The bad thing about a vacation: you miss class. The good thing about a vacation: you get to spend more time with instructional DVDs that you neglected when you were training regularly.

(Also, you are on vacation. That’s also a good thing about a vacation. But never mind that for now.)

I own a lot of instructionals, and one of my favorites is Caio Terra’s Modern Jiu-Jitsu. It’s a four DVD set of more than 140 techniques, all of which I had watched before this trip. Since repetition is key to my learning style, though, it’s really helpful for me to revisit stuff I’ve watched before.

And the Caio DVDs are a pleasure to revisit. Let’s get the two most obvious points out of the way: first, Caio’s technique is spectacular; and second, this DVD is beautifully filmed.

Just check out this screenshot from Modern Jiu-Jitsu:

Compared to this screenshot from Caio’s 111 Half-Guard Techniques DVD:

111 Half-Guard Techniques is a great DVD, too, and it doesn’t look bad. But compared to Modern Jiu-Jitsu, it’s no contest. I think the next step in BJJ instructionals involves improving production values. There are a lot of amazing instructors out there, but very few of them are producing materials that look this good.

As good as the product looks, the actual instruction is even better. Modern Jiu-Jitsu is aimed at beginning- to intermediate-level BJJ players, which makes it perfect for me, but I’ve heard higher-level guys say they learned a lot of details from this material, too. That’s not surprising, because Caio does some very fundamental techniques in a slightly different way from the standard method.

Sometimes, this will leave you wondering “I wonder if that will work for me.” Many times, it will leave you saying “Wow, I can’t wait to try that out in rolling.”

You can see an example of the techniques on the DVD here.

If you pay any attention to competition jiu-jitsu, you know you can’t argue with Caio’s results. For a guy like me — a smaller person who tries to be detail-oriented — his DVDs are top-notch.

Plus, Mobile Black Belt has the product on sale, so you can get it for cheaper than I did! Run, don’t walk to your Internet browser, buy it, watch it again and again, and come back leaving a comment thanking me later.

Also, if anybody from Mobile Black Belt winds up reading this: when are Caio’s iPhone and iPad apps coming out? If they’re anything like Modern Jiu-Jitsu, they’ll quickly become a part of my collection as well.

THE BOTTOM LINE

PRODUCT: Caio Terra, Modern Jiu-Jitsu
PRICE: $129.95 for 4 DVDs, or $34-95-$44.95 for individual DVDs
ON A SCALE OF 1-10: 9