I feel the community is full of them. Typical freeloaders who claim BJJ is life, competitors are the best, everyday porrada is the way, and no politics, training everywhere is being involved and and showing support to the community. Some behavior including, but not limited to:
posting in social media that you “support” the community by having no politics, and training at every single school. But in the meantime,
ask for discounted rates at your home school, meanwhile owning every new Shoyoroll/A&P gi
opposed to paying drop in fees at any other school
only attend free open mats, not wanting to pay drops in or attend any type of structured class
too busy to help beginners/white belts in class because competitors need to be “selfish”
never buy merchandise, school shirts/patches
never attend any type of paid seminar
claiming their presence is enough payment as it is bringing “exposure” to the school they are at
These are some typical behaviors I experienced and get peeved at from BJJ groupies and “competitors” you may experience during your time training or coaching BJJ.
Did I miss any, or anything I should add?
LOL… in the last year or so, I had one of these guys pretty much say ‘#7’, “If I train here [for free] I will compete a bunch for you and that’s great advertising.”
I do let him drop in, because he is good training for a couple of my students. But how many tournaments has he done? ONE. --and he threw a hissy fit when they placed him against a training partner he knew from my school and he visibly threw the match because he was upset they were making him compete against someone he knew.
Really good post op. Running a school is a fucking headache. I don’t own a school but teach at a school and I’m good friends with the owners. BJJ is expensive for most students who are hobbyists, but not really for 20 something kids who have no family. There’s really no good reason to cheap out for something you claim is your life’s passion. No one wants to pay and owners don’t generally like to hound people. It’s hard enough to get brown belts to teach a class or to get purples to show up for warm ups. I don’t know how they do it.
I haven’t paid to train since I got my Purple Belt 15 years ago but I taught classes, mopped mats and ran fight camps. When we expanded I donated my mats to the gym. I also trained with my best friends and one was the owner so it was a little different.
I don’t own a school, but I teach 4X a week at my good friend’s spot, and I am paid extremely well for it. I don’t have any obligations to handle anything on the operations side, but I do get asked things by students so I handle accordingly when I am able to.
I see the things that go on and the stuff that students ask sometimes, that I think is impolite or even rude to ask of the gym owner/office manager
Other examples
-“Can you pause my membership for 2 weeks, I’m going on a trip. Then can you start it on the 17th when I get back?”
-“your drop in is $30?! thats expensive!” proceeds to see on social media they drop into a yoga studio which charges $40+ tax. ?!?!!
I also saw someone who asked the office manager and owner if they could have a delay/pause in their membership, if not a discount yet I personally know this person financed an iPhone 13 but claimed they needed to prepare intensely for the next local tournament
I feel lke its been more than 10 (maybe 15)years since ive paid for bjj. Past 7 years i typically practice every few months. When i do, i often teach and for sure help people out. I also try to bring new people as potential sign ups. Over past two years a few times over the year i took my kid to a kids class and i made share to be an assistamt and help the whole class. Discussed payment with owner in advance since ive known him since he was a white belt. Hes told me not to worry about payment. I leave a donation after class on office desk.
people like you who are straightforward and make the effort are appreciated
Lots of this group I speak of are the early-mid/late 20s who behave like this, any typically don’t have professional careers
Many of the younger 20s people who have graduated college early and have a good career or the guys who have stable labor/trade jobs straight from high school don’t typically behave in the manner I speak down on
Put this freeloader idea into any other context: Showing up for multiple haircuts at your barber and not paying, but telling him you go out a lot and will tell people you get your haircut there as “advertising”. Calling your car leasing company and asking for a payment back because you barely drove your car for a month. Skipping out of a restaurant before the check comes and rationalizing it because you are a sophisticated eater and you tried to explain the meal to your fellow diners. It could go on and on.
People don’t like to hear it, but academy owners are business owners just like anyone else. They just happen to do something they love and their clientele look at their service as a hobby. At the end of the day it is a business though. It puts food on tables, buys kids clothes, pays for medical bills, cars and mortgages just like anyone else’s job. If you’re cool ripping academy owners off or don’t think they have a “real job” it says a lot about your character.
There are people out there who seem to think that jiu jitsu should be free like air or water. They thrive on gyms that offer open mats and the idea of “the jiu jitsu community” as if we need to stand together to fight oppression. In reality though, they are parasites who never pay a cent to train and may injure real paying students as they have no sense of being on a team and rolling with your partner’s safety in mind. Rather, they treat each “open mat” like a tournament since they would never pay to compete either.
I vastly prefer the days when teams were teams, and you trained there and nowhere else, and you would fight people from other teams at tournaments, and training elsewhere was a kind of infidelity, and loathed.
