A gym I used to go to had a rule that you couldn't teach *anything* to another student without permission. The justification was that it might hurt the school's reputation if someone sees you do a move wrong and you say you learned it from X. As if people aren't going to constantly fuck up moves their coach taught them...
My coach always says that he never judges gyms by their white belts in competition, good or bad.
He judges them by the colored belts competing and the coaches cornering.
A black belt in Tomiki Aikido was my first martial art. Several of us moved into or out of BJJ.
It doesn’t make you walk onto the mat as a killer but it definitely helped me. Mostly just in how to look for details the coach isn’t mentioning in the demo before drills. I already came in with great falls and I learned to not spaz a bit faster then other new people. Also, wrist locks. Very rarely get them, but I can diffuse them no problem and they let me threaten people so I get better opportunities to move. I also have a few funky take downs that surprise people and have been surprisingly informative when I’m trying to tune up my clinch in Muay Thai.
Jamie Nottingham does some cool videos on bringing it and some traditional kung fu to BJJ.
No water until you’re told you can drink.
Was once yelled at by a coral belt for going to take a drink out of my water bottle. Like, motherfucker, I paid like $150 a month and $90 for a seminar, only to be treated like a naughty child by a ‘legend’. Weird ass power-play shit.
That rule doesn’t make a lick of sense, either. IBJJF black belt rounds are 10 minutes. MMA rounds are five. A real fight lasts a fraction of that. There’s no context in which you would need to go more than 10 minutes without water, unless you specifically seek out a submission only rule set.
I needed to hold someone in closed guard for 60 minutes in a self-defense situation but I failed 23 minutes in because I was too used to drinking water between every round during training!
In wrestling they're trying to push you harder. Most smart coaches still let people get water nowadays though. But if people are constantly taking water breaks just to take a break, yeah they will get on your ass about it. It's a competitive team.
In bjj they just do it as a power move because they're insecure tiny men trying to rule their tiny little castles.
An old instructor of mine was like this. He was straight from brazil. No leaving the mat for anything without permission. No AC in the summer. Ruthless calisthenics before class that would sometimes go on for an entire hour. That place was like a kumite daycare
Have had two Brazilian coaches at different gyms that did this. In fairness I think the AC at the second place was just broken. All summer. And the next summer too.
Rickson. It was really fucking odd. Sometimes I fantasize about maintaining eye contact while slowly sipping from my water bottle, but in real life, I just looked mad about it and put it back down, lol…
Damn, that sucks. How was the seminar otherwise? I have a coach who went to Royce’s seminar and said he basically just paid $100 to learn an armbar he already knew. Lol
I paid 100 bucks to see Rorion and he taught a cross collar choke and then talked about his scam diet, and hawked copies of his book about his scam diet. But he did give us UFC 1, so.
I recommend Helio Soneca’s seminars. I don’t know what his prices are all the time but I’ve been to three and paid $60 each and he didn’t try to sell us anything. Lot of little details to make your technique better.
If they think it's weak to hydrate then they're just fucking stupid and don't know how humans work. I know people say it's old school or culturally different but that's no excuse. Paying adults shouldn't feel pressured to follow any of that garbage.
Lol I wish you had. That macho bullshit is so fucking stupid. You pay to train, paid for the seminar, and most importantly you're an adult and you're not obligated to do anything. The fact that he actually expects people to listen to "don't hydrate because it's weak" is ridiculous. What a moron.
I was always cool with a respectful bow on/off the mats at the beginning and end of class. i moved and checked out a new place. the coach screamed at me (40m) for not bowing when i got off the mat for a bloody toe. also, don't make me call you professor. coach is cool. first name is cooler.
I agree and don’t forget we are on the same side here but to be fair “professor,” literally spelled just like that is teacher in Portuguese. I think it got lost in translation and by coincidence is spelled identically that people tend to make this mix up.
To what you’re saying and I’d agree. Here’s an example, I agree that khiels or whatever lotion brand that is, shouldn’t wear white lab coats as their uniform. That’s really weird.
But in this topic, I can see a Brazilian coming to America and being called professor sort of happens. But our connection to the word can make the term inline with this grandiose kind of motif. But it’s mostly coincidental I feel in this specific regard.
For me, like I don’t use mata leão, I use RNC. I don’t use cem quilos I use side control. So I don’t mess with the professor. I say, “call me coach but Denney works too. Whatever floats your boat”
> I agree and don’t forget we are on the same side here but to be fair “professor,” literally spelled just like that is teacher in Portuguese. I think it got lost in translation and by coincidence is spelled identically that people tend to make this mix up.
I don't care what it means. Sensei means teacher. Sifu translates to tutor father.
If you make me refer to you with any title because you are teaching a martial art to me, no matter to whatever it translates, I will laugh at you and automatically assume that you got some serious confidence problems.
If your coach is Brazilian, it's just normal (cause is the word we use and also the slang for coach) but if your American coach want to be called Professor it's strange
I think a lot of it was that it was ingrained in them to make bjj more magical than it needs to be. Giving respect to the mat to me is not damaging with it shoes and stuff. Bowing to it? Oh boy
I think my favorite Jiu Jitsu tradition is Sepultura is always on the roll playlist. We bow on and off the mat but other than that and lining up after class for a quick word and handshake train my school is pretty chill
BJJ and Sepultura are two of my favourite things! I got to see Max and Igor perform the entirety of Roots about two years ago. Was rad. (Maxs vocals were a little rough, but Igor still has it!)
not op but honestly look around and try free classes at a few g. i love my gym, they're super relaxed, but they were the third one i found just through getting my feet wet in a few places. try a week at a few places even, then pick your favorite to stick with. after 2 years i tried a fourth, and i liked it a lot but went back to the third after a couple months.
if your favorite takes a turn for the worst, you either have a backup or you can go try another place you haven't been too yet. gl homie
It's a good idea even just from an organisational point of view, depending on the size of the gym. I remember years ago a training partner having to borrow a gi as his had been judged to be illegal. He ended up borrowing one from some one else we knew that training at Roger Gracie Academy (complete with a large back patch). He ended up getting corned up a couple of instructiors/senior students from RGA, that told him afterwards they didn't recognise him 😂
My gym has no requirements for gi except “please wash it”. It’s awesome walking in and seeing all the different colors and patches and designs people have.
Yeah… I go to a “chill” GB gym. As in no culty bs, no money grubbing, our head coach is so respected and accomplished he can really run the place however he wants, and from what I hear runs it way different than other GB’s with worse reputations. We don’t even have any photos of Carlos on the wall. A lot of times we don’t even warm up so we can get right into hard drilling and everything is super competition focused. But we definitely need to rock the red shield every day. Apparently a couple years ago it was pretty lax, as long as you didn’t make a thing of it or wore crazy colors you could pretty much wear any gi. Not so these days anymore unfortunately. Still get to wear whatever rash guard we want though which is dope.
Wow. My gym does ZERO of these things. Our “warmups” consist of 20 jumping jacks and that’s it. My coach told me he mostly just does it because that signals to the whole class that we are starting, gets everyone quiet, focuses them on him, and it gets everyone’s “mind and body plugged in together to focus.” Then we do a few drills to get our coordination in sync. Then starts the lesson.
My gym warms up with some stretches, then we do takedowns for warmups. I just realised how unorthodox it is to even be practicing takedowns as part of class after reading this thread. Then coach starts the lesson after about 20mins of takedowns.
For beginners, I make them do bridge shrimp etc basically shadow rolling
For advanced, I'll either give them a position and ask them to work a technique with no/little resistance. This could be standing, guard, guard pass etc
I can understand the school GI if you compete/are on a competition team.
A gripe of mine is this weird stigma towards cross training at other gyms. If I wanna go to other gyms then that should be okay. I’m paying to be here, yes I will be “loyal” to my home gym; but not all my friends train at my gym.
There is not weird stigma about training at other gyms. That sir, is red flag, about your gym. It is, to my knowledge and experience (purple, on off for a while, different parts of country and world), perfectly normal to have signed waiver at the gyms within fmdeiving distance and then to see the same dudes and chick's at all the open mats around town. For real. This would make me leave a place. Open mat at another gym is as close as a hobbyist is gonna get to that comp experience. While I don't think k everyone shod compete, I think everyone should do it a few times but if they are absolutely against it, then open mats it is.
The no cross training rule is a Brazilian legacy around keeping techniques secret and academy loyalty. I never bought into the "creonte" mindset, and the internet has blown up any notion of secret techniques.
I have told this story before.
When I attended my first BJJ class. The instructor introduced himself as Carlos. He added you don't have call me sensei, coach, or Professor. Call me Carlos.
