Mark Kerr – Seek and Destroy

Kerr does a good job explaining the basics of closing the distance. Kerr covers mainly single leg takedowns and how to escape from some of the common counters to takedowns. Most of the counters are where you shoot in and your opponent sprawls back and under or over hooks your arms with his arms. This provides a variety of “puzzles” that need to be solved. The whole point of the tape is to get idea about proper distance, closing the distance without getting hurt, establishing proper posture and then taking your opponent to the ground. As is the Panther tradition, they show one move in slow motion 9 times!!! Unbelievable. Once, maybe twice, but don’t kill tape with this nonsense.

* Tape 1 – Fundamental Takedown Techniques
* Time: 40 Minutes
* Moves: 9

* Tape 2 – Intermediate Takedown Techniques
* Time: 40 Minutes
* Moves: 9

This tape builds on the previous tape. I was happy to see this. Often Panther does not seem to have any sense of continuity running through their tapes. Kerr starts the tape with a few more takedowns. One of them is a nice variation of the traditional shoot in grab them around the back, hook a leg and fall forward. It is easy to execute and effective. Kerr then spend the rest o the tape dealing with shooting in when your opponent punches or kicks. He does a nice job with this material. Again, as with all the tapes, Panther attempts to kill tape by showing a move 6 times in a row in slow motion. Yawn. Fast forward. Yawn.

* Tape 3 – Advanced Takedown Techniques
* Time: 40 Minutes
* Moves: 10

This tape covers takedowns that start from a variety of standing positions. There are several takedowns from when you and your opponent are facing each other and are locked together while jockeying for position. Kerr covers the situations where you have one arm over your opponent’s arm and one arm under, both under and both over. Each situation is unique and has a different solution. This is the weakest of the three takedown tapes. Too many of the moves leave you in a bad position if they fail or are too hard to pull off against a large opponent. I got the sense that Kerr’s opponent on the tapes was being too nice. He would forget to be nice and Kerr would have some real difficulty pulling off the move. Kerr would try to teach this unexpected counter by his opponent. From there on his partner would not put up the struggle.

* Tape 4 -Defending Against the Takedown
* Time: 40 Minutes
* Moves: 8 plus interview

This is one of the best tapes out of the set. Kerr covers how to defend against takedowns. He covers how to sprawl and how to pry someone off who is going for a double leg takedown. Kerr also demonstrates how to counter when your opponent captures your kick. I am not sure what this was doing on this tape, but it was a nice move anyway. The tape ends with an interview with Kerr. Kerr talks about his 16 years in wrestling. The interview was reasonably informative. Now that the UFC has ended their “up close and personal” interviews before each fight, it was nice to get some info on Kerr. This interview also confirms what is apparent from the tapes. Kerr is making his own style up as he goes. The moves we see on the tape set are his own personal set of moves. This tape set is a snapshot of Kerr at the moment. If the set were done a year earlier or a year later, the set would be very different. This is not a set of moves designed for the fighter with average physical attributes.

* Tape 5 – Taking your opponent’s back
* Time: 55 Minutes
* Moves: 15

This is, for the most part, a lame tape. I can’t help but walk away with the feeling that Kerr is making up his techniques as he goes. I think this tape is just a snap shot of where Kerr was in his development at the time the tape was made. He was trying to come to grips with what works for him. Most of the moves on this tape require the power that Kerr is known for. Not a lot of finesse here. Kerr starts with using the scarf hold to control his opponent. He then moves into basic strikes to get your opponent to roll to his stomach. From here he shows how to get the hooks in. If your opponent is not cooperating, Kerr shows how to force your opponent to give up his back. The tape ends with one escape if your opponent has your back. This move might work for Kerr, it will not work for anyone else. Like many of the moves on this tape set, the physics are not there to make the moves work. You really need to have overwhelming strength to pull it off.

