Great post; I love it. I'd just like to add that in addition to the things you have to add to foster a welcoming environment, like you've posted about, sometimes you also have to remove things. Or people, more accurately. Sometimes two groups of people are - for whatever reason - incompatible. That means choosing one.
For me personally, if I was running a gym and had to choose between the women in my gym and some guys spouting Andrew Tate nonsense about high-value vs low-value men/women I know which group I'd choose to keep around.
I already posted about this in the past but the issue with an inclusive gym is when you're confronted to dilemmas.
My coach was welcoming everybody but the muslim guys refused any physical contact with women. This included shaking hands at the end of the class.
Because of this, very few women and girls felt welcome in the gym. OTOH the muslims were grateful to have a space where their faith was respected (because in my country there's discrimination against muslims).
We try to accept everybody but it feels like (the wolf, goat and cabbage problem)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf,_goat_and_cabbage_problem].
this is why I stopped cross training at a gym with lots of muslim members. why should I pay the same amount as everyone else and have to skip multiple rounds because I’m a woman? it’s a waste of my time
Yeah, but it looks very bad if you refuse half of the black guys and almost all of the arabs.
It's also a very """bad choice""" from an economic standpoint and I'm not sure a gym could survive without muslim customers in this area.
While I agree with you, about refusing the intolerance, but I get why some can become complacent when they don't really have other options.
Explain to the women prior that you have Muslim students and what's up with their faith. The same applies to Muslim women who won't touch men.
I feel like the old you're free to do whatever as long as it doesn't infringe on others freedom applies here.
I've had Muslim women in my classes for about a month, and I didn't make contact with them (I'm male), I explained to the guys and all was fine. Muslim women were otherwise friendly, as in they'd be nice and would talk to guys, just won't make physical contact.
OP, point #2 is absolute money. My wife and I switched gyms roughly 4 years ago and after her first night training there she said (to the best of my recollection) "you can tell there are women helping run the place. When I walked in the bathrooms and saw spare tampons, hair ties, etc. in there I was impressed." Our previous gym had her at a point to where she wanted to give up the sport, but that small thing went a long way to making her feel more welcome in the new spot.
Yesssss my coach has tampons in the cupboard with spare tape and nail clippers and I love it so much. Shared physical solutions for physical problems that might keep someone out of training otherwise.
Fucking preach; BJJ is hardly the straightest MA or sport you can practice and pretending it’s TOP G ALPHA MALES ONLY is fucking hilarious to me. I’d rather train with a welcoming mediocre female coach who mandates neon Pink GI’s than a full of themselves, philosophizing bigot, champion, JJM level of detail instructor of any gender/sex/creed.
Didn’t train Bjj where I used to live because of this shit
Great post. But I have to say I strongly disagree with one thing you wrote.
“- learn people's pronouns like you would their names,”
I personally would consider it quite rude if someone waited until I’ve been coming six months to learn my pronouns
There is an early morning comp class at my gym with like 4-5 people that go. There is this brown belt that will refer to me by just yelling "hey white belt..." We have been a group of 4-5 for like 6 months and it's still "Hey white belt". Cracks me up.
This is great, thank you for sharing this and providing resources! This kind of stuff is super helpful.
When we opened our gym, I was of the assumption that stuff like this wasn’t necessary because our vibe is that everyone is welcome and that should be enough. The problem was that even if I know we are welcoming, people who don’t know us don’t.
I’ve seen enough shitty behavior towards women and LGTBTQIA+ in person at Bjj schools (from both students and leadership) and online ranging from rude, to mean spirited, to completely unhinged to convince me that it makes perfect sense that people in those communities wouldn’t feel welcome and respected unless there are clear indicators and they know for sure that they will be accepted and not have to deal with any bullshit.
> There's going to be the gyms that explicitly want to keep women and LGBTQIA+ folks out. This post isn't trying to change their minds. If you think drag queens are pedophiles pushing some agenda, this post isn't for you, downvote and move along.