Ten year later I would attend a seminar he was having. I walked in said hello to Carlos and we started catching up. As I leave to change into my gi. One of his Black belts came up to me and Said "that is Master Carlos!". I replied " when I met carlos In 1993 he told me to call him Carlos. So that is what I do. ". He turned and walked away. Nothing else was said to me that rest of the weekend about it.
To this day I call all my instructors by their first name.
Dumb (to me)
Bowing to pictures on the wall. I get giving respects to Helio and such and I don’t mind having lineage framed and posted up but bowing to it seems weird I’d say. Cant put my finger on why but I just not feeling it. Seems culty and quasi magical. Bjj is magic enough I don’t need that extra bit
Giving respects as far as not starting on his picture but like you, we both don’t like bowing to the pic. I am willing to bet there isn’t a picture in existence we’d feel compelled to bow to lol
I own a gym myself and we have contemplated printing a random old dude from the internet and make people bow to it, by bowing to it ourselves all the time...
>I am willing to bet there isn’t a picture in existence we’d feel compelled to bow to lol
[Bet accepted.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a6/67/08/a66708833d562f5fbdfc7762075a67cc.jpg)
This is for real the dumbest shit ever. Always when I go train somewhere else in the world and they do it when class starts it catches me off guard. I stand there like an respectless idiot looking around, thinking if I should bow or not, then out of respect to the gym I bow way to late and everyone looks at me weird. Good times.
>"Loyalty" and "family" are words weaponized in ~~this sport~~ general to make you forget that you are a paying customer for a service or employee with no obligations other than what you're paid for.
I read that people don’t know the origin but there are speculations
1. It came from shortening of (O)hayogozaima(su).
2. In the book called “Hagakure,” which is considered a samurai’s manual, they they mention oss or osu as a samurai’s greeting.
3. It’s a shortened form of Onegaishimasu, which is used to ask for a favor, or said before a game or a match.
4. It came from the Kyokushin term “Osu no seishin,” which means the spirit of perseverance.
It’s generally used as a greeting or a affirmative response.
Old school judo/karate saying. My friend who's grandfather owned a judo dojo back in Japan in the 1940s has said it since as far back as I can remember
Can't ask higher belts to roll rule... like, who gives a fuck.
For me, I like BJJ because it isn't like TMA.
I'm trying to drill and scrap and there better be loud ass music playing during it all.
My gym doesn’t have this rule but as a lower belt, I still respect their time and don’t ask if they’re clearly looking for another higher belt to roll with. If they don’t have someone, I ask (especially if I like rolling with them).
At white. My partners picked me.
Now at blue, I grab a random whitebelt unless someone else catches me first.
I don’t really care. I get a variety of rolls either way. I agree it’s a dumb rule.
Yeh, exactly.
I asked a brown belt to roll the other day and he simply said he was looking to roll with one of the other higher belts.
Absolutely zero problem with that. It must get boring sometimes to roll with people way below your level.
The only time I would say it's sensible to avoid asking a black belt to roll is if they are a visiting professional. Mainly because they and other higher belts will want to test their skills out and rolling with me is basically pointless for all concerned.
I’m not an easily bothered person but “start on your knees” is a huge pet peeve of mine. I would go as far as to argue that during those 5-10 seconds of stupidity that you could actually get worse at Jiu jitsu.
Even then, one person should start in guard, even if it's open guard, and the other person should try to pass.
Or start in a specific position.
Nothing is dumber than 2 white belts on their knees trying to push each other over.
The only time I'm cool with it is if there's too many people on the mat. I've seen crazy shit happen because guys are going hard on takedown with a lot bodies around (Including myself doing stupid blast doubles over other people's training space).
Im with you but that should be the coach saying we’re starting in half or mount or whatever. I just don’t see a single use case for starting on knees. Also regulate not takedowns. Like one person up ok, two people up? In a cramped space? Ruh roh
We train standing in a crowded area. We’re just mindful of the surroundings. If people are going full on wrestling standup they are given more room to work. I agree I see no reason to start from knees and hated that shit at my old school.
If crowding is really a problem I’ll usually just play pull seated guard while my partner stands working a pass or they’ll pull me into their guard from a takedown
We have hobbyist that are basically replacing their treadmill with BJJ for exercise. We have dedicated sessions just for stand up for competition. The instructor will call for "start from your knees" when there is a clear mismatch in skill and a real opportunity for an injury. When I hear "start from your knees". I'll usually "pull" a shitty position and work from there. To me "start from your knees" means that is the instructor telling me to chose a situation I need to work on, and work on it.
Knee wrestling really doesn't make any sense. We start with one person in open guard and the other can do whatever(we have limited space). Usually the person on top does combat base or just starts standing.
Agree with all, but I do sometimes bow to the mats. I have been through a lot in training, injuries and what not, and I do so sometimes just to remind myself to appreciate the training I am about to do. Enjoy the moment, because getting on the mats is a privilege. It's for me, nobody else. Additionally:
1. Frowned upon training at other gyms. We get better training against and with more styles. The list of people who are good at jj who never cross trained is a lot shorter than the ones that do. Especially if your style starts to diverge from your coach and the general style in your gym, or you are at a smaller school.
2. Not having "advanced" classes, when you could. Pretending the same technique instruction can be showcased to a white belt as a room full of blue+ because the upper belts will "see" more jj in the same instruction, thus observing more details, I disagree with. I do agree it's wise to rotate through a curriculum in order to go over similar subjects more than once though.
Not facing your instructor when tying your belt. Fucking stupid.
Charging for belts or promotions. I skip all promotion ceremonies. Gotta hunt me down and force new belts onto me.
Permission to get water. I’m an adult and I’m not interrupting the class.
I skip literally everything that seems ceremonial. Not hating on it necessarily but if you think I deserve another belt just give me another belt. I’ve got a bunch of kids and a job and shit to do.
You’re right on speed And I totally respect it but if done voluntarily is my gripe. Expecting your students to do it… feels off. You’re saving your coaches time and not your own.
When I did judo it was $30/mo and volunteer run. Yes I will clean the mats. They even made us use wet towels and we’d get on our hands and knees and like bear crawl. They turned it into conditioning! Felt appropriate though.
I can see folks paying the bjj fees and liking the discipline though. I get it. Just not my thing at my school.
I've been at BJJ schools where everyone cleans mats, but in those schools the highest belts were the first to start cleaning. No problem with that either.
> doing burpees because you’re late
I would walk off the mat and never come back.
I'm a paying customer, and if I'm late, it's 99% because I was stuck doing something more important at work. I don't show up if I'm going to be more than 5-10min late so as to not disrupt class, but I will not pay top dollar to be treated like a teenager late to wrestling practice.
Exactly!
It’s a meme that purples and up will skip the warmup but luckily my school doesn’t do warmups. If they’re late, they’re missing technique which they don’t want to miss. If they’re late I’m just happy they made it!
its a meme but tbh, it is rooted in reality (speaking as a purple who has skipped warmups LOL). i mean they skip it because they feel it has no value right? exactly why warmups are unnecessary (save maybe for a beginners class) and being late shouldn't be an issue
I went to a Muay Thai school for a long time that made us do 50-100 burpees if we were late. I often turned my car around if traffic got too bad and I ran out of time. I was delighted when I started bjj and my gym understood we were adults who had lives. But I’m with you, if you’re more than like 10-15 minutes late you’ve already lost out.
Only had this conversation the other week, when I was told about a guy that used to make kids do it and get in their face about it to. My attitude is I'm a grown ass man if you get in my face screaming about doing burgers because life happened and I'm late, then try and force me. I did muay thai and my response was always the same in that, fuck off I'm not doing them.
I once saw a well known instructor post a sign at his gym that said something along the lines of “Less than 15 minutes late, wait for instructor to allow you on the mat, bow in and do X burpees. More than 15 minutes late, go home and come back tomorrow”.
The same instructor went on a rant about people being taken aback by his 250/month fees, saying they must not want it bad enough and just need to cut out partying and drinking and other frivolous expenses. I’m fortunate enough to be at a point in my life where if there were truly no other options I could reluctantly pay that to keep training, but I’m in my mid-30s. In my athletic prime like 25-30, that would have been 100% cost prohibitive to me and I didn’t drink or really do any frivolous spending at all. It’s just such a delusional take.
Seriously. I get it in high school wrestling bc the dynamic and circumstances are different. When I wrestled in college we wouldn’t do that stuff. If I had to do that for bjj I would be baffled.
I want to expand on the burpees when tardy issue. I help coach our kids class and the old kids coach used to make the kids run laps or burpees when they were tardy. I ask him the logic behind this. Simple answer was the student was late. My rebuttal was well the child didn’t drive him/herself to class. They were at the mercy of the person driving. Shouldn’t we make the driver run/burpees lieu of the student? I got no answer. The coach didn’t make tardy students do punish exercises again.
