Key Takeaways
- Complete, competition-tested X Guard roadmap from entries to sweeps, back takes, and submissions.
- Eight-volume structure that progresses logically from basic entries to high-level competition breakdowns.
- Connects De La Riva, reverse De La Riva, K-guard, sit-up guard, and one-leg X into a single coherent system.
- Strong focus on off-balancing, distance management, and problem-solving against modern passing styles.
- Best for blue belt and up who are ready to build a serious bottom game – not a casual “moves sampler”.
- Rating: 9/10
X GUARD EVOLUTION ANDY MURASAKI DVD LINK HERE
The X Guard has been around for a long time, but it rarely gets the kind of complete, modern treatment you find in the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD. Instead of being a grab bag of sweeps, this instructional presents X Guard as a real system you can build your open guard around.
Andy’s approach feels very “competition room”: clear concepts, layered options, and techniques that plug directly into how people actually pass and base today. You can also feel that this is a project aimed at long-term improvement, not just short-term novelty.
The material is organized so that you start with familiar guards, learn how to enter X Guard safely, then gradually add control layers, sweeps, back takes, submissions, and finally see everything play out in real World and Pan Championship matches.
X Guard As a Hub
Before getting into the chapters, it’s worth zooming out and asking why X Guard is still so important in modern Jiu-Jitsu. Against standing or kneeling opponents, it gives you direct access to their center of gravity while keeping your hips mobile and your hooks active.
You’re not just hanging under someone hoping for a miracle; you’re constantly tilting their base, forcing them to post, and then chaining those reactions into sweeps or back takes. That makes X Guard a powerful bridge between classic sweep-oriented guard and the newer leg-entanglement meta.
What stands out in the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD is how clearly Andy treats X Guard as a hub, not a side quest. The entries come from everywhere people already play: De La Riva, reverse De La Riva, K-guard, knee-shield half guard, spider guard, and sit-up/shin-to-shin style positions.
Because of that, you don’t have to abandon your favorite guards to start using this material; you’re upgrading them with better under-hooking, loading, and off-balancing options that happen to land you in X Guard. The result is a style of bottom game that’s aggressive but still very fundamentally sound in both Gi and No-Gi.
X Guard also rewards smaller or more technical grapplers who like to redirect force instead of fighting strength with strength. From underneath, if your grips and hooks are organized correctly, you can tilt very heavy opponents with relatively small movements.
Atos Star Andy Murasaki
When you’re committing serious mat time to an instructional, it helps to know the instructor has put the ideas to the test. Andy Murasaki is a Brazilian-Japanese Jiu-Jitsu black belt under André and Angelica Galvão, representing Atos.
He was born in Saitama, Japan, to Brazilian parents of Japanese descent, and moved to Brazil as a baby before later relocating to the United States as a teenager to pursue a professional grappling career. His father, Anderson Murasaki, first put him on the mats at age eight and guided his early development, giving Andy a deep technical base from a young age.
Through his colored-belt years, Andy became one of the most decorated competitors of his generation, stacking IBJJF World, Pan, and European titles at juvenile and adult levels. After an important phase of training with Caio Terra, he moved to Atos in San Diego, where his career truly exploded.
As a black belt he has won IBJJF No-Gi Worlds, the IBJJF European Championship, and The Crown, and has been a constant presence in World and Pan finals across several seasons – all in brutally tough divisions. When someone with that résumé builds the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD, you’re getting battle-tested sequences, not theory from the sidelines.
Set Ups, Control, Sweeps, Back Attacks and Submissions: X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD Review
From a structural standpoint, the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD is exactly what you want from a position-focused series. Each of the eight volumes has a clear purpose: the early ones are all about entries from common guards, the middle volumes zoom in on control, sweeps, and back takes, and the final disc shows the system operating in live competition.
Nothing feels like filler; you can easily take one volume at a time and build a full week (or more) of classes or focused drilling from it.
Volume 1 – Types Of X Guards
Volume 1 is dedicated to fundamentals and entries, and it does a great job of grounding X Guard in positions people actually play. After a short introduction and a look at the different types of X Guards, Andy dives into De La Riva-based entries.
