Butterfly Guard Intermediate · Gi and no-gi

X-guard puts you under their base

X-guard crosses your legs on one of a standing opponent's legs while your arm holds the other, so your hips sit under their base and a small extension moves their whole weight.

Position and problem

From butterfly guard you watch the opponent stand up to break it. Now their hips are high above yours, your hooks are hanging from their thighs, and a person standing over a seated guard can usually step around it or push the knees down and walk past. Staying seated and reaching up for them rarely works, because your hips are now too far from theirs for the legs to do anything useful. The alternative is to go the other way, underneath them. A butterfly hook that raises a leg as they rise gives you a gap to slide into, and from there you can arrive at X-guard: lying under the standing opponent, one of their legs held to your shoulder, your two legs crossed in an X on the other.

Objective

Get your hips directly under the opponent's base, with one of their legs hugged to your shoulder and your legs crossed on the other, so that extending your legs moves their weight past the foot they are standing on.

Core concept

A standing person balances over their two feet, and a guard that stays out in front of those feet can only push them backward, where they step. X-guard puts the bottom player underneath instead, between the feet, so the legs work on the base from inside it. One of their legs is held with your arm, its ankle resting at your shoulder, and that leg can no longer step anywhere. Your legs cross on the other leg: the top of one foot hooks the front of their hip, and the other foot hooks behind the knee of the same leg. Extend those two hooks apart and that leg is pushed away and lifted while the held leg stays pinned to your shoulder, so their stance widens beyond what they can hold. From there the sweeps follow the direction in which they cannot step: either extend them backward and let them sit, or come up while still holding the leg at your shoulder and finish on top. The small movements count, which is the point of being underneath: with your hips under their centre, a short extension of the legs moves a lot of their weight, while the same extension from a seated guard in front of them only nudges their knees. Single-leg X differs in where the control goes: there both of your legs hold one of theirs and the other is left to stand on, while X-guard works on both legs from further under the body. The two lead into each other, and a player often moves between them as the opponent steps. The position is associated with Marcelo Garcia, whose game paired it with butterfly guard as a platform.

Key mechanics

Get under them, not in front of them. The lift from a butterfly hook as they stand makes the gap; slide your hips into it so your head ends up near one of their feet and your hips below their centre.
Hold one leg with its ankle on your shoulder and your arm wrapped around it. A leg held there cannot step to rebuild the base, and the whole position depends on it staying put.
Cross your legs on the other leg: one foot hooked at the front of the hip, the other behind the knee. The hip hook keeps them from sitting onto you and the knee hook stops the leg from stepping back.
Keep your hips tucked in near the held foot. When your hips drift out from under them, the legs push their leg away instead of lifting it, and they adjust their stance.
Extend the two hooks in opposite directions to widen their stance. Once their feet are further apart than their base can hold, a small push takes them over.
Choose the sweep by the direction of their weight. When they lean back against the extension, keep pushing and let them sit; when they lean forward over you, come up on the held leg.
Keep the ankle hugged to your shoulder as you come up; it is the leg they cannot move, and the one you finish on top of.

Common errors

Staying out in front of their feet, which turns the X into two feet pushing on a leg that can step away from them.
Letting the held ankle slide off the shoulder, so they step with it and stand square again over your hips.
Setting the back hook low on the leg, where it cannot stop the knee straightening and kicking free.
Extending both legs in the same direction, which pushes them away as one piece rather than splitting their stance.
Releasing the held leg to come up, which lets them stand over you rather than fall.

Safety

Your extension works on a standing partner's knee while their foot is planted, so the load on that joint depends on how fast the legs open. Extend gradually, and let the partner sit or step back rather than holding the leg rigid as they fall. The held leg is the one that can be hurt in the fall: if they turn away while its ankle is trapped at your shoulder, the knee twists between the ankle and the falling body, so loosen the arm as they go down rather than squeezing. While you slide in, your face is next to their knee and foot, so slide in with your arms up near your head until the leg is held.

Training progression

Static: with your partner standing and passive, slide under from a seated start, hug one leg with the ankle at your shoulder, set the hip and knee hooks on the other, and hold it without moving them.
Cooperative: partner stands up slowly from butterfly guard. Use the hook to lift one leg as they rise and slide under into the same shape.
Cooperative sweep: extend the hooks slowly in opposite directions until the partner sits down backward, then reset and come up on the held leg instead.
Constrained: partner's only goal is pulling the held leg loose or stepping out of the X. You may keep, readjust or sweep. Reset when either leg gets free.
Positional: from butterfly, full resistance, the top player free to stand and pass. Restart on a pass, a sweep, or when either of you gives up the X.
Live rounds beginning seated: each time they stand up out of your butterfly, go underneath before they take their first step.