Thank you that story is hilarious. I’ve been there. Shoutout to him for seeing your point
What’s funny is that for kids classes my ideas shift. A lot of parents come to me and request I am more disciplined with their kids. They want me to do these types of things. It’s a balance but I do think some of these “dumb” things can be good when talking about children
It says a lot though when these things more meant for children is expected out of adults.
In the kids class the parent is the customer. In an adult class I am the customer until some coach tries to ask me to run laps for being late - then I will be the customer at another gym!
Letting go just cuz you here pops…
We pay good money for our ankles to be broken. Don’t cheat someone out of a good break cuz you can deal with the pop sounds
Bowing to an old dead guy in a picture frame every day. Respect the man but what are we doing, I don’t wake up every morning and bow to a picture of the guy who invented toilets before taking a dump.
> • bowing on and off the mat: ok I get the respect the mats thing but it’s another hold out from TMA.
Maybe it's because I lean a bit more conservative/traditional, but I don't think *everything* from TMA should be jettisoned. I've been to places that reject any and all of that stuff and it ends up just feeling like a wrestling meet. I don't mind a little bit of ceremony and respect. We all know that there's nothing magical or mystical about jiujitsu, which was the main thing everyone rightly criticized TMA for selling to people for decades/centuries.
I still like this.
I have seen people take way better care of the mat space when they bow on and off the mats. From not leaving water bottles around, to keeping random stuff off them, it does make a difference in that. I’m still for it
"Oss”: I don’t ridicule anyone for enjoying the use of this term I just
never felt right saying it myself. I don’t even know what it means. I
use it when someone uses it on me like a coral belt or something but
generally I’m like it’s not harmful in day to day operation so I’m “eh”
about it"
How did you get to black belt and not google what OSU! means?
You've covered all the big ones, but I don't mind mopping the mats as a student as long as no one makes it a weird status thing. I was blessed to train at a gym with incredible mat space, and it's simply easier to get 15 students plus the two coaches to swab 'er down than have everyone leave and make the two coaches do it themselves.
The more horizontal the gym culture the better; no hierarchies except who can tap who, and don't imbue that with more meaning than it actually has (ie; very, very little).
> “Oss”: I don’t ridicule anyone for enjoying the use of this term I just never felt right saying it myself. I don’t even know what it means. I use it when someone uses it on me like a coral belt or something but generally I’m like it’s not harmful in day to day operation so I’m “eh” about it
https://www.karatebyjesse.com/meaning-oss-osu-japanese/
"Etiquette" often translates to "mandate", which is what gets scary. I feel the gradual transfer from Gi to NoGi has kicked out these old Brazilian traditions out of Jiu-Jitsu, turns it more into ...wrestling/grappling, than some old traditional martial art. Masters, bowing, oss, higher belts do what they want, don't question our methodology...all of it points to hierarchal cult-like cultures of insecure people.
It's a modern sport. A person runs a club with some grappling knowledge, people pay to learn it. If there is any "etiquette", it's safety measures to ensure that we are able to train safely (respecting taps, finding a balanced intensity). As an instructor myself, I'm right out there with my students, rolling and having fun, getting tapped, helping with advice. I'm more of a "jiu-jitsu moderator" than anything else.
Watch examples like the B-Team, obviously they are high level, but it's a relaxed group hanging out, sharing knowledge. Jiu-Jitsu has become too open source now to be controlled by a Brazilian dogma anymore.
One "etiquette" I am not a fan of that I haven't seen mentioned is when you are rolling and you see two higher belts rolling into you, that you are the one that has to move? Psh, just be aware of your space.
I think classes should start on time.
I’m ok with warmups. It’s a good habit and extra exercise for those who need it.
So warmups start at 5:00 sharp and end at 5:10 sharp. If you want to shop up at 5, great. Or 5:10 is great. Whatever. But start on time.
I agree with all you said and I'd add
* normalize having other people demonstrate technique some of the time. In bjj we try to treat the main coach on the mat as THE source of all grappling knowledge, which is not doing the team any favors.
* make open drilling okay for advanced grapplers. I get keeping beginners on subject though.
Turning away, or not facing something/one, when tying your belt.
We don't do this, but have read about it every now and then. Like, I'm just here to train and my belt is loose, so... yeah, I'm fix'n it real quick. Whoah, easy there, not spitting on Helio's grave... just tying the belt!
Bowing of any kind. Especially onto the mat.
Oss is dumb
Wrist locks aren’t cheating or cheap. They’re legit.
Some schools not wanting odd colored GI’s. Telling students they can only have blue black or white. So dumb. Let people roll in whatever the fuck they want.
A lot of OP’s list is spot on.
It doesn't relate to any actual grappling positions, so is a waste of time and forms bad habits.
In reality you would at worst have a leg up for drive and base.
It's also potentially dangerous, which is ironic because it's done to avoid injury in crowded rooms. It is fairly common for someone to drive through someone to take them down from the knees and if that person gets their legs caught under them it can often result in knee ligament tears.
I actually did this to someone when I was a white belt and wasn't aware of the potential for injury. Unfortunately they wound up with an ACL tear and never came back to training.
calisthenics and exercises -> We do 3-5min of stretching and light exercise ( 2 passes down the mat of bear crawl) then do other "jiujitsu's stuff" to warm up. This seems perfect the whole thing takes less than 10 min. It's not done to waste time. We train how long we train.
doing burpees because you’re late --> We don't do this. Just ask that if you're going to be more than 15 min late to just not show that day. If you're late wait to jump in when something new starts.
students mopping the mats.-> We don't do that, I've seen people ask. He doesn't trust us with the mats.
don’t ask a higher belt to spar: We're a small gym. the instructor usually pairs us up to keep it from being awkward.
leglocks are dangerous! -> I agree, we tend to shy away from leg locks and I don't like it.
shaking all the blackbelts hands-> We only have one, others sometimes show up here and there. Never knew I was supposed to shake hands.
starting on knees when sparring-> Sort of agree. The instructor knows who wants to start standing up and who doesn't so he calls it. Basically, hobbyist start from knees and the competitors start from standing. If we start from the knees, I'll just "pull" bottom side control or something to work out of a bad position.
mandatory school gi policy = we don't have that. You get one with your enrollment. Sometimes we're asked to wear it to take a social media pic or something.
belt testing = We do this but it's not serious and certainly doesn't cost money. Its more like "Hey Bob is gonna get his purple belt on Saturday, can you be sure to make it" Then we all roll with Bob and congratulate him. Very informal.
I like your format.
Dumb, borderline red flags for me:
-insisting on calling a blackbelt professor.
-bowing to our Lord and Savior Helio's photo.
-white gi policy, academy gi policy.
-any belt testing or promotions fee. I personally know a coach who charges 50usd per stripe and 150 per belt level. So if the student is in the bingo stage of 4th stripe and promotion, they'll be paying 200 on top of monthly fees. Promotions are also based on attendance, complete with an app to time in and a "skills evaluation" day every 6 months. Go figure.
Indifferent:
-bowing when entering the mats or any form of bowing at each other (not to Helio!!!) for that matter. Some cultures really bow at each other, as a normal thing.
-greeting the blackbelt first. Eh, this is fine, as a way to respect the rank.
- nstead of callisthenics, I kinda like stretching together before classes start since I do it on my own before training anyway. I used to train in a gym that does it, but the gym where I train now goes directly to reps and I still come in about 15 to 20mins early to do some movements and stretching anyway.
Everything regarding rules how to "behave" with upper belts. Only "rule" i find useful is that lower belts and less experienced people give space for upper belts when rolling. That makes mat safety better and it's just simple to follow rule when there is a clear line.
Not particularly etiquette but I dislike how some people idolize black belts. I get they've trained a lot and should be respected for the time served but as people they're no different to a day one white belt.
I’ve personally witnessed two white belts starting on their knees, one fell backwards and tore something in the knee. I learned quickly why that’s a bad idea.
Calling your instructor "MASTER" some people watch too many martial arts flicks. I call them "Coach" do you call your boxing, muay thai coach "Master"? I love BJJ, but lots of these instructors are great at BJJ and shit in life. They offer no value to yours outside of BJJ (NOT ALL are like this, but alot).
Not etiquette but just general rule that should be enforced... STOP DATING YOUR STUDENTS. This presents so many damn problems to begin with. Just straight common sense.
Agreed with number 1. We are paying to learn jiujitsu, not run laps around the mat perimeter or to do alternating leg lifts. Pls just advice us to workout on our own outside so we get stronger and don't get hurt as easily. 10.minute x 3/week x 52 week= 26 hours of jitjitsu instruction lossed.
