Wear a damn cup!

by Mike

I'm always surprised (and often amused) when I'm rolling with someone and all of the sudden, they get the googly eyes and then that weird little :S smile like they're about to puke.

"You all right dude?"

"Hmmmnnph."

"You sure you're OK?"

"not wearing a cup hnnnnngngngngn."

Wear a damn cup.

It should be common sense, but as Coach Mills liked to say, "common sense ain't so common."

I'm not going to speculate on the psychological reasons for someone not wanting to wear one, but "forgetting" isn't really an acceptable excuse. I keep an extra one in the bottom of my bag (tied up nice and neat) in the event that I forget one. Risking a very painful (and possibly permanently damaging) injury isn't something that I want to do.

To be sure, barely a week goes by when I don't take a shot to the boys. One of my favorite moves to discourage body-punchers is an overhand left as they come in. Nine times out of ten, a hit knocks them off balance. That one out of ten goes someplace you'd rather it not though.*

Not wearing a cup also affects your jiu-jitsu and nearly eliminates the half-guard from your game.

Aside from being a purely defensive weapon, cunning minds have figured out how to turn the cup into an offensive weapon. While Sifu Z might say, "yeah, not washing the damn things," you can actually use your cup for leverage if you're smart about it. Dirty Jiu-Jitsu players have figured out ways to use the cup to bounce off of people's heads during sprawls and sneaky cup checks in other positions (no, I'm not sharing, but now that I'm wise to it, there's gonna be some hell to pay if anyone tries that against me).

Bonus for the ladies: yes, shots to the nuts hurt even if you're wearing a cup.