I have been lax on updating my site and checking the forums for the last week or so, having been busy with the holidays and family and consuming as much pie as possible. Though I may have spent most of my time stuff as many baked goods as possible into my face, I didn't completely forget you.
I got together with Leo Kirby, my purple belt friend down in American Top Team Hollywood (Florida, not Cali) and shot a few tutorials. The first of which is a very interesting on that documents the guard game that Robson Moura taught him. You can find it here:
Although I'm sorry to say that my first thought was "Isn't that that actor who always plays the creepy redneck? You know, the guy who played the former worker for the chemical plant in that Julia Roberts Movie Erin Brokovich?"
I will now x-guard myself and say 50 hail gracies for this sin.
What really appeals to me about this guard is how you can play it even if you're driven to your back.
If they have the underhook (as you probably wanted anyway) they'll usually try to put you flat, which they can do, but you can always just stretch your hooks and take their weight off. Like this:
Now we've got to come up with a gimmicky name. I'm rooting for "seated x-guard".
Jose 'Ze' Marcello showed that guard to me years ago when I was a white belt. He taught it as a response to a failed hook sweep. He had some sneaky collar/loop chokes from there, a route to the back and a nasty elbow press...
In the pic above, it "seems" that when the bottom guy streches his legs to take the pressure off, his x-guard hooks would be easy to break by mule-kicking back and up. I haven't tried this, but how strong do you feel the hooks are when streched out like that? Thanks again for the techs.
I have passed this guard myself using a mule kick type of pass. Which I call the "Marcello." The leaping pass that he does when in butterfly.
But it is just part of the game. To do that pass he needs his hands or head on the mat. It is a matter of stretching him out and feeling the pressure he gives you.
I wasn't able to pass Robson's guard using that pass. He could just feel the pressure and adjust the hooks and get a sweep or collar choke when I tried to do it.
He also got a very slow elevator sweep by coming up on the toes of the ground leg when I tried to go around the side.
"In the pic above, it "seems" that when the bottom guy streches his legs to
take the pressure off, his x-guard hooks would be easy to break by mule-
kicking back and up. I haven't tried this, but how strong do you feel the
hooks are when streched out like that? Thanks again for the techs."
Yeah, I agree. It also seems like if the top guy twisted his body to drive
his right hip towards the mat it would neutralize the bottom guy's left
hook and allow the top guy to pass.
I believe the second is that in Street Figher II if you play as Guile and
you charge down for two seconds, then press Up (as if you were doing
a flash kick) and hit the strong and forward buttons, trying to hit
strong a split second before hitting forward, you see all of the frames
of Guile's strong throw, however instead of flying across the screen at
the end of the throw, the enemy sticks to you and "freezes."
Chickenfeat's theory is very plausible, but there is another option. The second law of thermodynamics observes the fact that the useable energy in the universe is becoming less and less. Ultimately, there would be no available energy left. So, maybe Aesopian is saying that this on-legged x-guard will wear them out so much that they will not have energy to pass. I am just guessing though : )