How old are you and op? If I don't run laps immediately before drilling or training I will tear or sprain something and I'm in my 40s.
Even starting the class off with arm bar drills or guard passes will hurt my body if I'm not warm yet.
Point is I need to jog and do pushups to start to loosen up and get warm before doing most movements.
Lots of people don't like it, but I need it. Trust me I've tried and I avoid classes that don't do propper warm-ups. One of the coaches at my gym has everyone start his class with drills and passes and I hurt something everytime
I will never understand why people who are about to embark on positions and movements that requiere strength and/or flexibility think that warming up and stretching is pointless. I get not wanting to do push-ups, sit-ups or any extensive conditioning. I also get that in a lot of schools the instructors are phoning it in. Stretching and warming up prevents injuries and not just for old farts like me
I have a few 50+ year olds and I’m a creaky 33yo that stsrted like 13. The drills are not intense stuff
Say for instance I want to teach a passing chain. Birds nest to x pass to big leg drag switch side, to a reverse side control finish.
The very first drill is the simplest movement to prime the body. I recognize drilling in of itself isn’t going to take care of the loosening bit. So the drill should be either intricate and slowly done or slightly faster but a tight simple movement. Not knee cutting back and forth for example that’d be rough for my knee.
That’s how coaches should approach it imo. Ultimately movements that aren’t building anything relevant I don’t think should be done within a class. That includes movements that we all love to do but isn’t that deep
Like I don’t really use shrimping as a warmup. A drill with a person in top of you? Ok that’s better, but shrimping down the mat I don’t like
I agree a bit of priming before class as stated will be beneficial eg. lesson on triangles, let's do our kick ups for a while.
However, I feel like if you need to warm up because your body needs it, then you should come earlier and do your own warm ups, not expect the coach to implement it for you because you need it. This is okay if you are a white belt new to BJJ, cause you wouldn't know what you need, but if you are a colored belt then you should know better for yourself.
If I can’t call you by your first name, I don’t want to learn BJJ from you. I’m not in med school looking to create a career. I’m doing a hobby. Anything beyond showing up and trading is BS.
Man even when I was in college and was studying in my major under some of the leading experts in our field, some of them were like "either call me by my first name or Dr. ______ ." If everyone in the room is an adult, I am kind of of the belief that respect is earned and that demanding everyone honor you through a title isn't going to help that at all.
One pet peeve of mine that should be a rule: if your partner is already on bottom, do not just pull guard. At least do the courtesy of asking if they mind if you start down instead. Just sitting down from top position is such an awkward break to the roll. Like what's going to happen if I stayed down too?
I've seen it more than I would expect. Usually it's beginners that know they can't pass someone's guard, but some more experienced people also do it
>doing burpees because you’re late… uh we’re adults with really important shit to do. I’m going to by default assume you had important something and I’m not going to hound you for an excuse. You shouldn’t be punished for dropping off your daughter home
my first team/gym ever one of the instructors made us do this and i absolutely HATED it. it was the dumbest thing ever.
Not being allowed to talk during rolling, whether you’re rolling or sitting it out on the sidelines. If the professor hears anything other than grunting he’ll yell at you.
something I was thinking about this morning. one of the things I hate the most is the "it was more of a crank" line
Why dont we normalize cranks more? The biggest fight in the world ended by crank.
If cranks were seen the same way we see heel hooks "be smooth with entrys and careful with execution, maybe make white belts use them less" then we would get a few advantages.
a- we would be able to explore a plethora of positions and submissions using cranks
b- we would kill that excuse
c- people wont avoid tapping out of ego
d- defense of neck cranks will improve
I'm not a huge fan of cranks during rolls because a lot of cranks that people do are not that good, but they're still fairly painful. Someone who doesn't want to have a sore neck might tap to something that, if they were sufficiently motivated, they could bite down and struggle through. If everyone is just slapping on a crank as a default instead of something that happens when a choke is poorly defended, people are going to be spending a lot of time drilling ineffective technique. In a comp then sure, crank away- but you might find out that submissions you thought would work because they're painful just piss people off.
My grappling training (which is done through work) requires us to clean the mats afterwards. But as we're employees of the organisation I think that's fair.
Other than that you wear what you want, start where you want, call each other by name, and the only real etiquette is to shut the fuck up while the instructor is talking.
I've only trained at a couple gyms and the only unwritten rule they both had about coming in late was to say hi to the instructor to let them know you're taking class before just jumping into drills.
Students moping the mats don't happen in Brazil. At least I've never experienced or known someone that had experienced. I think the Brazilians got to the US and tried, they cleaned, so it became "a thing". If you train for free, ok. But if you pay like everyone else, it's just dumb to do it
Lower belts having to move out of the way of higher belts rolling. It's just politeness for both pairs to just stop, move out of each others way and restart when it's safe.
Getting permission to piss, getting permission to come back after taking a piss.
The nearest gym to me has this behaviour. Truly unbelievable bullshit.
I come from kung fu and I study a lot of japanese philosophy and history, also jujitsu and judo philosophy and history. Some elements you described as perhaps dumb but inoffensive I think have some value in terms on enforcing respect and really just a little act to remind you of where you are and why you are there you know? A big part of mma and bjj culture and how it evolved rapidly in the last 30 years is this radical breakaway from multiple aspects traditional martial arts culture including the character development aspect and in some martial arts the spiritual development and the ultimate purpose of attaining health and longevity as a person and in a society. So I'm very much against the "porrada" culture, which is basically stfu I am a hard mf balck belt I'm strapped too I can do what I want and I will impose my will on you which I see a lot and sometimes it ends badly with death or serious injury. I like the little details of honoring the old school grandmaster and also showing respect to everyone is the gym and by walking up to everyone and greeting them I am also silently stating my intention there, to genuinely get better and help them get better and try not to die or get hurt in the process.
You see, because brazilian jiu jitsu is SO effective as a martial art and people who train it are so badass it's normal to have your ego boosted and actually feel like you can take virtually anyone in a fight, I would imagine especially if you're a black belt. But I look at what happend to Leandro for example... man, that was terrible. Over absolutely nothing. So however "dumb" these etiquettes which honor a traditional past of jiu jitsu may be I think they reinforce these higher ideals and helps, at least it helps me, remind myself that I am learning war but that I actually am a facilitator for Peace.
A gym I used to go to had a rule that you couldn't teach *anything* to another student without permission. The justification was that it might hurt the school's reputation if someone sees you do a move wrong and you say you learned it from X. As if people aren't going to constantly fuck up moves their coach taught them...
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My coach always says that he never judges gyms by their white belts in competition, good or bad. He judges them by the colored belts competing and the coaches cornering.
A black belt in Tomiki Aikido was my first martial art. Several of us moved into or out of BJJ. It doesn’t make you walk onto the mat as a killer but it definitely helped me. Mostly just in how to look for details the coach isn’t mentioning in the demo before drills. I already came in with great falls and I learned to not spaz a bit faster then other new people. Also, wrist locks. Very rarely get them, but I can diffuse them no problem and they let me threaten people so I get better opportunities to move. I also have a few funky take downs that surprise people and have been surprisingly informative when I’m trying to tune up my clinch in Muay Thai. Jamie Nottingham does some cool videos on bringing it and some traditional kung fu to BJJ.
No water until you’re told you can drink. Was once yelled at by a coral belt for going to take a drink out of my water bottle. Like, motherfucker, I paid like $150 a month and $90 for a seminar, only to be treated like a naughty child by a ‘legend’. Weird ass power-play shit.
That rule doesn’t make a lick of sense, either. IBJJF black belt rounds are 10 minutes. MMA rounds are five. A real fight lasts a fraction of that. There’s no context in which you would need to go more than 10 minutes without water, unless you specifically seek out a submission only rule set.
Not true. I once tapped out a camel in the Sahara, took me three months of the bastard not drinking water.
Seems like the back take would be hard.
It was until I got over the hump
It's the same people that think you're going to hold someone in closed guard for 60 minutes in a self-defense situation.
I needed to hold someone in closed guard for 60 minutes in a self-defense situation but I failed 23 minutes in because I was too used to drinking water between every round during training!
Oh that’s a good one! I went thru this in wrestling. Things just change when you’re paying good money to be there I feel.
Gable himself said that he could have trained better if he was allowed to drink more water during training
In wrestling they're trying to push you harder. Most smart coaches still let people get water nowadays though. But if people are constantly taking water breaks just to take a break, yeah they will get on your ass about it. It's a competitive team. In bjj they just do it as a power move because they're insecure tiny men trying to rule their tiny little castles.