* Tape 6 – Fighting From the Mount
* Time: 50 minutes
* Moves: 12

This tape is a waste. Since the other tapes dealt with the back mount, I thought this tape would deal with the mount or the side mount. The tape deals with the mount at a beginner’s level of understanding and then moves into other positions. Kerr is known for his takedowns. He is not known for fighting from the mount. In fact I would even say it is a position that he tries to avoid when fighting. Kerr shows a choke from the scarf hold. A more technical version is shown on the Sperry 1. The tape then moves on to talk about the North and South position. There is some discussion of blocks and delivering knee strikes from this position and then an armbar is demonstrated of which Kerr has little understanding. Kerr then moves on to talk about submission from the side control. I have to note that each of these positions was called some sort of “mount.” For example, the side control was called “The side mount.” I guess you are free to call any position you want the mount. Kerr shows a basic Americana lock that was poorly done. If you do the lock as demonstrated you are looking for trouble. If you are a huge monster and capable of simply ripping an arm off, you might be successful with this move as demonstrated.

Kerr then continues the theme of “all” mount techniques by showing a takedown when you catch your opponent’s kick and move into a knee bar to finish the fight. Maybe this move is called “The flying kneebar mount submission” and belongs on this tape. Another annoying thing about this tape, is the fact that Kerr keeps showing the same takedown repeatedly. This takedown was taught on a previous tape. I can see him teaching it once as a reminder, but three or four times over the course of the tape is a bit much. This tape is not well organized. The only thing I can think of is that they pieced a bunch of stuff together that did not fit anywhere better. Near the end of the tape Kerr and his partner spar. It became clear that Kerr did not have a great grasp of the basics. Two things help Kerr. Kerr is huge and his opponent is clueless (but also huge). Kerr might have pounded the crap out of tiny Fabio Gurgel for a half-hour, but he never got away with half the crap he did on this guy. Kerr spent part of his time with knee on chest going the wrong direction. Doh!

* Tape 7 – Escaping the guard and mount
* Time: 55 minutes
* Moves: 5

Kerr walks you through that which he has little understanding. Kerr shows the fact he has little to no experience at fighting while mounted or in the side control. Someone let me know how many times Kerr has actually been mounted in NHB fights? All you will get from this tape is a weak understanding of escaping the mount and the guard. Worse yet, you will walk away with bad technique. The best guard pass that I have seen Kerr do was when he stepped on Gurgel’s groin on his way over. Unfortunately, he does not teach the “heel on groin pass.” There are 5 techniques taught on this tape. About 1 every 11 minutes!! One scarf hold (called the side control by Kerr). Two mount escapes. One closed guard pass and one open guard pass. All I can say is, I will take a pass. Kerr really has a superficial understanding of these positions. Despite spending 11 minutes on the scarf hold escape, there is no depth to anything here. You would be much better off watching Kukuk 1 that covers in detail a very realistic set of moves designed to escape headlocks.

Just stay clear of this tape.

* Tape 8 – Striking Techniques, Training Drills, and Conditioning Exercises
* Time: 45 minutes
* Moves: 23

All I can say about this tape is buy it if you are going to fight Kerr in the near future, otherwise give it a pass. Yes, I know everyone would like to look like Kerr. Yes, it would be nice to see how Kerr ends up looking like Kerr. Kerr does give you lots of conditioning drills, but this is by no means “Mark Kerr’s Ass-of-Steal Workout” tape. Really, it comes down to working hard in the Gym and then hitting the chemicals. The chemicals seem to be missing from the discussion. The weakest part of this tape is the first half which deals with punches and kicks. Kerr covers a couple of punches and a couple of kicks. He then covers some useful drills. Again, we see a guy who is really trying to improve his skills and is showing you where he is currently in that process. Kerr is a beginner at both punching and kicking. The best thing to walk away from this tape is to keep things simple. The only other thing to point out on this tape is that it is the least professionally produced tape of the set. In this tape they move into a gym with a ring to demonstrate the moves. They did not get the gym to themselves and the background noise is distracting at best

Filelist:

1-Fundamental-Takedown.mpg
2-Intermediate-Takedown.mpg
3-Advanced-Takedown.mpg
4-Defending-Against-Takedown.mpg
5-Taking-Back.mpg
6-Mount-Fighting.mpg
7-Escape-Mount-Guard.mpg
8-striking techniques, training drills, and con.mp4
8-striking techniques, training drills, and con.srt
info.txt