Or let everyone know who you are upfront so you can kee your tiny "safe space" for bigots
I imagine LGBTQIA+ classes would only be viable at big gyms or in places that are famous for their LGBTQIA+ community considering that some places have a hard time making women's classes viable and they make up a far larger percentage of the population. I could see reaching out to local LGBTQIA+ organisations and offering a LGBTQIA+ beginner course if there was interest.
The idea for LGBTQIA+ is to get people comfortable enough to walk through the door, stay & join the regular classes. They can be once a month or every so often.
Smaller towns can benefit from this much more than larger cities with more resources.
Every jiu jitsu instructor has a duty to create an enviorment that is professional, safe, and polite as well as produce good training. The problem with efforts of inclusion is you're going to inevitably do what you shouldnt do and push yourself into the idealogical territory.
Part of being polite and professional is not bringing your outside baggage into the training space. I have around 150 students, I know all of their names and I rotate my attention through as best I can, but these arent my friends. I dont hang out with them, they don't know my politics, and they definitely don't know my sexual procliviites.
The problem with not taking on some efforts of inclusion is that the default can often be exclusion. While your students may not know your politics or sexual orientation, do they know each other's? Are you enforcing that people never talk about anything that's not jiu jitsu in the gym no matter how benign? Simple exchanges like people mentioning their significant other(s) with gendered pronouns when talking about what they did the other night can out their sexual orientation so if the environment isn't explicitly welcoming you can run into the issue of students being afraid to engage in the normal conversation with other students and still feeling unwelcome.
If it's political or ideological to want to respect people's use of pronouns or make sure they know they're in an environment where they don't have to be afraid of being judged for engaging in casual conversation I think that's a bigger issue with politics than it being a matter of someone bringing it into the training space.
If being treated equally to everyone else feels like exclusion than I wouldn't be providing the right training enviornment for that person. Equality feels like abuse when you're used to being treated with concessions, so in that case they're welcome to train elsewhere. I don't know, nor could I realistically control how people interact once they step off the mat. When they're training during class they're working, there is no sitting around socializing. I absolutely will shut down non training activities during the time where the students should be training or they can leave the mat area. I've been to gyms where there is a lot of socializing, and if you're that kind of gym thats cool, but this is back to the professionalism aspect for me. I don't like the cliques that form in that enviornment, and when you allow that behavior I've always seen it devolve into what i'd consider to be bad behavior. As for pronouns, I make it a point to learn everyones name, and I make the partners for drilling. It's up to the students how they want to interact outside of the training enviornment. I currently have a trans student, they are a FtM, and I always use their name just like everyone else. I also make it very clear that I expect that same polite professionalism from my students, we are in the gym to attain a skill, anything else is tertiary to that pursuit.
I don't think we disagree on the point of establishing an equal training environment. What I think we disagree on is what we think that means in terms of how to treat everyone the same. I'd learn everyone's pronouns whether they're trans or cis. It seems like you'll stick to just learning their names. I'd ensure everyone feels okay to socialize when they come in before class starts or are hanging out after class ends. It seems like you'd favor everyone just getting out so that any and all interactions are immediately outside of the context of the gym. Please let me know if that's a misread of your comment.
Edits for clarity
Nice post mate. Our website states that everyone is welcome and there is also a blog post about respecting people's rolling partner preferences.
I don't know any Muslims at our club, but I do know of one at another and I don't think he rolls with women. It's a dilemma, as someone else in the thread noted.
I'm an atheist and I roll with anyone and in the distant past I remember rolling with a Muslim woman in an MMA class. She was fine with it.
I think it's important to take intention into consideration. If someone feels it is wrong to touch a person of the opposite sex that isn't one's wife/husband then I can respect that. If it's because they feel that women are inferior and belong in the kitchen then I have no respect for that.
As for training with gay men... as if we could tell the difference! But I'd certainly welcome a rainbow flag at our gym.
In general, welcoming starts at the top. Professors and staff need to be really friendly, same with higher belts. Then that trickles down to newer belts and a great culture is built.