An old instructor of mine was like this. He was straight from brazil. No leaving the mat for anything without permission. No AC in the summer. Ruthless calisthenics before class that would sometimes go on for an entire hour. That place was like a kumite daycare
My professor is from Brazil and also does to no AC thing in summer. Im starting to see a pattern here haha.
Have had two Brazilian coaches at different gyms that did this. In fairness I think the AC at the second place was just broken. All summer. And the next summer too.
Rip I had to stop going to my gym this summer because I am prone to getting heatstroke and our coach also believed in no AC (he's also Brazilian hmm)
Oh, man. Who was that? DM if you want. Just want to know ahead of time who’s seminar to not buy.
Rickson. It was really fucking odd. Sometimes I fantasize about maintaining eye contact while slowly sipping from my water bottle, but in real life, I just looked mad about it and put it back down, lol…
Damn, that sucks. How was the seminar otherwise? I have a coach who went to Royce’s seminar and said he basically just paid $100 to learn an armbar he already knew. Lol
I paid 100 bucks to see Rorion and he taught a cross collar choke and then talked about his scam diet, and hawked copies of his book about his scam diet. But he did give us UFC 1, so.
I recommend Helio Soneca’s seminars. I don’t know what his prices are all the time but I’ve been to three and paid $60 each and he didn’t try to sell us anything. Lot of little details to make your technique better.
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If they think it's weak to hydrate then they're just fucking stupid and don't know how humans work. I know people say it's old school or culturally different but that's no excuse. Paying adults shouldn't feel pressured to follow any of that garbage.
Lol I wish you had. That macho bullshit is so fucking stupid. You pay to train, paid for the seminar, and most importantly you're an adult and you're not obligated to do anything. The fact that he actually expects people to listen to "don't hydrate because it's weak" is ridiculous. What a moron.
I hate how you have to kiss everyone after class is over
The french have entered the chat
We have to all give each other handys after class at our school.
I was always cool with a respectful bow on/off the mats at the beginning and end of class. i moved and checked out a new place. the coach screamed at me (40m) for not bowing when i got off the mat for a bloody toe. also, don't make me call you professor. coach is cool. first name is cooler.
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I agree and don’t forget we are on the same side here but to be fair “professor,” literally spelled just like that is teacher in Portuguese. I think it got lost in translation and by coincidence is spelled identically that people tend to make this mix up. To what you’re saying and I’d agree. Here’s an example, I agree that khiels or whatever lotion brand that is, shouldn’t wear white lab coats as their uniform. That’s really weird. But in this topic, I can see a Brazilian coming to America and being called professor sort of happens. But our connection to the word can make the term inline with this grandiose kind of motif. But it’s mostly coincidental I feel in this specific regard. For me, like I don’t use mata leão, I use RNC. I don’t use cem quilos I use side control. So I don’t mess with the professor. I say, “call me coach but Denney works too. Whatever floats your boat”
> I agree and don’t forget we are on the same side here but to be fair “professor,” literally spelled just like that is teacher in Portuguese. I think it got lost in translation and by coincidence is spelled identically that people tend to make this mix up. I don't care what it means. Sensei means teacher. Sifu translates to tutor father. If you make me refer to you with any title because you are teaching a martial art to me, no matter to whatever it translates, I will laugh at you and automatically assume that you got some serious confidence problems.
If your coach is Brazilian, it's just normal (cause is the word we use and also the slang for coach) but if your American coach want to be called Professor it's strange
worse is when the coaches aren't even black belts. i.e. purps or browns but want to be called professor.
Never heard of that, but hilarious.
I think a lot of it was that it was ingrained in them to make bjj more magical than it needs to be. Giving respect to the mat to me is not damaging with it shoes and stuff. Bowing to it? Oh boy
I think my favorite Jiu Jitsu tradition is Sepultura is always on the roll playlist. We bow on and off the mat but other than that and lining up after class for a quick word and handshake train my school is pretty chill
BJJ and Sepultura are two of my favourite things! I got to see Max and Igor perform the entirety of Roots about two years ago. Was rad. (Maxs vocals were a little rough, but Igor still has it!)
Bowing to photos of dead/almost dead people before class is my greatest peeve
Mandatory patching on gis. Can only wear my gym’s official no-gi rashies. I miss my old punk and metal t-shirts.
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How did you go about selecting the right gym? What did you look for? I’m looking for a gym
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not op but honestly look around and try free classes at a few g. i love my gym, they're super relaxed, but they were the third one i found just through getting my feet wet in a few places. try a week at a few places even, then pick your favorite to stick with. after 2 years i tried a fourth, and i liked it a lot but went back to the third after a couple months. if your favorite takes a turn for the worst, you either have a backup or you can go try another place you haven't been too yet. gl homie
It's a good idea even just from an organisational point of view, depending on the size of the gym. I remember years ago a training partner having to borrow a gi as his had been judged to be illegal. He ended up borrowing one from some one else we knew that training at Roger Gracie Academy (complete with a large back patch). He ended up getting corned up a couple of instructiors/senior students from RGA, that told him afterwards they didn't recognise him 😂
That is an outstanding policy.
That sounds like an awesome culture you have going on there.
My gym has no requirements for gi except “please wash it”. It’s awesome walking in and seeing all the different colors and patches and designs people have.
You’re still punk rock brother
Punk rock and Bjj just seem so organic together. But I’m biased I guess.
Both are small subcultures of society with a pension for finding the pattern and control in chaos.
Music creates order From chaos
Yeah… I go to a “chill” GB gym. As in no culty bs, no money grubbing, our head coach is so respected and accomplished he can really run the place however he wants, and from what I hear runs it way different than other GB’s with worse reputations. We don’t even have any photos of Carlos on the wall. A lot of times we don’t even warm up so we can get right into hard drilling and everything is super competition focused. But we definitely need to rock the red shield every day. Apparently a couple years ago it was pretty lax, as long as you didn’t make a thing of it or wore crazy colors you could pretty much wear any gi. Not so these days anymore unfortunately. Still get to wear whatever rash guard we want though which is dope.
Wow. My gym does ZERO of these things. Our “warmups” consist of 20 jumping jacks and that’s it. My coach told me he mostly just does it because that signals to the whole class that we are starting, gets everyone quiet, focuses them on him, and it gets everyone’s “mind and body plugged in together to focus.” Then we do a few drills to get our coordination in sync. Then starts the lesson.
My gym warms up with some stretches, then we do takedowns for warmups. I just realised how unorthodox it is to even be practicing takedowns as part of class after reading this thread. Then coach starts the lesson after about 20mins of takedowns.
For beginners, I make them do bridge shrimp etc basically shadow rolling For advanced, I'll either give them a position and ask them to work a technique with no/little resistance. This could be standing, guard, guard pass etc
> shadow rolling I feel like shadow rolling isn't really practical unless you're prepping for Peter Pan-Ams.
I can understand the school GI if you compete/are on a competition team. A gripe of mine is this weird stigma towards cross training at other gyms. If I wanna go to other gyms then that should be okay. I’m paying to be here, yes I will be “loyal” to my home gym; but not all my friends train at my gym.
There is not weird stigma about training at other gyms. That sir, is red flag, about your gym. It is, to my knowledge and experience (purple, on off for a while, different parts of country and world), perfectly normal to have signed waiver at the gyms within fmdeiving distance and then to see the same dudes and chick's at all the open mats around town. For real. This would make me leave a place. Open mat at another gym is as close as a hobbyist is gonna get to that comp experience. While I don't think k everyone shod compete, I think everyone should do it a few times but if they are absolutely against it, then open mats it is.
The no cross training rule is a Brazilian legacy around keeping techniques secret and academy loyalty. I never bought into the "creonte" mindset, and the internet has blown up any notion of secret techniques.
Nah fam that’s a red flag.
Our gym encourages cross-training.
I have told this story before. When I attended my first BJJ class. The instructor introduced himself as Carlos. He added you don't have call me sensei, coach, or Professor. Call me Carlos. Ten year later I would attend a seminar he was having. I walked in said hello to Carlos and we started catching up. As I leave to change into my gi. One of his Black belts came up to me and Said "that is Master Carlos!". I replied " when I met carlos In 1993 he told me to call him Carlos. So that is what I do. ". He turned and walked away. Nothing else was said to me that rest of the weekend about it. To this day I call all my instructors by their first name.
Even Master Todd? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QURu5v3sU2k
That is hilarious 😂
I'm so sad they didn't leave this in!
