Keenan Cornelius Tells All: Reveals How He Developed His Crafty Lapel Game

We were lucky enough to have Keenan Cornelius in the studio for our podcast A Fistful of Collars, and he told us about the genesis of his lapel game.

Will Safford: How long have you been playing the lapels?

Keenan Cornelius: Since purple belt. It's actually a funny story, I've been-

Reid Connell: Tell us.

Keenan Cornelius: The worm guard has been in the lab being created since purple belt. It was designed to survive against JT because JT would crush my guard every single day in training for years and years. He was there. He has like the ultimate big brother power over me because he's been there for every step of my guard advancement.

Hywel Teague: He knows it inside out.

Keenan Cornelius: Like every time I tried something new, it was probably tested against JT first and then failed. I started using it because normal guards weren't working. He would just crush every guard I threw at him. Spider, Lasso, any sort of open guard I played, he would pass so easily. And it became ... it sort of came out of necessity because he was so good at breaking grips ... if you've ever rolled with JT, it's insane. You literally have to play guard without grips. Because he's so good at stopping you from actually getting any sort of grip control. So like I have no grips because every time you reach for a collar, he breaks it instantly. Sleeve grip, he breaks instantly. You just can't get any sort of traditional grip. 

Hywel Teague: And they say that his grips are like monster as well.

Keenan Cornelius: Yeah, his grips are crazy strong. So eventually, because you can't grip anything else on him, I grabbed the last thing that was there, is the lower lapel. So I started having to grab that to have any sort of control against him to survive longer. Then because I could get that grip it was the one grip that he couldn't take away from me. So using that, I was like, I can do stuff with this kind of. So I'd start with like foot in the lapel, like a spider guard hook, but there's not really a lot of attacks from there. Braulio calls that like Galaxy guard. But there's not a lot you can do but hold on.

He actually banned me from doing that. He said I wasn't allowed to do the foot in the lapel against him in training. Which is good though because there's really no attacks from there. It just stalls the position. So from that I started to work a little more ... the Worm guard, before it was Worm guard, I called it the Marionette guard. Like a puppeteering thing. I wasn't really puppeteering anyone.

Hywel Teague: Really glad you changed the name.

Keenan Cornelius: Yeah, it's a stupid name. So I scrapped that one. But I started playing with the lapel back then in like 2012, 2011. So I started building on it over time. And then only once I went to Atos, I used the lapel on those guys. And they had no idea what to do. And it was suddenly much more effective than it was against JT.

I was like, wait a second. JT only beats this stuff because he's been there for every step of the way. But all these other guys don't know anything about it. So then I was like, maybe I can do something with this.

Keenan Cornelius: So if you watch my purple and brown belt matches, I never touch the lapel once, but in training, that's all I was doing. So like purple and brown belt I was beating everyone, but I was beating them all with just more traditional jiu-jitsu.

Hywel Teague: But that was a super long kind of developmental phase for that then.

Keenan Cornelius: Yeah. So I purposely kept it secret because I wanted to use it at black belt. Like the plan was just to wipe black belt with it. And just like, no one's going to see this coming. And it worked at Worlds, unfortunately I got DQ'd in my division, but I think I really could've wrecked my division at the first Worlds. Because it's super good against knee cut style passers and Romulo was in my division that year. He was just gonna get broken-up by it. And I knew it. When I fight Romulo, I'm so ready for that knee cut pressure because that's like what worm guard thrives against.

But that was the year I used it pretty successfully against Buchecha. I lost the match but it was a really good match, and I was able to sweep him a couple times with it. And that was the time I beat Leandro with the Worm guard position. He was really lost at that time. Didn't known what it was coming to him.

Hywel Teague: Do you think people have caught up to it yet?

Keenan Cornelius: Some of the high level guys like the top of the top, like Lucas, Buchecha, Leandro, those guys are really good at stopping the offense. I don't think there's really any like counter that anyone's figured out. Lucas is probably the best.

Hywel Teague: Lucas?

Keenan Cornelius: Barbosa. But he's my training partner, so it doesn't count.

Hywel Teague: Because he sees you do it every day.

Keenan Cornelius: Yeah. So he's really good at shutting it down. But there's no, from what I've seen, there's no real position that counters it. Like you can't do Worm guard against that or you'll get passed. It just doesn't really happen.

Will Safford: That's the best story I've ever heard. The whole Worm guard story. Is there a next step to the Worm guard? Is it constantly 

Keenan Cornelius: For sure. It's sort of expanded into like three trees. Which is like the Worm guard positions, which is reverse De La Worm guard, rear Worm guard, and Worm guard. And then Squid guard which is like kind of a style like what Cobrinha and Satoshi were doing for a little while. But Cobrinha stopped doing it. Satoshi used it a little differently.

Hywel Teague: Well, can you explain that to us then. What is the difference between the Worm and the Squid?

Keenan Cornelius: So Squid guard, I would have to show you probably. But Squid guard is like when you ... yeah, I can't even talk about it, like how it is. But it's, the Worm guard passes under your leg and their leg, and locks in the whole position. But it's strong because it has the, it's the only guard that controls the rotational movement of someone. Rather than up and down, forward back. It actually controls which direction the person's facing. Which is its biggest power. You can force a person to only pass to one side. You can force them to pass to your good side.

Usually when passes occur in competition it's because someone's passing left to right and they're able to pass to the side that you're bad at. So people usually, like statistically, the passes that occur, occur to a person's bad side, right? So Worm guard eliminates that. And so it's a huge advantage right there. Because of the way it controls a person, you can force them to almost look away from you completely and expose their back. So it's probably one of the most effective guard back takes. Much more effective than the Berimbolo. It has some really good submission options as well.

The Squid guard's a little different, it's not as much of a control of the person, but it opens up like an outward sweeping motion that kind of leads into like 50-50 if you want or leg-lock attempts and some really strong omoplata attacks.

Reid Connell: You played Squid guard against Leandro?

Keenan Cornelius: Yeah, it worked pretty good against him because I hadn't used it against him before. That was probably the most success my guard had against him in a while where I swept him with it a few times. And I think he felt pretty uncomfortable underneath me. But he learns so fast, like literally in a ten minute match, he can figure you out. It sucks.