You get the classic pants-and-collar step-on-the-thigh entry, plus variations using far sleeve and far belt grips when the opponent changes their posture. There’s also an underhook De La Riva entry for when a passer collapses your outside leg.
This volume of the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD rounds out with transitions from K-guard into X Guard, and a very practical sequence where you move from sit-up guard to shin-to-shin and then slide underneath. If you’ve ever struggled to find clean, safe in-roads under a strong passer, this first disc alone is worth serious study.
Volume 2 – Entries
Volume 2 stays with entries but focuses on a situation that frustrates a lot of open-guard players: opponents settling into headquarters style positions. Andy shows how to use pants-and-collar grips to off-balance overhead, then switch sides as your partner posts and tries to recover.
When a heavy passer bases hard and drops their weight, he has you adjust to shin grips and sharper angle changes instead of stubbornly forcing the same entry. The shin-on-shin to X Guard material in this volume is especially accessible.
If you already like collar-and-sleeve or classic shin-to-shin sweeps, these sequences will feel like natural extensions rather than brand-new moves. By the end of this part of the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD, you have answers to that common open-guard problem where someone kills your De La Riva hooks and just sits on your legs; now, those situations become launchpads into underneath positions.
Volume 3 – Reverse De La X/K Guard
In Volume 3, Andy moves to reverse De La Riva and knee-shield half guard, which are staples in modern Gi Jiu-Jitsu. He uses a reverse De La Riva K-guard style hook to slide under the opponent’s center and connect into X Guard, then layers in collar-and-sleeve control to keep them off-balance.
It’s a very “Atos-looking” set of transitions: tight, technical, and built around forcing predictable reactions. From knee-shield, he focuses on using pants-and-collar grips to “load” the opponent onto your legs rather than hanging out in a static frame battle. That loading action turns a fairly defensive position into a launching platform for one-leg X and X Guard-style entanglements.
There’s also a spider-and-collar path to X Guard, which Gi-focused guard players will appreciate. Together, these lessons make it clear that this system is meant to plug into serious open-guard games, not replace them.
Volume 4 – Distance And Frames
Part four of the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD shifts gears into pure control, which is where many people’s X Guard starts to crumble. Andy spends time on how to keep distance and build effective frames from X Guard so you’re not getting your hips smashed or your hooks peeled off.
He talks through different grip configurations – pants and collar, double pants, sleeve variations – and explains how each one sets up different off-balancing directions. The meat of the volume, though, is about solving real resistance. You get clear answers for backsteps, counter angles, and those moments when the passer starts turning your knees away to escape.
Breaking stubborn sleeve grips is another key theme; Andy gives you structured ways to strip grips without losing your own hooks. If your biggest fear in X Guard is “what if I get stacked and passed?”, this is the section that will calm you down.
Volume 5 – X Guard Sweeps
Volume 5 is the sweep buffet. Here Andy strings together a full series of sweeps from X Guard, starting with a pants-and-collar come-up sweep and then layering in multiple double-pants variations.
You learn what to do when they clamp your top leg, how to switch sides efficiently, and when to tip them backward versus launch them overhead. By this point in the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD, you’re seeing just how many different ways there are to score while still keeping strong attachment to the legs.
As the volume goes on, the sweeps start feeding directly into saddle entries, both from headquarters-style situations and from one-leg X when the opponent tries to bail out. These transitions make it crystal clear how the “classic” X Guard world and the modern leg-lock world can work together.
Volume 6 – Back Takes
Volume 6 is all about back takes, and it’s one of the most exciting parts of the set. Andy shows how to connect your X Guard off-balancing and sweeps into crab-ride style back takes instead of settling for simple knockdowns.
The crab ride entries feel very natural if you already use them from other guards, and he does a good job of linking them directly to the grips and hooks you’ve been using since Volume 1 of the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD.
He then moves into inside- and outside-dominant waiter-style entries to the back, which will resonate with anyone who likes waiter sweeps from single-leg X. The bear trap back take is also in the mix, presented as part of a decision tree instead of a one-off trick.
Volume 7 – Submissions
Volume 7 brings the submission layer. Andy starts with straight ankle locks from standard X Guard entries, then adds inward-turning ankle lock variations that punish opponents who rotate the wrong way.