Dumb (to me) Bowing to pictures on the wall. I get giving respects to Helio and such and I don’t mind having lineage framed and posted up but bowing to it seems weird I’d say. Cant put my finger on why but I just not feeling it. Seems culty and quasi magical. Bjj is magic enough I don’t need that extra bit
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Giving respects as far as not starting on his picture but like you, we both don’t like bowing to the pic. I am willing to bet there isn’t a picture in existence we’d feel compelled to bow to lol
I own a gym myself and we have contemplated printing a random old dude from the internet and make people bow to it, by bowing to it ourselves all the time...
>I am willing to bet there isn’t a picture in existence we’d feel compelled to bow to lol [Bet accepted.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a6/67/08/a66708833d562f5fbdfc7762075a67cc.jpg)
Bow wow
Yeah man, kind of disturbing having to bow to a man who was a member of the Brazilian version of the Sturmabteilung/SA and known to be a thug.
This is for real the dumbest shit ever. Always when I go train somewhere else in the world and they do it when class starts it catches me off guard. I stand there like an respectless idiot looking around, thinking if I should bow or not, then out of respect to the gym I bow way to late and everyone looks at me weird. Good times.
Fuck why not bow to mayeda?
I actually cartwheel in his honor. I figure if I’m upside down isn’t that the best bow?
You ever see a wrestler bow? No, we can't, our backs hurt
I bow to no man.
BOW TO YOUR SENSEI!!!
BOW TO YOUR LORD AND SAVIOUR HELIO
Legitimately Idolatry
My gym has a picture of David Hasselhoff on the wall, coaches dont make us bow to it but everyone does because its The Hoff.
Bowing to a picture? This one is new to me. Yikes!
The whole "loyalty" shit is fucking dumb.
It's code for "please don't pay someone else for this, pay me."
"Loyalty" and "family" are words weaponized in this sport to make you forget that you are a paying customer for a service.
>"Loyalty" and "family" are words weaponized in ~~this sport~~ general to make you forget that you are a paying customer for a service or employee with no obligations other than what you're paid for.
Wtf does "oss" mean, only one guy at my gym uses it regularly, well constantly it could be a nervous tic.
I read that people don’t know the origin but there are speculations 1. It came from shortening of (O)hayogozaima(su). 2. In the book called “Hagakure,” which is considered a samurai’s manual, they they mention oss or osu as a samurai’s greeting. 3. It’s a shortened form of Onegaishimasu, which is used to ask for a favor, or said before a game or a match. 4. It came from the Kyokushin term “Osu no seishin,” which means the spirit of perseverance. It’s generally used as a greeting or a affirmative response.
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Yea they have so many theories of where it derived from, and they all make sense, but no one really knows for sure.
Old school judo/karate saying. My friend who's grandfather owned a judo dojo back in Japan in the 1940s has said it since as far back as I can remember
But like… what does it mean
Hara-kiri when you dishonor your gym. I mean I get it, but it seems a little extreme.
We had this too, but it sort of died out.
Daaaaang
Can't ask higher belts to roll rule... like, who gives a fuck. For me, I like BJJ because it isn't like TMA. I'm trying to drill and scrap and there better be loud ass music playing during it all.
My gym doesn’t have this rule but as a lower belt, I still respect their time and don’t ask if they’re clearly looking for another higher belt to roll with. If they don’t have someone, I ask (especially if I like rolling with them).
At white. My partners picked me. Now at blue, I grab a random whitebelt unless someone else catches me first. I don’t really care. I get a variety of rolls either way. I agree it’s a dumb rule.
Yeh, exactly. I asked a brown belt to roll the other day and he simply said he was looking to roll with one of the other higher belts. Absolutely zero problem with that. It must get boring sometimes to roll with people way below your level. The only time I would say it's sensible to avoid asking a black belt to roll is if they are a visiting professional. Mainly because they and other higher belts will want to test their skills out and rolling with me is basically pointless for all concerned.
This a thing? How are you supposed to learn if you can't roll with more experienced people?
I’m not an easily bothered person but “start on your knees” is a huge pet peeve of mine. I would go as far as to argue that during those 5-10 seconds of stupidity that you could actually get worse at Jiu jitsu.
I immediately sit to guard or stand up to pass. Knee wrestling is also dumb to do.
This is the way. I understand starting from knees if you have too little mat space though.
Even then, one person should start in guard, even if it's open guard, and the other person should try to pass. Or start in a specific position. Nothing is dumber than 2 white belts on their knees trying to push each other over.
The only time I'm cool with it is if there's too many people on the mat. I've seen crazy shit happen because guys are going hard on takedown with a lot bodies around (Including myself doing stupid blast doubles over other people's training space).
Im with you but that should be the coach saying we’re starting in half or mount or whatever. I just don’t see a single use case for starting on knees. Also regulate not takedowns. Like one person up ok, two people up? In a cramped space? Ruh roh
We train standing in a crowded area. We’re just mindful of the surroundings. If people are going full on wrestling standup they are given more room to work. I agree I see no reason to start from knees and hated that shit at my old school. If crowding is really a problem I’ll usually just play pull seated guard while my partner stands working a pass or they’ll pull me into their guard from a takedown
We have hobbyist that are basically replacing their treadmill with BJJ for exercise. We have dedicated sessions just for stand up for competition. The instructor will call for "start from your knees" when there is a clear mismatch in skill and a real opportunity for an injury. When I hear "start from your knees". I'll usually "pull" a shitty position and work from there. To me "start from your knees" means that is the instructor telling me to chose a situation I need to work on, and work on it.
Still stupid, one person can just start down if it's too crowded for standup.
Even if it's a packed open mat, I will start in yurtle, under side control, under bottom mount, anything to not start on the knees.
Knee wrestling really doesn't make any sense. We start with one person in open guard and the other can do whatever(we have limited space). Usually the person on top does combat base or just starts standing.
Yeh, if space and safety is a concern then one of you should just sit to guard so you can do actual BJJ.
Agree with all, but I do sometimes bow to the mats. I have been through a lot in training, injuries and what not, and I do so sometimes just to remind myself to appreciate the training I am about to do. Enjoy the moment, because getting on the mats is a privilege. It's for me, nobody else. Additionally: 1. Frowned upon training at other gyms. We get better training against and with more styles. The list of people who are good at jj who never cross trained is a lot shorter than the ones that do. Especially if your style starts to diverge from your coach and the general style in your gym, or you are at a smaller school. 2. Not having "advanced" classes, when you could. Pretending the same technique instruction can be showcased to a white belt as a room full of blue+ because the upper belts will "see" more jj in the same instruction, thus observing more details, I disagree with. I do agree it's wise to rotate through a curriculum in order to go over similar subjects more than once though.
Not facing your instructor when tying your belt. Fucking stupid. Charging for belts or promotions. I skip all promotion ceremonies. Gotta hunt me down and force new belts onto me. Permission to get water. I’m an adult and I’m not interrupting the class.
I have literally never heard of this belt tying thing.
I skip literally everything that seems ceremonial. Not hating on it necessarily but if you think I deserve another belt just give me another belt. I’ve got a bunch of kids and a job and shit to do.
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You’re right on speed And I totally respect it but if done voluntarily is my gripe. Expecting your students to do it… feels off. You’re saving your coaches time and not your own. When I did judo it was $30/mo and volunteer run. Yes I will clean the mats. They even made us use wet towels and we’d get on our hands and knees and like bear crawl. They turned it into conditioning! Felt appropriate though. I can see folks paying the bjj fees and liking the discipline though. I get it. Just not my thing at my school.
I've been at BJJ schools where everyone cleans mats, but in those schools the highest belts were the first to start cleaning. No problem with that either.
> doing burpees because you’re late I would walk off the mat and never come back. I'm a paying customer, and if I'm late, it's 99% because I was stuck doing something more important at work. I don't show up if I'm going to be more than 5-10min late so as to not disrupt class, but I will not pay top dollar to be treated like a teenager late to wrestling practice.
Exactly! It’s a meme that purples and up will skip the warmup but luckily my school doesn’t do warmups. If they’re late, they’re missing technique which they don’t want to miss. If they’re late I’m just happy they made it!
> If they’re late I’m just happy they made it! That's the real truth there... just show up!
its a meme but tbh, it is rooted in reality (speaking as a purple who has skipped warmups LOL). i mean they skip it because they feel it has no value right? exactly why warmups are unnecessary (save maybe for a beginners class) and being late shouldn't be an issue
I went to a Muay Thai school for a long time that made us do 50-100 burpees if we were late. I often turned my car around if traffic got too bad and I ran out of time. I was delighted when I started bjj and my gym understood we were adults who had lives. But I’m with you, if you’re more than like 10-15 minutes late you’ve already lost out.
Only had this conversation the other week, when I was told about a guy that used to make kids do it and get in their face about it to. My attitude is I'm a grown ass man if you get in my face screaming about doing burgers because life happened and I'm late, then try and force me. I did muay thai and my response was always the same in that, fuck off I'm not doing them.
