The magazine is beautiful. It's a work of art and, like all true works of art, its beauty carrier a message beyond the aesthetic. Let's start with some facts: the magazine has 88 pages (including the covers) and costs £3.95 if you buy a single copy or pay £23 for a one year subscription (working out at £3.83 per copy including delivery). That's less than 5p per beautiful page of BJJ history.
Let's dive into more Jiu Jitsu Style facts. The second number of JJS magazine contains 21 topics: 5 BJJ black belt interviews, 4 technical segments, 3-4 curiosa articles and a whole bunch of wonderful Jiu Jitsu related features (academy reviews, history articles, women in BJJ, competition coverage) Issue 2 of Jiu Jitsu Style has 18 full page adverts in it. The adverts are all BJJ related (I have a copy of Sports Illustrated with adverts for Toyota, Samsung and Budget Car Rental. I mean good for them but C'MON!) and are all very inspirational. Where else would I've ever heard of Rei-Gi Kimonos or Grapplers Delight?
Content: interviews: Kyra Gracie, Jude Samuel, Rafael Lovato Jr., Jacare and Pedro Bessa. A grand total of 24 pages of interview with some big big names is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The questions are great and steer clear of the "what's your favourite colour ?" crap you might find in non-specialized magazines. It is clear each interviewer had made their homework before hand.
Techniques: yes, we get to learn some actual BJJ techniques and strategies by none less than Nick Brooks, Braulio Estima and Rafael Lovato Jr. As an example, Braulio shower a neat triangle from spider guard and he user no less than 9 text-supported pics to do so.
Tournament Coverage: aside from the excellent Grapplers Round-Up which has photos from 4 BJJ and no-gi submission grappling tournaments around the UK, the magazine also covers the recent Abu Dhabi World Pro Cup in 5 pages and 8 photos. My only wish here was that the photos had captions. I like captions, and also I'm not good with remembering who's who.
Reviews: we are treated to 4 reviews (2 gis, one instructional BJJ dvd set by Abmar Barbosa and a pair of no-gi grappling shorts) and a teaser about a new Eddie Bravo book and a triangle book by Neil Melanson, both from Victory Belt. The gi reviews were very simple. It didn't seem the reviewer had rolled much in them so don't expect Meerkatsu level of detail.
I would like to conclude my review of issue two of Jiu Jitsu Style magazine by mentioning the enviable and heart-warning story of fellow BJJ practitioner and blogger Christian Graugart, the BJJ Globe Trotter and his quest to travel the world, train BJJ and see how people's lives are being affected by it and the recurring Top BJJ Lists, this month talking about the ever controversial BJJ academy team patch design.
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| Inspiration, perhaps? |
In short, buy a subscription now. You're not only buying a great product that you can show off to your friends and family, you are buying a piece of BJJ history.
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2 comments:
Man I want this...I just feel like I already have SO much jiu jitsu material, not sure if I'd just be giving myself more stuff to pile in a corner.
You should! I know what you mean about too much of the good stuff, but in all fairness this is a magazine so it's light reading. :)
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