such things as strategy, the history and lineage of the art, and so on, which might bore people if you spent a lot of time explaining and lecturing on that in a video, since people probably expect lots of action and very little talk there. So there is still an important role for books to play in the martial arts in that sense. Another small but perhaps important point, I was reading Royler's book the other day, and he deals with the issue of multiple attackers and going to ground being a disadvantage of grappling, since if your opponent has friends, they're just going to kick you while you're down. He points out that even if you remain standing, you still have to face multiple opponents, and people who can do that well are like ghosts--everyone talks about them but no one has seen them, as he puts it. The only thing I would point out there is that if you remain standing, you can still maneuver, as your strategy in a gang attack should be to not let them outflank you and to outflank them instead if you possibly can, since you don't want to get between two or more of them. If you're on the ground already engaged, you can't move about as freely. Royce presents just over 100 techniques in this book, which is more than enough for your average jujitsu arsenal. If you think about it, that's less than 30 cents per technique. :-) It might be useful to read the Gracie book covering the techniques for each rank progression from blue belt to purple to brown to black, before reading this book, since that covers the basics (unfortunately I can't recall the title) and foundation of the system. Overall, a very well done book on what is now the most popular martial art in the world.

This book is filled with information on ground fighting the gracie way. It has great pictures that are easy to follow from one movement to the next. This book details how to cover the distance and then how to clinch. It explains what to do from the guard, and how to mount your opponent. It tells movements from once you have mounted and gives great explanation from moves once you have been able to take your opponents back. Regardless of the system that you study, this book is will grealy improve your ground game!

This review will be short. Like all the other reviewers have said, this book is superb. The subject matter is extremely well organized, so already it has addressed what has been a major problem-in my mind anyway-of all of these other books. Organization. It was certainly noticeable in Royce and Charles' self-defense techniques, which was too bad as the techniques were all quite good in that one. My only problem with this effort by Kid and Royce for this book is the title. Ultimate Fighting Techniques is not exactly appropriate unless this material will be fleshed out some more in the rest of the series. I know we can expect another volume on the bottom position, but UFT is really a book about sport BJJ with a little self-defense against punches and kicks thrown in. Royce doesnt' address striking on the ground much at all. And his low kick entries are very, very basic. I am not saying that the book shouldn't be purchased, just that if you are expecting a treatise on NHB techniques this isn't exactly the book you are looking for. If you are looking to sharpen every aspect of your BJJ top game than definately get this book.

Royce goes over all the basics in the average jiu-jitsu arsenal. This book is a must for any grappler. This book not only tells you how to perform techniques but it also tells you the correct mechanics of how to perform them, like passing the guard with correct posture and postitioning. It also tells the reader the wrong way to do certain techniques and the consequences of those actions. This book is only the volume 1 top game book, I can't wait for the volume 2 bottom game!