X Guard

I am still really only scratching the surface of this great game, but I am liking what I am finding. X- Guard has become my answer for people who manage to flatten me out in Half Guard, even if I have the appropriate underhook sometimes people still cross face so well that I am flat out on my back, especially with stronger opponents. My approach is to under hook my opponents free leg and start to shuffle my self further under them, this originally came as a result of avoiding the discomfort of the cross face, but pretty soon turned into “Back Door Escape”. When I am dealing with someone to strong for the back door option or who is to low to make it work, I trap the opponents far heel to the ground with my inside leg and then insert my outside hook. Then using the hook and my arm I can create enough space to insert the rear hook. It is really important when you are transitioning to full X-Guard that you use your free arm to block your opponents knee so they step over your hook to mount.

Now, the sweeps, there are 2 I have been doing regularly and one I have been trying (poorly)...

1. Ankle Grab - This sweep involves grabbing the outside of the opponents far ankle with your free hand. Then by pulling in on the ankle as you extend your hooks you can cause your opponents to fall back, you need to go to your knees and under hooks both legs straight away to get your pass and avoid the triangle though.

2. Hi/Low Hooks - To do this sweep slide your front hook down to the opponents ankle and your rear hook up as high as possible. The by extending both legs you cause the opponents far leg to be swept out from underneath them, they should fall backwards. As above underhook both legs to pass.

3. Near Arm control - This is a sweep or more accurately a series of sweeps that I am playing with from watching Marcelo Garcia, it involves controlling the opponents near arm and passing it to your underhooking arm to grip the sleeve or wrist. The idea, as near as I can tell, is to take more control of your opponent to do basically all the other X- Guard sweeps, or to free your hand up to pull down on the opponents lapel to give you rolling sweeps. To date I have had only marginal success with this, however I supect the weakest link is me not the technique at this stage!