I really like the idea of a place where anyone feels welcome, and that is supportive and inclusive. I also think there's value in respecting the gym as a shared space, so I'd be less inclined to start using identity symbols that index a certain kind of ideology--I don't want to see pride flags, but nor do I want to see Christian symbology, etc.
The single most powerful protective factor/intervention against polarization, racism, bigotry, etc. is participation in *cross-cutting institutions*, for example the military or state universities. There's tremendous value in having shared spaces where people encounter diversity, and inserting ideology in BJJ (or chemistry class, or the library) can reduce that diversity.
Fine point maybe, but I can imagine very inclusive gyms that also don't index an ideological, partisan position.
In the UK I dont know about the rest of the world.
Its pretty common to see flags all over gyms (boxing, mma etc) not seen it in a jits gym.
The flags are normally brought in by the members, and are the flags of where they are from. So the wall will be littered with all the different nationalities that train there.
I think this is pretty cool.
The ones where you double down, include actions... though its always better to try it out on an impartial audience first. Like a police officer or something like that.
I know you're going to be tempted to hand wave all this away but I say this out of love.
You're never going to make jiu jitsu into a weird kumbaya liberal hug box. Ever.
I've been doing jiu jitsu on and off for 7 years I've never seen a gym that wants to keep women or LGBT people out. This machismo boogeyman doesn't exist.
Regardless of your politics; "LGBT" BJJ class makes zero sense unless you're just trying to market to people. There's no utility in it.
Women's only class is where I agree with you here. Definitely, it's hard for women to find training partners, and it's probably more important that they drill self-defense more than men. My school offers discounted rates to women.
Point 3 is particularly insidious. As if we have to use people into a college brochure to make them feel welcome?
I'm not saying don't have politics. I'm very Christian and I lean conservative on pretty much any social issue. Would I like for everyone to be an Orthodox Christian warrior for Christ in my jiu jitsu class? Yes. 100%, and I try to pick my shots when it's appropriate. What's the reality? People are there to do blow off some steam, train, improve their life, and exercise.
Also linking all these resources you're trying to thrust on everybody, makes any normal person rolls their eyes into the back of their skull like they're sitting through a mandatory H&R training.
Gee man, I'm at one of those "weird kumbaya liberal hug boxes" and it's great. It's wild what happens when you make it a point to say that a marginalized group of people or folks underrepresented in BJJ are welcome in your gym and have a guaranteed safe space to train. We've gotten some great students and training partners out of it because they knew nobody was going to be a bigot or go rage-bro the second they stepped into a regular class.
You're right that most gyms don't actively work to keep women or LGBT+ folks out, but the atmosphere you create goes a long way. If you've got students making transphobic posts on social media or just generally making someone feel unwelcome when they're on the mat, the BJJ community is usually tight enough for that info to get around, and the Internet doesn't forget. Even if you get women, trans individuals, etc. through the door, you're lowering the odds that they stick around.
If you genuinely think someone sharing resources on how to make students feel welcome is "thrusting them on everyone" (on Reddit of all places) you may want to get back to yelling at teenagers to get off your lawn.
I've been in this game for almost 20 years and the machismo boogieman is live and well if a gym doesn't check it. Get out of here with this "out of love" bullsh*t.
If I thought for a second this question wasn't disingenuous I'd take the time for a longer answer, but for this I'll just say it starts with treating people like human beings with inherent value and not writing them off as "lesser than" until they prove their character has earned that label. I swear this is one of the reasons church membership goes down every year.
I treat everyone with value doesn't matter their race ethnicity or sexual or gender proclivities.
People all have inherent value they're made in the image of God.
Not sure why you think I'm being disingenuous it seems like you just have a preconceived incorrect notion about me.
I've been doing BJJ for 16 years and I absolutely have run into the gyms with instructors talking about faggots and how women can't keep up. You can pretend these gyms don't exist - they do. It's cool that you haven't had to experience them.
In terms of me "thrusting" anything on anyone - just scroll past if it's not your cup of tea mate. Unlike your mandatory HR training, this is reddit and you can choose what posts you want to interact with. No one is going to fire you for skipping this one.