IME, teaching, being overly “cool” and permissive creates problems long term.
I have students that are under me and under someone else. I have a student who trains with me 2x a week for 6 years now that I don’t promote because I’m not his teacher, even though I have certainly taught him MOST of what he knows.
First generation American black belts, and probably most Brazilian black belts outside the Gracie family post UFC 1, all saw jiu jitsu as way more than a martial art. It was actually far from a martial art. It was the opposite of what the martial arts were back then. It was about fighting, for real. And that made it about us vs them. The Gracie family and BJJ vs the world. This idea of unity that the Gracie’s brought and the us vs them attitude spilled over to BJJ teams. It was maybe a bigger sense of pride to say you were part of Carlson Gracie, Barra, Alliance, Ralph, Renzo, Nova Uniao, etc in the late 90’s until around 2015 than whatever your actual rank was. Wearing your teams patch was a big deal and it was a lot of fun!
A lot of younger guys now don’t give a shit about any of that and it shows. They might be good at BJJ, but they are missing the best part. Belonging to something. Having a team have your back. The open mat hustler, the drop in guy, the “we are all one” and “community” dorks can shove it up their ass. They’re clueless how divisive and negative training at multiple academies can be. BJJ might be an individual sport, but without a team you got nothing
Fuck any kind of hustler much less an open mat hustler.
We had a kid who clearly was a a little lost come in to our open mat one day. At first he seemed normal enough at first but then all of us had a feeling like,’ he doesn’t belong here’. Next day he came into our gun, we were located in a fitness gym, and stole 5-600 worth of gear. I trust my brothers/teammates not many others.
Guys who hop around don’t really ever have a team or a teacher.
As a teacher I know when a purple belt or brown belt shows up and wants to join, there is ZERO loyalty with that student. There is also usually a REASON --a personality reason-- they are floating around in the ether. They will quit on a dime, at any time.
I once had a purple belt where we were the 6th gym he formally trained at. All five previous gyms were here in SoCal --I KNOW a couple of his old teachers! He lasted a few months and disappeared. I truly don’t even recall his name. --And that’s the deal. If that were one of my purple belts who went from white to purple under me, I would be devastated if they left. But that guy…? Eh, whatever.
I tend to agree with you if a higher belt shows up locally and wants to join. Only exception-they are from out f town and just moved to the area and need to find a new home gym. Some of my best students are these types who remind loyal from purple-black
Some of our younger guys like to go to other schools’ open mats. Those (I’ve found) were the guys who didn’t play team sports growing up and jiujitsu/grappling is one of the first “sports” they’ve played.
Many of them don’t understand the concept of a team and or rivalry. They buy into this hippy dippy attitude that jiujitsu is some mysterious form of brotherhood that slaps hands and fist bumps each other. It’s stupid.
Also what’s with giving five AND fist bumping. Why do guys do both? It’s dumb.
I just give five and leave the fist bump hanging. If they leave it out too long I armdrag them.
I’m not opposed to going to open mats at other gyms as an event, or once in a while thing. Attending their weekly open mat while missing the one at your home school is a different issue
One guy who trains with us and represent our team trains at another gym 3x a week to train, and comes to train with us 1 class a week and an open mat. Started with us and got to purple belt and is still with our school/ Says he needs more competitive training for competition, but gets tooled by many of the higher belts (and lower) and is far from the top of the food chain in the room but by no means near the bottom either. Come to find out he enjoys training at the other spot because he finds he can work his “offense” against the students there as most of them are newer students who are white/blue belt level. I don’t really understand his mentality but I’m not going to stop him.
If he wanted to leave for a reason like that, it’s fine, people need what they want. But to make things worse, the owner of the other school is a friend of mine. Come to find out, my borderline-creonte student pays no dues or drop in fees at the other school since he comes on the guise of “visiting” so my friend doesn’t charge him. After a few months of this, my friend who owns the other gym asked him to start paying drop in fees. Now that student of mine doesn’t go there anymore and instead frequents other open mats in the area that don’t charge a fee.
This guy is already paying dues at our school, yet makes an extra effort to get free training at many other spot in the area.
100%!! You wanna go visit your buddy? Go for it. Tell their instructor hello. You wanna train at two places at once, or even worse, skip your academy’s events to go to another’s open mat? C’mon dude. Get your shit together.
Can you imagine “dropping in” for open mat at Ryan’s in 2000 wearing a Carlson Gracie patch? Or dropping into Ricksons in the late 90’s wearing a Joe Moreira patch? Haha. You would’ve been killed dead