Popularised by legendary grappler Marcelo Garcia, X-Guard was once seen as a modern and flashy addition to BJJ. In modern-day, it is viewed as an almost essential guard. Whilst there aren’t too many submissions from the position, the sweeps from X Guard are extremely high percentage. X guard is not really renowned for submissions, however triangle chokes and leg lock entries such as heel-hooks can be entered from bottom position.
X-Guard was used by Garcia during his competition runs including various wins at the coveted ADCC tournament. The guard was often entered via his use of the Butterfly position, especially when an opponent decided to stand whilst in his Butterfly guard.
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How do I get X-Guard
X Guard can be entered in a number of ways, almost every entry is through another guard. In general, there is not too much difference between guards in BJJ. As an example, if you have a good half guard and a good de la Riva guard, you couldn’t really say one position is superior to another. X-Guard changes this significantly. It is almost always the superior option to any other guard.
In general, you will want to try and get underneath the opponent and elevate their weight to enter X Guard. This can be done through butterfly, shin on shin or single-leg-X guard, which all focus on using elevation of the opponent’s legs to establish their respected positions. Once the weight of the opponent is redirected, you are able to move their legs easily and enter the position.
As an example, when the opponent has stood up in Butterfly guard, X-Guard is now viable since their weight is no longer fully over their legs. It is entered by underhooking the near leg with your arm and then crossing your legs like an ‘X’ around your opponent’s far leg, hence the name.
Sweeps From X-Guard
Technical Stand Up Sweep
Arguably the highest percentage sweep in all of BJJ. There are really not too many ways this sweep can be defended, especially if the person in X-guard keeps good control of your leg.
To accomplish this sweep, the idea is to place both of your feet on the inside of the opponent’s far leg and perform a push kick as hard as possible away from your body. This will focus all of the opponent’s weight into their far leg, whilst making the leg you’re controlling with your arm much lighter.
From here you’re able to perform a technical stand up and stop the opponent from coming back up (due to the fact you’re holding their leg). As you come up into top position you will receive 2 points. Most likely you won’t be in a super dominant position, but it is an extremely high percentage sweep in both gi and no gi. Put simply, this is one of the easiest sweeps for X Guard and also Jiu Jitsu in general.
Standard X-Guard Sweep
The standard X-Guard sweep is easy for beginners to learn as there really isn’t too much detail in it once you’re in full X-guard position.
From X-guard, you want to drop your lower leg hook further down to behind the opponents ankle. From here you’re able to bring your own leg closer to you and follow the opponents heel. At the same time you need to extend your top hook away from your body. This will cause the opponent to fall backwards.
When the opponent hits the floor, it is 100% necessary to maintain full control of at least one leg (preferably two). By doing this, your opponent cannot scramble back to stand up and you will fully complete the sweep.
Taking The Back From X-Guard
This is very similar to the technical stand up sweep, so it is best to learn these two together. You’re not always going to be able to take the back of the opponent from X Guard, like many things in jiu jitsu, it heavily relies on the reaction of the opponent.
If the opponent is trying to run away from you to stop the technical stand up, they will plant their hands on the floor and open their limbs away from their body. This space allows you to get on to the opponents back. It is best shown by X guard pioneer Marcelo Garcia below.
Submissions From X-Guard
Submissions from the X-guard are very situational and mostly for higher belts. This is because in a lot of gyms and IBJJF competitions, if you’re not a brown of black belt, you will not be allowed to perform these submissions.
In addition to this, the X-guard is pretty much the absolute best guard in BJJ for sweeps. It is almost always fundamentally correct to sweep rather than submit from this position. Getting a solid 2 points on the board is a good thing to do, rather than gamble on a submission.
With that being said, if you are able to fully control a single limb of your opponents body, there is often opportunity for a submission.
Kneebar
The kneebar is ideal from X-guard since you are able to get a weightless leg by pushing your opponent’s weight either sideways or forwards.
Once you have full control of the leg, you’re able to swing your leg over the opponents body and face away from them. If you have the leg secured and the opponent is off balance, it is extremely difficult for them to defend from this position.
Toehold
The toehold setup from X-guard is almost identical to the kneebar. Once again it requires full control of the leg being attacked, something which is achieved by making it weightless.
The difference between the two submissions is the angle and grip. A toehold will not be finished with the foot in your shoulder area like a kneebar is. Instead you will try and move the opponents ankle toward their glute muscles, so that maximum pressure is put on both the knee and ankle joint.
Triangle Or Armbar
The triangle requires the opponent to be severely unbalanced towards their head. To achieve this, you must push and kick the opponent, so that they distribute their weight forwards. Obviously in BJJ, we cannot always get what we want, it will always depend on the opponents reaction. With that being said, you may want to pretend to push them backwards, so they overcompensate forwards.
Once you control the far side arm, it makes it a lot easier to jump a triangle position, once the head is low enough. From here you can attack an Americana or armbar. It is generally a bad idea to shoot straight for an armbar since your overall control will be less. Although there will be situations where this is available, it will be a lot less common than standard triangle control.
Summary
Overall the X-guard is one of the most powerful guards in the entirety of BJJ and is often a preferred transition from guards such as butterfly, spider or single leg X.
The guard mostly allows for high percentage sweeps, due to you being easily able to manipulate the opponent’s body weight through being underneath them.
However, the guard is not just pure sweeps and can even be used in modern-day submission-only tournaments. There are still a decent number of submissions from x-guard but they are generally more difficult to obtain and sweeping is very easy compared to other BJJ positions.
