Simple Ways To Take Action On Offense And Defense In 5050

Review - Jon Calestine’s 5050 Seminar

Lately, I’ve been playing a lot of outside sankaku and 5050. Outside sankaku is often a neglected position in our post-Danaher Brazilian jiu-jitsu world, and the leg configuration affords a lot of safety and strong attacks. 5050 is the precursor to 8020 and outside sankaku so it is a necessary evil in my training right now. When I saw Digitsu put out a 5050 seminar featuring Jon Calestine, I jumped on the opportunity to watch it and see what I could pick up. Here is a quick review of the seminar and who it’s for.

Calestine was a member of the extended, and now fractured, Danaher Death Squad. He left the team before they went to Puerto Rico, ultimately staying behind in New York to teach, train, and compete.

Calestine has won the Onnit and Eddie Bravo Invitationals. Calestine is an interesting watch for his compact frame and dynamic leg locks. Here he is at the ADCC East Coast Trials with an acrobatic leg lock entry and finish.

Before we get in to what he teaches, let’s back up and touch on the position briefly.

A Quick Note On 5050

5050 is a bit of a meme position in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In gi competition you’re essentially stuck with your legs closed around one of your opponent’s. The friction and lack of heel hooks mean there can be little action. No gi is a lot different.

In no gi Brazilian jiu-jitsu, 5050 essentially puts you in a shoot out with your opponent. You both have a direct look at the inside heel hook, and you can progress through relatively safer positions like 8020 and outside sankaku.

Lachlan Giles is probably the most famous active Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitor using 5050, 8020, and outside sankaku. Before him, Ryan Hall terrorized the grappling world with 5050 and leg locks. Below, Hall uses a basic 5050 heel hook to make it on to The Ultimate Fighter reality show.

For what it’s worth, in the seminar, Jon Calestine explicitly says what to do from 5050 instead of grabbing the head like Nunez does above. Now, let’s get into what Calestine is teaching in his seminar on Digitsu.

What Jon Calestine’s 5050 Seminar Covers

The seminar focuses on the 5050 and backside 5050 positions. This product is a recording of a seminar which means they show Calestine going around the room to assist students, and answering specific questions related to the techniques he teaches. The general content outline is:

• Entering backside 5050, and assisting students

• Finishing with the heel hook, and assisting students

• Working from 5050, and assisting students

• Toe hold, aoki lock, how those submissions open up the heel hook, and assisting students with the submissions

• 3 different escapes and defensive maneuvers, and assisting students with all of them

• 2 separate answers to questions asked by the audience

At this stage in my training, If I’m going to pay for a seminar I’m most interested in new ways to grip and set up my game. I picked up two things immediately from this seminar that I’ve been able to play around with:

5050 is often reviled as a boring position in grappling. People claim the leg configuration is better suited for stalling than attacking. Fortunately, a good portion of this seminar discusses how to defend leg locks and open 5050. So if you want to level up your offense or defense, you’ll probably get a lot out of this seminar.

The best part is, the content is well organized and actionable. There is no rambling nor meandering, and all of the talking in the seminar is helpful.

What You Could Want More Of

Don’t expect an encyclopedia of content like you’ll get with John Danaher and Gordon Ryan’s instructionals. The seminar is short, like super short. Ignoring the videos of Jon Calestine assisting students, the content is about 45 minutes long.

I don’t necessarily think the length is a bad thing. The seminar is just concise and actionable.

The seminar starts with backside 5050 and K guard, but the majority of the seminar reviews 5050. I’m sure some of you will want more information on the precursors to 5050 like K guard, but that will be released in an upcoming instructional from Calestine on Digitsu.

Lastly, I personally would have liked to see more holistic overviews of the entire submission chain Calestine touches on. He explains how the positions and submissions interrelate, and I think the seminar could have spent a bit more time drilling those sequences specifically.

In Summary - Who Is This 5050 Seminar For?

Jon Calestine’s 5050 Seminar is perfect for anyone that is familiar with 5050 but doesn’t know how to attack leg locks or defend heel hooks specifically. The product is direct, actionable, and to the point.

If you want something that is more philosophical or conceptual then this is not for you. If you want a new product with immediate things to work on go check this out now.

Overall, I would recommend the instructional. I love Digitsu’s seminars, so I was happy with the information and how it was organized. Digitsu offers a subscription so you can pay a small monthly fee to watch this seminar, Eddie Cummings’s, and the rest of their library. I think that’s a steal.

Right now Digitsu is doing a Cyber Monday special so you can watch this and other content for a huge discount:
- BF60 for $97 (60% off) all access annual membership.
- CYBER33 for 33% off all on demand one time purchases like Calestine’s 5050 Seminar video

Full disclosure in the interest of transparency, I do get commissions for referring people to Digitsu. Take that for what’s it’s worth, I just feel that it’s important for writers to disclose who they’re working with.

What seminars or instructionals do you want to see from their team?