I've been skipping around, but so far I'm very, very impressed with this book.
My tendency is to wrestle when I do bjj. As such, my guard is really weak technically. My best move is the omoplata sweep, but that requires the guy to stand up--in addition to me being able to control the sleeve on the same side as the leg I attack.
The Essential Guard does what none of my other books on Brazilian jiu jitsu do not do: it explains not only the physics and the context for a given technique, but the theory behind it. I'm a hopeless intellectual, and understanding the idea behind a certain technique or set of techniques, helps me learn a lot faster than when I'm confronted with a bunch of separate parts.
Give me a list, a "Ten Commandments of ...", a set of basic rules to follow, and I'm set. The Essential Guard is one of the best organized jiu jitsu books I've come across, which I suspect has to do with the fact that it is Kid Peligro's book (as opposed to a book that Peligro is co-authoring with one of the jiu jitsu superstars like his good books with Jean Jacques Machado and Renzo and Royler Gracie.
Anyway, combined with the stuff that Rodrigo has been showing us with the spider guard and some of the macro stuff from Peligro's book, I'm very anxious to spend some mat time working from the back. Come tourney time in March, I'll be glad to go back to my top game. But the next month has to be a single-minded focus on fighting from the back.
