This book from Mark Hatmaker covers submission chains from various positions.

Most of the chains involve a lot of ground movement and wrestling, which is quite good actually.

Quite frankly, most of the submissions shown would qualify as "show holds". Meaning that they only work with compliant partners. The high percentage holds he does show all have errors. For example, he shows a juji-gatame armbar from teh mounted position. He isolates the arm he wants to lock, then steps around his opponents head, falling back and taking the armbar. The problem is, he doesnt' clamp his legs together to prevent his opponent from escaping until the last step. This is a white belt mistake in both Judo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Any halfway competant grappler, and many incompetant grapplers that simply resist will be able to get theri elbow out of position to be barred. Another example is his squatting series (essentially mount attacks) and armbar helpers series. Every armbar is shown with his legs loose, leaving his opponent ample opportunity to escape.

His Hanging leg lock series is completely rubbish. He actually shows the figure four leg lock from pro wrestling! Which requires you to control both of your opponents legs, step through them, then fold his legs around and tuck them under one another, all without your opponent resisting. He also shows a boston crab, which requires you to turn your opponent over, something no whitebelt would allow to happen. Typically, standing leg locks don't work well because you tend to get swept from that position almost automatically. His lullaby chain (rear naked strangle chain) does nothing to control the body of his opponent, menaing they could simply stand or turn into the attack and defeat it by taking top position in guard.

Overall, I would NOT recommend this book to anyone for it's submission content, however, it does have some good ground movement techniques that a non grappling student might not know.

With so many excellent books and DVD series on grappling available today, I do not think anyone should even consider buying this book.

The author, Mark Hatmaker, is a complete unknown in the grappling and mixed martial arts world. He never (never!) competed in MMA, and even he on his website does not claim to have won (or, for that matter, participated in) any grappling tournaments. Some people are better at teaching than competing, but they at least try to compete. Mark does not try to compete... and he does not have any successful students either. I suppose, those who can't do and can't teach either ... write books instead.

This book can easily show why Hatmaker hasn't been successful - he knows "moves", but he does not really know the grappling basics that would allow him to execute these moves against a fully resisting opponent. The picture on the front cover (the one you probably see on the top of this page), could be an illustration to "Common positioning mistakes on the white belt level". The most obvious tell is that his right leg is way too loose - the heel needs to be right up against the opponents body, squeezing it for control. It is extremely important to control your opponent in a No-GI match, since people get very slippery. No technical grappler of note would ever sit like that. I am not even talking about the fact that his left leg is completely out of position (was it an attempt to show the grimacing face of his opponent?) and that his right hand appears to have slipped off his bicep (which it was supposed to cup).

If you are not completely convinced, look at the photo on the back - Mark pays a lot of attention to his hand positioning... while being *completely* out of position himself, with his legs thrown loosely around his opponent, he is sitting away, and his chest is barely touching the opponents shoulder. This is so far away from the tight control of the opponent's body he should be showing, it is nothing short of amazing that Mark actually considered teaching grappling.

My advice - do not even look at this book, it will do you more harm than good.

The reviewer is a nationally ranked U.S. grappling competitor.

a alll around good but don't let this be your first book on submissions, its not geared towards beginners and will cause confuion