Half a Worm Guard

Worm guard looks fancy, and on Sunday morning I said so. But it is good to learn how complex something can be, and how you can make complex things simple.

A new sleeve

It starts with a question most people skip. Why did you want the sleeve? Because the sleeve finds their shoulder and their lat, so you can push and pull them whenever you need to, and it keeps them bent over, as if in a deadlift. From there they cannot sprint. They will fall first.

Nobody gives you that easily. A good partner fights it. So the lapel is the replacement. But holding on to the lapel alone is a lot of muscle for a small outcome: they can still stand straight and move their shoulder. Pass it under your foot once and it is a little better. Pass it again and slowly your foot is wrapped in a new sleeve. That is the whole trick. The fancy name is just the shoulder control coming back.

Half

Feet on the hips, pull the grip, and that foot comes out and pummels from over to under. The other foot goes around and in. Hand on the heel. I call this half a worm guard, and I mean it. It is not the best control yet. It is 50-50, and they can still fight. But this is how we start.

Ten times

From there you kick, drop your other foot to the mat, sit up, hand the grip over, look towards their back and get up. It is enough to pull someone down. It is also where people want to run ahead. I asked how many times this had been done last week. Ten. Only ten, and is the black belt done? First run this sweep on everyone, until nobody feels heavy. The forward roll will still be there.

What dropping costs

In the second class I took something away. Dropping your foot is why the sit-up felt easy. It is also a moment with no shield, when a step over is open. If you are dropping, you are helping yourself, and you are also giving your partner an opportunity. So now we keep the inner thigh active, kick, raise the hip and go onto the shoulder. The foot stays off the mat, and the head moves towards their back before the hips fall. It is harder. That is the point of a second class.

The one thing everybody did

I stopped the room for one mistake. Nearly everyone was taking the grip at the ankle, with the hand below their own feet. As soon as the weight comes forward, your own grip is wasted, and you want to give up on it. Take it over the thigh, from the centre, and your shoulders are free. It is a small change, and it decides whether the sweep exists.

Where and what

Someone asked me whether all of this really turns up in sparring. It does, because nothing in sparring is stationary. They step back, they hop, they post, they are taller than you. That is why there are so many options: if we cannot get up, if we cannot pull, then this. You do not have to remember all of it at once. You just have to address where you are and what they are doing. Half a worm guard is a good place to start asking.