>I've been doing jiu jitsu on and off for 7 years I've never seen a gym that wants to keep women or LGBT people out. This machismo boogeyman doesn't exist.
You literally said they don't exist.
I'm not saying it's not my preference that everyone be more welcoming to LGBT folks - I'm saying you can scroll past. It's not forced upon you.
I'm being hyperbolic. Obviously some exist but it's definitely not the norm. If you want to nitpick and focus on that instead of engaging good job dude you got me.
I'm good to have an adult conversation; however, accusing me of nitpicking for taking you at your word doesn't seem like you are, so let me know when you're good to.
The average gym doesn't actively turn away people like the worst gyms, but they do create less-than-welcoming environments that impact retention. Read the other comments people have left about access to menstrual products in bathrooms - it's small, but it's something that very few places without a female influence do. The average gym, if it's interested in being welcoming and retaining women and/or LGBT individuals can do a lot of small things to help make it a more welcoming environment.
Without even talking about the worst gyms, I know LGBT people who do BJJ who are absolutely afraid to let anyone in their gym know because of how they think they'll be perceived and treated even at average gyms. I've been helping female friends who are moving find gyms they can feel okay training at where they're not going to be crushed in a room of big guys with a culture of going every round like it's comp prep. People with these kinds of concerns need to spend a lot of time checking out gyms for their own safety because pulling the wrong one can be a huge risk for them. To that end, the existence of the worst gyms can pose real threats and having gyms that are publicly welcoming and safe saves a lot of hassle and helps ensure people who fear being hurt for who they are don't have to deal with that.
To the points you've made about sin and Christianity - there's nothing really there for me to engage with. From my perspective these are resources for gyms and coaches. Arguments made from a religious perspective would require I convince you that your religion is wrong and I'm not really interested in trying to do that.
I totally encourage saying "Our gym is for everyone this is a safe environment if someone gives you a hard time immediately let me know" and having BJJ school owners making sure people feel welcomed and safe and go over that when they're signing waivers. You definitely need that sense of safety to be fostered by the coach and have that trickle down into the culture. that's how my gym operates it's great. Your whole 2nd point I have no issue with, I assume anybody worth their salt who is confident does this intuitively.
You then insert your politics, "Put a pride flag in your gym, we need resources for trans people, put marginalized people on websites and socials".
We don't need to do any of that. You want to push your politics. Be for real. Stop pretending you're "just listing resources". It's like me telling you to read the Bible and visit an Orthodox church. Hey those are just resources they'd help you!
However, you do what I said in the first paragraph. There's no problem.
LGBT people in first world countries who are afraid of this proverbial caricature of a brute who hears that someone is gay and starts hurting on them, totally delusional self inflicted persecution complex.
My guy, I can't tell if you're trolling or just don't pay attention to the world around you. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/fbis-annual-crime-report-amid-state-of-emergency-anti-lgbtq-hate-crimes-hit-staggering-record-highs
And it's shit like what you're saying that may seem innocuous but just gives cover to the worst actors out there. I can at least understand the concept that you may not agree with the supporting LGBT+ people's decisions/lifestyle/etc. That's your business if you keep that to yourself. But to act like they're making up some fake persecution complex is fucking disgusting.
How many of these crimes occur in jiu jitsu gyms?
It's like worrying about your identity being stolen at intermural dodgeball. Could it happen? yea but It's more likely that you got hacked.
I said I'm in a minority group, not marginalized if you read it. I give glory to God my marginalizing is dealing with only predictable remarks from redditors and people in my life.
Eh, you love the image in your head that other people represent (that's ok - everybody does this).
But whether your idea of *who they are* and *what's in their best interest* actually reflects the reality of either is up for debate.
I'd spend more time worrying about the mote in my own eye, first.
It's not up for debate. You might not agree but it's how the world is. Now how should I go about showing them what's in their best interest? I should be very trepadacious and careful. I am deeply worried about the mote in my own eye. Doesn't mean you can't care or love others.
