X-Guard in Tournaments

The White Mamba

The White Mamba

"Cold Stone Steve Austin" - Mike Goldberg
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So I'm wondering is the X-Guard viable in tournaments? I just find it so borderline of reaping that I hate to be called for it. I use it a lot in training though. I know it's not fool proof but is there a way for me to use the X-Guard without having to worry about this? Yes, before anyone says, I know I can just not use it.
 
Yes it is very good; for example one Leandro Lo's most succesful sweeps is a stand up/treetop from slx.
 
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It's pretty easy to avoid reaping. If you're not reaping in training you should be fine. If you are reaping in training, just consciously stop doing it and you should be fine in tournaments
 
Full x guard has no reap, single leg x guard can easily become a reap but Marcelo Garcia won many tournaments with it watch his IBJJF finals like against Galvao for some study
 
The single leg x has been used in competition for almost a decade
 
It's widely used in tournaments, you shouldn't have this fears.. just keep your external foot on the hip or near it and you'll be fine. Unless you truly shoot that leg across the hip I hardly see the ref giving you problems just because once the foot just came a bit beyond the line for a second.
 
I’m trying to visualize the reap in x-guard.

Far-Leg-Buckle-Sweep-from-X-Guard.png
 
The White Mamba said:
Yup single leg x guard.
Click to expand...

Make sure that your toes are clearly pointing outward

The confusion I often see, is when you fall in the outside ashi position and you move the foot on your other hip to go for 50-50 and then you put your own foot inside to take a saddle / 411 position. Some refs don't understand that for reaping you need to have the foot on the outside hip to reap the knee.

One of my teamate got disqualified in a local competition for having a full 411 position and it was called reaping...
 
The White Mamba said:
So I'm wondering is the X-Guard viable in tournaments? I just find it so borderline of reaping that I hate to be called for it. I use it a lot in training though. I know it's not fool proof but is there a way for me to use the X-Guard without having to worry about this? Yes, before anyone says, I know I can just not use it.
Click to expand...
I was training at Marcelo Garcia's and we had all just started learning the single leg X and gotten pretty good at it. This was back around 2010-11. I remember a bunch of my teammates getting DQ'ed at IBJJF's as soon as they went for it, not even a warning.


Marcelo instructed us to keep the foot on the hip, and be very careful to keep the toes pointed outward. I took it a step farther. Before my matches I was shaking the refs hand and explaining "I play single leg x guard, and I'm extremely careful about reaping. But if it's going to be a problem I won't play the position." Looking back, it seems kind of stupid to have to go through all that, but thankfully I was never DQ'ed for it. Anyway, I don't think it's such a sensitive position anymore, lots of guys play it. It's gotten me out of trouble a million times.
 
x guard and single leg is amazing its like an extension of deep half you are completely underneath there base to where they cant attack you with pressure you get to control the pace of the match as they have to adjust depending on if u extend your legs or pull 90% of the time u should end up on top if u get into x guard i feel
 
It's cool that slx and x guard is making a comeback, although it's used now more for leg attacks than solely sweeps. When I started in 2013 the fad had completely passed by already.
 
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