Reviews for The X-Guard: For Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Gi and No Gi Grappling, and Mixed Martial Arts

The average rating for The X-Guard: For Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Gi and No Gi Grappling, and Mixed Martial Arts based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-06-27 00:00:00 Jun Igarashi When I first saw this book, I'll admit, I was a little wary. A whole book on one quite specialised BJJ guard position? Even by the multiple world champion whose guard it is? Thankfully, when I got around to reading it, I found that it was far more than that, encompassing large portions of MG's bottom game with relatively clear photography and descriptions that cover everything from posture in the seated open guard to butterfly guard sweeps and submissions. The x-guard stuff later in the book connects naturally to that, and if you choose to use all the techniques, it will give you an approach on the bottom that is very much about reversing the position rather than trying for surprise submissions from positions where you don't have gravity on your side. There are a couple of points that perhaps need to be addressed. One is that, because this book has been out for a while, it doesn't contain much on the single leg x-guard, which MG seems to use these days as a set up for the x-guard, or even an initial sweeping option in a lot of cases. We even see him in the submissions section going from a full x-guard to a straight foot lock, which seems like going all the way somewhere only to come back a step or two. There's also less about the arm drag game than I would like. I know now that it has made it into his book on the top game, but honestly, you could read this book and think that Marcelo Garcia didn't use the arm drag to take the back as a big part of his game from the butterfly guard. That's less because the techniques aren't there, but simply because the editors haven't been that selective. They've put in every minor variation as a separate technique, with the result that the vast majority of the stuff looks very similar and it can be hard to work out which the key techniques are.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-08-02 00:00:00 Robert Cortez Very good book!