From there he moves into toe holds, a clean toe-hold-to-kneebar chain, and a triangle that comes directly out of common defensive reactions when people try to posture or step out of your hooks.
What’s nice is that the submissions never feel tacked on. They’re built on top of the same off-balancing and control patterns you already learned in the sweep volumes, which means you’re not abandoning position to “hail Mary” for taps. Instead, you’re following the opponent’s reactions into deeper control and then finishing when they give you the structure you need.
Volume 8 – Match Breakdowns
The final volume of the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD is a pure competition breakdown, and it’s where everything clicks. Andy walks you through matches against names like Renan Cruz, Mason Fowler, Leo Lara, Isaque Bahiense, Jackson Sousa, Luiz Paulo, Jaime Canuto, Mauricio Oliveira, and Gabriel Galvão, showing you exactly where the X Guard and one-leg X ideas from earlier volumes appear on the big stage.
He pauses to point out hand fighting, angle changes, and base adjustments that aren’t always obvious on a first watch. You see the system working at IBJJF Worlds, Pans, The Crown, and other major events, under real stress against elite opposition.
Don’t Replace Your Guard Game With the X Guard
In practical terms, this instructional is best treated as a long-term project rather than a weekend binge. If you’re the sort of person typing “X Guard Attacks Andy Murasaki DVD” into search bars, this is exactly the kind of structured, system-level project you probably want anyway.
The smartest way to use the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD is to pick a small cluster of entries and pair them with one or two sweeps or back takes, then spend a few weeks deliberately forcing those situations in training.
Working through the material will also sharpen skills that carry over far beyond X Guard itself: better grip selection, improved sensitivity to balance shifts, more disciplined framing, and smarter choices about when to chase the back versus when to finish on top. If you build those habits carefully, you’ll see your overall open guard – not just your X Guard – become much harder to shut down.
DOWNLOAD X GUARD EVOLUTION ANDY MURASAKI DVD
Who Is This For?
This is not a “white belt crash course”, but that doesn’t mean newer students won’t benefit at all. Motivated white belts can absolutely borrow simpler entries and a couple of sweeps, especially from the early volumes.
That said, the sweet spot is really blue to black belt students who already play De La Riva, reverse De La Riva, sit-up guard, or knee-shield and want to tie those pieces together under a unified system. For serious competitors, the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD functions like a mini-curriculum you can cycle through every season.
The Andy Murasaki X Guard DVD also works well for hobbyists who train a few times a week, as long as they’re willing to go one slice at a time instead of trying to absorb everything at once.
Coaches will especially appreciate how easy it is to turn each volume into a week or two of lesson plans, giving their students a structured way to learn X Guard instead of collecting random techniques from YouTube.
If your goal is to build a small number of reliable “money positions” rather than constantly chase the latest fad, this instructional fits that mindset perfectly.
Pros & Potential Drawbacks
Pros:
- The series is highly conceptually consistent, with every volume reinforcing the same core ideas: connect your existing guards to X Guard, use strong grips and frames to control distance, off-balance with purpose, and then finish with a small set of sweeps, back takes, or submissions.
- That unified framework makes the material easier to remember, easier to teach, and simpler to turn into structured training blocks or class plans.
- As a flagship release, the X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD also shines because of its competition footage; seeing the exact same chains work against names like Jackson Sousa and Isaque Bahiense gives the whole system serious credibility.
Potential Drawbacks:
- This is a big, in-depth project rather than a quick overview, so some people may find the volume of material overwhelming without a clear training plan, especially lower belts who are still shaky on basic guard retention and might need guidance on which entries and sweeps to prioritize.
- The examples and grips are primarily Gi-based, so pure No-Gi specialists may need to adapt certain details, and anyone just looking for a couple of quick X Guard tricks to surprise training partners may find this level of depth more than they actually want.
The X Factor to Your Guard Game
Overall, this is one of the most complete positional instructionals on the market right now. The X Guard Evolution Andy Murasaki DVD gives you a clear roadmap from familiar guard positions into powerful X Guard and one-leg X configurations, then takes you through control, sweeps, back takes, submissions, and real competition footage.
Andy’s credentials as an IBJJF No-Gi World Champion, European Champion, and The Crown winner give the content obvious weight, but it’s the clarity of the teaching and the logical progression that really make the system stand out.
