[quote]Fiction wrote:
zecarlo wrote:
The rubber guard is not the Holy Grail. It’s just another tool. Gracia has proven the effectiveness of the X-Guard under real world conditions. Eddie has not done that but he talks as though his opinion of the rubber guard is not opinion but fact.
I dunno, Aoki has been pretty successful with it. And Bravo said in the above video that he thinks all guards should be studied, because sometimes the rubber guard can’t be utilized, and other guards can provide options that the rubber guard can’t. [/quote]
Aoki is one guy and in ADCC 2005 Garcia tooled him and subbed him in under two minutes. I’m not saying the rubber guard is crap, just that it’s another technique. Some guys can make it work, depending on the opponent of course, while others can’t and in the end it won’t make a difference as people gravitate towards what they can make work most of the time for a variety of reasons. Ricardo De La Riva made good use of the guard that bears his name but others have been as successful without it.
Garcia uses the X-guard because he found his legs were too short to do certain moves, he always fought in the open weight classes against much bigger guys, for example. Bravo admits the rubber guard isn’t perfect and has its limitations. It’s nice to know but it is more important to learn the moves that you can use on the widest variety of people before you learn moves that you can only do on people who are weak and small.