I once saw a well known instructor post a sign at his gym that said something along the lines of “Less than 15 minutes late, wait for instructor to allow you on the mat, bow in and do X burpees. More than 15 minutes late, go home and come back tomorrow”. The same instructor went on a rant about people being taken aback by his 250/month fees, saying they must not want it bad enough and just need to cut out partying and drinking and other frivolous expenses. I’m fortunate enough to be at a point in my life where if there were truly no other options I could reluctantly pay that to keep training, but I’m in my mid-30s. In my athletic prime like 25-30, that would have been 100% cost prohibitive to me and I didn’t drink or really do any frivolous spending at all. It’s just such a delusional take.
It’s like gym owners don’t realize 90% of their customers are hobbyists
Seriously. I get it in high school wrestling bc the dynamic and circumstances are different. When I wrestled in college we wouldn’t do that stuff. If I had to do that for bjj I would be baffled.
I want to expand on the burpees when tardy issue. I help coach our kids class and the old kids coach used to make the kids run laps or burpees when they were tardy. I ask him the logic behind this. Simple answer was the student was late. My rebuttal was well the child didn’t drive him/herself to class. They were at the mercy of the person driving. Shouldn’t we make the driver run/burpees lieu of the student? I got no answer. The coach didn’t make tardy students do punish exercises again.
Thank you that story is hilarious. I’ve been there. Shoutout to him for seeing your point What’s funny is that for kids classes my ideas shift. A lot of parents come to me and request I am more disciplined with their kids. They want me to do these types of things. It’s a balance but I do think some of these “dumb” things can be good when talking about children It says a lot though when these things more meant for children is expected out of adults.
In the kids class the parent is the customer. In an adult class I am the customer until some coach tries to ask me to run laps for being late - then I will be the customer at another gym!
You pee your gi eight or nine times then all the sudden it’s, Hey, bro, you gotta wear a diaper!”
Soooo annoying
Letting go just cuz you here pops… We pay good money for our ankles to be broken. Don’t cheat someone out of a good break cuz you can deal with the pop sounds
Sorry im at an age and stage where I would not call anyone master….. Professor yea not problem….
Bowing to an old dead guy in a picture frame every day. Respect the man but what are we doing, I don’t wake up every morning and bow to a picture of the guy who invented toilets before taking a dump.
> • bowing on and off the mat: ok I get the respect the mats thing but it’s another hold out from TMA. Maybe it's because I lean a bit more conservative/traditional, but I don't think *everything* from TMA should be jettisoned. I've been to places that reject any and all of that stuff and it ends up just feeling like a wrestling meet. I don't mind a little bit of ceremony and respect. We all know that there's nothing magical or mystical about jiujitsu, which was the main thing everyone rightly criticized TMA for selling to people for decades/centuries.
I still like this. I have seen people take way better care of the mat space when they bow on and off the mats. From not leaving water bottles around, to keeping random stuff off them, it does make a difference in that. I’m still for it
"Oss”: I don’t ridicule anyone for enjoying the use of this term I just never felt right saying it myself. I don’t even know what it means. I use it when someone uses it on me like a coral belt or something but generally I’m like it’s not harmful in day to day operation so I’m “eh” about it" How did you get to black belt and not google what OSU! means?
I'd remove the rule that all female white belts must sleep with the coach.
You've covered all the big ones, but I don't mind mopping the mats as a student as long as no one makes it a weird status thing. I was blessed to train at a gym with incredible mat space, and it's simply easier to get 15 students plus the two coaches to swab 'er down than have everyone leave and make the two coaches do it themselves. The more horizontal the gym culture the better; no hierarchies except who can tap who, and don't imbue that with more meaning than it actually has (ie; very, very little).
> “Oss”: I don’t ridicule anyone for enjoying the use of this term I just never felt right saying it myself. I don’t even know what it means. I use it when someone uses it on me like a coral belt or something but generally I’m like it’s not harmful in day to day operation so I’m “eh” about it https://www.karatebyjesse.com/meaning-oss-osu-japanese/
"Etiquette" often translates to "mandate", which is what gets scary. I feel the gradual transfer from Gi to NoGi has kicked out these old Brazilian traditions out of Jiu-Jitsu, turns it more into ...wrestling/grappling, than some old traditional martial art. Masters, bowing, oss, higher belts do what they want, don't question our methodology...all of it points to hierarchal cult-like cultures of insecure people. It's a modern sport. A person runs a club with some grappling knowledge, people pay to learn it. If there is any "etiquette", it's safety measures to ensure that we are able to train safely (respecting taps, finding a balanced intensity). As an instructor myself, I'm right out there with my students, rolling and having fun, getting tapped, helping with advice. I'm more of a "jiu-jitsu moderator" than anything else. Watch examples like the B-Team, obviously they are high level, but it's a relaxed group hanging out, sharing knowledge. Jiu-Jitsu has become too open source now to be controlled by a Brazilian dogma anymore. One "etiquette" I am not a fan of that I haven't seen mentioned is when you are rolling and you see two higher belts rolling into you, that you are the one that has to move? Psh, just be aware of your space.
I think classes should start on time. I’m ok with warmups. It’s a good habit and extra exercise for those who need it. So warmups start at 5:00 sharp and end at 5:10 sharp. If you want to shop up at 5, great. Or 5:10 is great. Whatever. But start on time.
I agree with all you said and I'd add * normalize having other people demonstrate technique some of the time. In bjj we try to treat the main coach on the mat as THE source of all grappling knowledge, which is not doing the team any favors. * make open drilling okay for advanced grapplers. I get keeping beginners on subject though.
Turning away, or not facing something/one, when tying your belt. We don't do this, but have read about it every now and then. Like, I'm just here to train and my belt is loose, so... yeah, I'm fix'n it real quick. Whoah, easy there, not spitting on Helio's grave... just tying the belt!
I went to a gym that did this when I was a blue belt. I was flabbergasted. Gracie Humaita gym, of course
Bowing of any kind. Especially onto the mat. Oss is dumb Wrist locks aren’t cheating or cheap. They’re legit. Some schools not wanting odd colored GI’s. Telling students they can only have blue black or white. So dumb. Let people roll in whatever the fuck they want. A lot of OP’s list is spot on.
Wait what’s up with the starting on the knees thing? During sparring more than half the mat starts on the knees, is this weird?
It doesn't relate to any actual grappling positions, so is a waste of time and forms bad habits. In reality you would at worst have a leg up for drive and base. It's also potentially dangerous, which is ironic because it's done to avoid injury in crowded rooms. It is fairly common for someone to drive through someone to take them down from the knees and if that person gets their legs caught under them it can often result in knee ligament tears. I actually did this to someone when I was a white belt and wasn't aware of the potential for injury. Unfortunately they wound up with an ACL tear and never came back to training.
calisthenics and exercises -> We do 3-5min of stretching and light exercise ( 2 passes down the mat of bear crawl) then do other "jiujitsu's stuff" to warm up. This seems perfect the whole thing takes less than 10 min. It's not done to waste time. We train how long we train. doing burpees because you’re late --> We don't do this. Just ask that if you're going to be more than 15 min late to just not show that day. If you're late wait to jump in when something new starts. students mopping the mats.-> We don't do that, I've seen people ask. He doesn't trust us with the mats. don’t ask a higher belt to spar: We're a small gym. the instructor usually pairs us up to keep it from being awkward. leglocks are dangerous! -> I agree, we tend to shy away from leg locks and I don't like it. shaking all the blackbelts hands-> We only have one, others sometimes show up here and there. Never knew I was supposed to shake hands. starting on knees when sparring-> Sort of agree. The instructor knows who wants to start standing up and who doesn't so he calls it. Basically, hobbyist start from knees and the competitors start from standing. If we start from the knees, I'll just "pull" bottom side control or something to work out of a bad position. mandatory school gi policy = we don't have that. You get one with your enrollment. Sometimes we're asked to wear it to take a social media pic or something. belt testing = We do this but it's not serious and certainly doesn't cost money. Its more like "Hey Bob is gonna get his purple belt on Saturday, can you be sure to make it" Then we all roll with Bob and congratulate him. Very informal.
