X-Guard Playbook

Mat Manual companion guide to "X-Guard: The Guard Underneath." Print it. The article explains the guard played from directly under a standing partner. This book builds it: hook standards you can freeze and check, entry cards by starting position, off-balance cards by direction, sweep progressions in order, the stand-up finish, anti-pass recovery, and positional gates that decide when live rounds from underneath are earned.

Name: ______________________________ Dojo: ______________________________ Current belt / grade: ______________ Coach sign-off for advanced open guard work: ☐ Yes

BEFORE ANYTHING: SCOPE AND SAFETY ☐ This is an advanced book. If your butterfly guard and open guard retention are not yet stable against a standing passer at training speed, that work comes first and your coach confirms the move to this book. Being underneath a standing partner is a position you choose with working hooks, not a place you fall into and hope. ☐ Tap early and tap clearly, on the mat, on your partner, or verbally. A tap ends the rep at once. If a sweep or entry starts to load a knee sideways, either partner stops the rep, unwinds, and resets. Knee direction is a pass/fail standard on every card in this book. ☐ The standing partner in every drill controls their own fall. No card asks the bottom player to dump a partner who cannot post or land. Feeding partners keep a hand free to post until the sweep cards that say otherwise, and they say so before the set. ☐ Neck, shoulder, knee, or ankle pain that is sharp, or still present the next day, ends this work for the day and is reported to your coach. ☐ Your coach's version governs in your room. Note variations on the guard card in Part 1 and train the version you will use in live rounds.

Part 1: The Guard Card

Read the card before the block starts and again at the review in Part 27. Most failures in this guard are card failures: a hook placed outside the leg, hips left behind while the legs reach, or a grip taken late. The parts that follow are organized to catch those three failures in that order.