What is Platinum Worm Passing?
Creator: Keenan Cornelius
It's one of Keenan's lapel inventions that has passed under the table for a long time. If you are a lapel fanboy like me, you might already use it, but I don't see it used too often, to be honest.
Common pre-moves: Open guard, Squid guard sweep.
Common post-move: Bow and Arrow Choke.
Gif not loading? Watch it here
Visual Breakdown: 💿 Platinum Worm Passing
Step 1: Grab the lapel (Palm up) from outside the opponent's leg. Imagine doing a double-under pass but grabbing one of their lapels with your palm facing up.
Step 2: Bring the lapel inside your opponent's legs with your palm down and try to push towards their face. The friction between the lapel and their thigh should make it super hard for them to extend their leg.
You can try to bait them into shooting a triangle at this point. As long as you keep the grip, you are safe from triangles.
Step 3: Lift your hips and put weight into the grip pushing towards the side of the lapel. The goal of this step is to make them lift the leg that's not strapped.
Step 4: As soon as they lift the unstrapped leg, underhook it with your free arm.
Step 5: Pass the lapel to your other hand with your palm down
Step 6: Start stacking them and use your free hand to lift their hips.
Step 7: Pull their hips and legs towards the side of the grip and staple them to the ground.
Step 8: Voila!
Good option from here: Use your free hard to go around their heads and grab the lapel. The transition to the bow and arrow should be straightforward from here.
I know it looks fancy, but I've been using it and it is one of those techniques that work more times than you'd think because it's confusing for your opponents (like its cousins: Worm guard and other lapel guards)
It also works on higher belts once you start mastering the setups and baits and stop telegraphing your moves.
For smaller folks like me, it's fantastic at slowing down the game and making your opponent do stupid things to try to get out.
It's one of those humiliating techniques that makes you look and feel more technical than you really are 😂
Related Resources
Watch it in action
Keenan vs Ali:
If you have a Flo Account, watch this tutorial from Keenan himself
If you have the Lapel encyclopedia, look for chapter 13.
Best “Platinum Worm Pass” Players you should watch
Keenan Cornelius
Andris Brunovsky
Most high level Legion guys
Training Plan for the Week
I train 3-4 days per week (I drill at home with a dummy almost every day). In order to make it easier for you and everyone else to adapt this plan to their training schedule, I'll divide the week in 2 parts and an extra for the lucky ones who can train more than 3-4 time per week.
First Half of the Week (Training sessions 1 & 2 of 4 for me):
Focus on rolling playfully with smaller weaker opponents that are way below your skill level. Do not try to finish them with anything else or do anything else other than getting to the Platinum Worm Passing. Finish both variants and try to get to the Bow and Arrow or just pass.
After you finish or pass, release and start over again.
Remember, the first half of the week is meant to get reps and feedback on the things you are doing wrong and how to fix them.
Second Half of the Week (Training sessions 3 & 4 of 4 for me):
Gradually start picking better and better opponents until you cannot perform the move anymore. Once this happens, start going down and picking less skilled opponents until you get to a sweet-spot where you are performing the move more than 50% of the times you try it.
Try to finish your week performing the move as flawlessly as possible with someone no matter how low their skill level it: You want to make the last rep as perfect as possible, that's the repetition we internalize the most when we leave the training room.
NOTE: At the least you should be drilling at home with a home-made dummy for 10 min almost everyday in order to take advantage of your real training time at the gym and maximize your learnings.
That’s it for this week’s plan!
What do you want me to cover for next week?
Just hit reply and let me know!