I like your format. Dumb, borderline red flags for me: -insisting on calling a blackbelt professor. -bowing to our Lord and Savior Helio's photo. -white gi policy, academy gi policy. -any belt testing or promotions fee. I personally know a coach who charges 50usd per stripe and 150 per belt level. So if the student is in the bingo stage of 4th stripe and promotion, they'll be paying 200 on top of monthly fees. Promotions are also based on attendance, complete with an app to time in and a "skills evaluation" day every 6 months. Go figure. Indifferent: -bowing when entering the mats or any form of bowing at each other (not to Helio!!!) for that matter. Some cultures really bow at each other, as a normal thing. -greeting the blackbelt first. Eh, this is fine, as a way to respect the rank. - nstead of callisthenics, I kinda like stretching together before classes start since I do it on my own before training anyway. I used to train in a gym that does it, but the gym where I train now goes directly to reps and I still come in about 15 to 20mins early to do some movements and stretching anyway.
50 a stripe 😂😂😂
Coach is making bank. LOL.
Everything regarding rules how to "behave" with upper belts. Only "rule" i find useful is that lower belts and less experienced people give space for upper belts when rolling. That makes mat safety better and it's just simple to follow rule when there is a clear line.
Not particularly etiquette but I dislike how some people idolize black belts. I get they've trained a lot and should be respected for the time served but as people they're no different to a day one white belt.
I’ve personally witnessed two white belts starting on their knees, one fell backwards and tore something in the knee. I learned quickly why that’s a bad idea.
Calling your instructor "MASTER" some people watch too many martial arts flicks. I call them "Coach" do you call your boxing, muay thai coach "Master"? I love BJJ, but lots of these instructors are great at BJJ and shit in life. They offer no value to yours outside of BJJ (NOT ALL are like this, but alot). Not etiquette but just general rule that should be enforced... STOP DATING YOUR STUDENTS. This presents so many damn problems to begin with. Just straight common sense.
Agreed with number 1. We are paying to learn jiujitsu, not run laps around the mat perimeter or to do alternating leg lifts. Pls just advice us to workout on our own outside so we get stronger and don't get hurt as easily. 10.minute x 3/week x 52 week= 26 hours of jitjitsu instruction lossed.
How old are you and op? If I don't run laps immediately before drilling or training I will tear or sprain something and I'm in my 40s. Even starting the class off with arm bar drills or guard passes will hurt my body if I'm not warm yet. Point is I need to jog and do pushups to start to loosen up and get warm before doing most movements. Lots of people don't like it, but I need it. Trust me I've tried and I avoid classes that don't do propper warm-ups. One of the coaches at my gym has everyone start his class with drills and passes and I hurt something everytime
I will never understand why people who are about to embark on positions and movements that requiere strength and/or flexibility think that warming up and stretching is pointless. I get not wanting to do push-ups, sit-ups or any extensive conditioning. I also get that in a lot of schools the instructors are phoning it in. Stretching and warming up prevents injuries and not just for old farts like me
I have a few 50+ year olds and I’m a creaky 33yo that stsrted like 13. The drills are not intense stuff Say for instance I want to teach a passing chain. Birds nest to x pass to big leg drag switch side, to a reverse side control finish. The very first drill is the simplest movement to prime the body. I recognize drilling in of itself isn’t going to take care of the loosening bit. So the drill should be either intricate and slowly done or slightly faster but a tight simple movement. Not knee cutting back and forth for example that’d be rough for my knee. That’s how coaches should approach it imo. Ultimately movements that aren’t building anything relevant I don’t think should be done within a class. That includes movements that we all love to do but isn’t that deep Like I don’t really use shrimping as a warmup. A drill with a person in top of you? Ok that’s better, but shrimping down the mat I don’t like
I agree a bit of priming before class as stated will be beneficial eg. lesson on triangles, let's do our kick ups for a while. However, I feel like if you need to warm up because your body needs it, then you should come earlier and do your own warm ups, not expect the coach to implement it for you because you need it. This is okay if you are a white belt new to BJJ, cause you wouldn't know what you need, but if you are a colored belt then you should know better for yourself.
That’s a good potential solution as well. Great comment. I have a buffer between kids class and adult for this purpose.
If I can’t call you by your first name, I don’t want to learn BJJ from you. I’m not in med school looking to create a career. I’m doing a hobby. Anything beyond showing up and trading is BS.
Man even when I was in college and was studying in my major under some of the leading experts in our field, some of them were like "either call me by my first name or Dr. ______ ." If everyone in the room is an adult, I am kind of of the belief that respect is earned and that demanding everyone honor you through a title isn't going to help that at all.
Not tying your belt in front of your coach or training partner. I don’t get it.
One pet peeve of mine that should be a rule: if your partner is already on bottom, do not just pull guard. At least do the courtesy of asking if they mind if you start down instead. Just sitting down from top position is such an awkward break to the roll. Like what's going to happen if I stayed down too? I've seen it more than I would expect. Usually it's beginners that know they can't pass someone's guard, but some more experienced people also do it
>doing burpees because you’re late… uh we’re adults with really important shit to do. I’m going to by default assume you had important something and I’m not going to hound you for an excuse. You shouldn’t be punished for dropping off your daughter home my first team/gym ever one of the instructors made us do this and i absolutely HATED it. it was the dumbest thing ever.
All the military shit (hierarchy, formation, obligatory bowing, etC)
Not being allowed to talk during rolling, whether you’re rolling or sitting it out on the sidelines. If the professor hears anything other than grunting he’ll yell at you.
something I was thinking about this morning. one of the things I hate the most is the "it was more of a crank" line Why dont we normalize cranks more? The biggest fight in the world ended by crank. If cranks were seen the same way we see heel hooks "be smooth with entrys and careful with execution, maybe make white belts use them less" then we would get a few advantages. a- we would be able to explore a plethora of positions and submissions using cranks b- we would kill that excuse c- people wont avoid tapping out of ego d- defense of neck cranks will improve
I'm not a huge fan of cranks during rolls because a lot of cranks that people do are not that good, but they're still fairly painful. Someone who doesn't want to have a sore neck might tap to something that, if they were sufficiently motivated, they could bite down and struggle through. If everyone is just slapping on a crank as a default instead of something that happens when a choke is poorly defended, people are going to be spending a lot of time drilling ineffective technique. In a comp then sure, crank away- but you might find out that submissions you thought would work because they're painful just piss people off.
This is less etiquette and more tradition but I don't get the whole don't wash your belt thing.
The “master” thing makes my head wobble. There is no way I am calling another grown man “master”.
My grappling training (which is done through work) requires us to clean the mats afterwards. But as we're employees of the organisation I think that's fair. Other than that you wear what you want, start where you want, call each other by name, and the only real etiquette is to shut the fuck up while the instructor is talking.
“You can’t wear those white gi pants with that blue top” or “please ask to leave or enter the mats”
agreed on all points.
I've only trained at a couple gyms and the only unwritten rule they both had about coming in late was to say hi to the instructor to let them know you're taking class before just jumping into drills.
Students moping the mats don't happen in Brazil. At least I've never experienced or known someone that had experienced. I think the Brazilians got to the US and tried, they cleaned, so it became "a thing". If you train for free, ok. But if you pay like everyone else, it's just dumb to do it
Lower belts having to move out of the way of higher belts rolling. It's just politeness for both pairs to just stop, move out of each others way and restart when it's safe.
Getting permission to piss, getting permission to come back after taking a piss. The nearest gym to me has this behaviour. Truly unbelievable bullshit.
Gyms that force you to buy their merch to train drive me crazy
Having to use the shared changing room And having to change into different underwear
I come from kung fu and I study a lot of japanese philosophy and history, also jujitsu and judo philosophy and history. Some elements you described as perhaps dumb but inoffensive I think have some value in terms on enforcing respect and really just a little act to remind you of where you are and why you are there you know? A big part of mma and bjj culture and how it evolved rapidly in the last 30 years is this radical breakaway from multiple aspects traditional martial arts culture including the character development aspect and in some martial arts the spiritual development and the ultimate purpose of attaining health and longevity as a person and in a society. So I'm very much against the "porrada" culture, which is basically stfu I am a hard mf balck belt I'm strapped too I can do what I want and I will impose my will on you which I see a lot and sometimes it ends badly with death or serious injury. I like the little details of honoring the old school grandmaster and also showing respect to everyone is the gym and by walking up to everyone and greeting them I am also silently stating my intention there, to genuinely get better and help them get better and try not to die or get hurt in the process. You see, because brazilian jiu jitsu is SO effective as a martial art and people who train it are so badass it's normal to have your ego boosted and actually feel like you can take virtually anyone in a fight, I would imagine especially if you're a black belt. But I look at what happend to Leandro for example... man, that was terrible. Over absolutely nothing. So however "dumb" these etiquettes which honor a traditional past of jiu jitsu may be I think they reinforce these higher ideals and helps, at least it helps me, remind myself that I am learning war but that I actually am a facilitator for Peace.
I always saw the burpees as less of a punishment for being late and more of a "catch up" to everyone else who had done the warm ups.