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I have heard a lot of people raving about Michael Jen's tapes on the Underground Forum.
From the sound of it, Jen has the best tapes in every category of grappling. So, it was time to see what Jen's tapes were really like. I got the Ultimate Mount Escapes which is a two tape set. After all the hype, I was left flat. He can best be described as a poor man's Joe Moreira.
For starters, you might be wondering who is Michael Jen? Jen is a Joe Moreira Black belt. As far as I know, he has no know wins or titles in sport BJJ, NHB or Submission grappling. I state this not as a criticism, but just to give you a frame reference.
At $52 Jen's tapes seemed like a deal. What you get is not much. The tapes prove that simply owning a camcorder does not make you a video production company. There is absolutely no production value to these tapes. No titles, no transitions, nothing. You might be thinking that you don't need fancy production. I might agree, however, the tapes are $26 apiece which puts them in the pit with the big boys. If you are going to charge first class prices, I expect a couple of extra bags of peanuts. This is especially true if you are a generic airline.
I was looking forward to seeing two tapes that cover escaping the mount and all it's variations in great detail. I expected to see beginner to advanced techniques. What you got was a solid set of beginner and intermediate techniques. No too much that would fall into the advanced category. Jen does a capable job of teaching the moves and does link them together in a fairly logical order.
I have to wonder about specialized tape sets on a single position that are geared for beginners. I do have to pose the question of whether beginners really benefit from knowing 40 different ways to escape the mount. Wouldn't they be better off just learning 4 or 5 and working those? Specialized tapes like these really should be geared for intermediate and advanced students because they are the ones that could really benefit from the depth and experience of technique.
One other small point. The www page ad for the mount escapes tape set has a picture of two guys grappling with kimonos on, doing what looks like sport BJJ. This would lead you to think you were buying sport BJJ tapes (or even Judo tapes). Then I get the tapes. The picture is not from this tape set at all. Jen shows up for filming looking like he just walked in off the street. Jen is dressed in t-shirt, sweat pants and shoes. Now I am confused. What are we learning here. Vale Tudo, sport BJJ, submission grappling? Jen never really tells us. For the beginner this is problematic. Let's step into my brain as I think aloud. I look at these two tapes and think, "well there are no strikes so this must be sport BJJ, but then there is no mention of points . . . HHHmmm . . . then Jen shows a no kimono versions of some of the moves . . . So what is this stuff? Hell if I know." I guess these are sport BJJ tapes with dash of submission grappling. I like my arts clearly delineated for the same reasons I don't just put all my food in a blender. I like to know what I am eating. Steak and cherry pie are fine alone but blend them together with a dash of Tabasco and, well, you get the point.
Bottom line
Michael Jen does a capable job of walking you through the mount and the basic side mount escapes, however, you could do better for the money. While not anywhere as over priced at Matt Furey's home videos, Jen needs to think about where he fits into the current tape market. If these tapes were around $10 a tape, they would be priced right. There is nothing that Jen is teaching that Joe Moreira didn't teach for a lot less money on his tape set. You might, however, be able to understand Jen's explanations better then Moreira stilted English.