Small Guy X-Guard Leg Trip Sweep With Bruno Malfacine

Inside Leg Trip From X Guard by Bruno Malfacine

In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and other grappling martial arts, the X guard is a favorite technique amongst many high level competitors. What is the X guard? Great question. The X guard is often classified as either an open guard or a special form of half guard. Often times you will see it used in transition from one or the other. Often times the X guard is a very common starting point for various sweeps and submissions. It is a very dynamic guard, and often times high level BJJ competitors will not hand out in X guard for long. Consider it more like the beginning phase of setting up a sweep or a transition.

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Today we are going to look at an amazing X guard transition known as the inside leg trip from Bruno Malfacine. Bruno Malfacine is a 10x Black Belt World Champion. He is the only competitor to ever win 10 titles in the same weight division and many people see him as the best pound for pound BJJ fighter ever. Malfacine started his career in Game Fight/UGF‘s academy, but moved to the Alliance camp where he became one of the star figures of the team. His list of accolades is impressive. Some of Bruno’s main achievements at black belt level are IBJJF World Champion, IBJJF Pan American Champion, IBJJF European Open Champion, IBJJF Rio International Open Champion, CBJJ Brazilian Champion, CBJJ Brazilian No Gi Champion, IBJJF Pan American Championship 2nd Place, and IBJJF European Open 2nd Place.

Bruno Malfacine is a master of open guards, and has a killer X guard. Watch the video below of Bruno Malfacine demonstrating the inside leg trip from X guard and then we will break down his technique. Check it out now!

Bruno starts out with cross collar control, gripping the gi pants on the same side as the collar. He uses his grips to pull himself in and set an under hook with his foot. At the same time he does this he also pulls his opponent diagonally. Now Bruno Malfacine can kick up with his legs to trap his training partner’s leg. You may want to pause the video at this point and just take a look at Bruno’s leg positioning. First, notice that Bruno’s hips are up. His foot is staying dynamically connected to the back of his training partner’s thigh. Bruno’s knee is right behind his opponent’s knee. This posture is very important for keeping your opponent’s leg up off the mat. That’s an important point too, you want to make sure you partner is not able to post with this leg. If your opponent posts his leg you will lose all of your positioning. To prevent this from happening, Bruno also uses his elbow to keep his training partner’s leg propped up.

Now, from here, Bruno makes a big adjustment to his body positioning. The foot that was hooking the back of the thigh moves down to the back of the knee. Bruno’s other leg now goes in between his opponent’s leg. Does this look familiar? This is very much an X guard control on his opponent’s opposite leg. That is really cool stuff. Bruno then gets control of his training partner’s leg with an over hook. around the ankle. At this point you will notice his opponent’s base is very wide, making him incredibly unstable in this position. Bruno connects his head to his training partner’s shin. He passes the leg to the other side of his head and uses both his hands to keep the leg tight to his body. Pay close attention to how Bruno passes the leg to the other side. He uses the gi pant grip to push the leg over while swimming his other hand underneath and over to secure his grip. His arm comes all the way through so he can get his hand behind his training partner’s knee before establishing a collar grip.

Once Bruno has the collar control his opponent’s leg is completely trapped. This allows him to start attacking his opponent’s arm. He pretends like he is going to pull his training partner’s arm towards him. This is a fake to exploit your opponent’s natural reaction to pull back. You will use your training partner’s momentum to help yourself sit up. Bruno releases his X guard and then comes up to his knee. Notice that his other hook it still set, which sweeps his opponent. You can keep that hook while you control the leg and pass into side control, ending in a very dominant position.

As you can probably tell, this is a highly effective sweep from X guard. What I like the most about this one is how Bruno switches the leg he has his X guard set up on to get the sweep. I think it is a pretty amazing example of just how dynamic the X guard can be, especially for setting up control as you go for a sweep. If you love X guard this inside leg trip is 100% for you. Remember it the next time you are in a live roll or in a competition. It could be a really great way to surprise your opponent and score some points.

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