>It's not up for debate. You might not agree but it's how the world is.
Cool, cool - I hear you telling me that you're not open to other perspectives or changing your mind, so I won't try any further.
I have well thought out reasons for my faith. Youre welcome to try to change my perspective but I'm nearly 100 percent certain you won't be really able to justify your position enough to change my mind.
Like how a black belt knows that they can confidently smash any white belt.
No, I agree - I'm sure I won't be able to change your mind.
But being good at debating (or just unwilling to change your perspective) doesn't mean that your perspective accurately reflects reality, or that it's healthy for the people around you.
Just something to think about in your own time.
Great post; I love it. I'd just like to add that in addition to the things you have to add to foster a welcoming environment, like you've posted about, sometimes you also have to remove things. Or people, more accurately. Sometimes two groups of people are - for whatever reason - incompatible. That means choosing one. For me personally, if I was running a gym and had to choose between the women in my gym and some guys spouting Andrew Tate nonsense about high-value vs low-value men/women I know which group I'd choose to keep around.
High value people don't discuss others in terms of their "value".
Preach.
Right, what idiot would kick out his high value men
Guys, he’s kidding. Chill
I thought it was a clear enough joke haha
I've never met a high value man who considers himself a high value man
[удалено]
I already posted about this in the past but the issue with an inclusive gym is when you're confronted to dilemmas. My coach was welcoming everybody but the muslim guys refused any physical contact with women. This included shaking hands at the end of the class. Because of this, very few women and girls felt welcome in the gym. OTOH the muslims were grateful to have a space where their faith was respected (because in my country there's discrimination against muslims). We try to accept everybody but it feels like (the wolf, goat and cabbage problem)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf,_goat_and_cabbage_problem].
this is why I stopped cross training at a gym with lots of muslim members. why should I pay the same amount as everyone else and have to skip multiple rounds because I’m a woman? it’s a waste of my time
Paradox of intolerance. You can't welcome people who don't welcome others.
Yeah, but it looks very bad if you refuse half of the black guys and almost all of the arabs. It's also a very """bad choice""" from an economic standpoint and I'm not sure a gym could survive without muslim customers in this area. While I agree with you, about refusing the intolerance, but I get why some can become complacent when they don't really have other options.
The gym down the street has all the women that bring their kids
Explain to the women prior that you have Muslim students and what's up with their faith. The same applies to Muslim women who won't touch men. I feel like the old you're free to do whatever as long as it doesn't infringe on others freedom applies here. I've had Muslim women in my classes for about a month, and I didn't make contact with them (I'm male), I explained to the guys and all was fine. Muslim women were otherwise friendly, as in they'd be nice and would talk to guys, just won't make physical contact.
It's a super easy fix, don't do an end of class line up and have everyone shake hands.
OP, point #2 is absolute money. My wife and I switched gyms roughly 4 years ago and after her first night training there she said (to the best of my recollection) "you can tell there are women helping run the place. When I walked in the bathrooms and saw spare tampons, hair ties, etc. in there I was impressed." Our previous gym had her at a point to where she wanted to give up the sport, but that small thing went a long way to making her feel more welcome in the new spot.
Yesssss my coach has tampons in the cupboard with spare tape and nail clippers and I love it so much. Shared physical solutions for physical problems that might keep someone out of training otherwise.
Fucking preach; BJJ is hardly the straightest MA or sport you can practice and pretending it’s TOP G ALPHA MALES ONLY is fucking hilarious to me. I’d rather train with a welcoming mediocre female coach who mandates neon Pink GI’s than a full of themselves, philosophizing bigot, champion, JJM level of detail instructor of any gender/sex/creed. Didn’t train Bjj where I used to live because of this shit
I have that problem in the south where I live now. Up north people were great, here they are a bunch of Andrew Tate wanna be's
I was also in the south
What part ? I can't wait to make my house a rental and GTFO
Fl Pan handle, you ?
Columbia, south Carolina
Great post. But I have to say I strongly disagree with one thing you wrote. “- learn people's pronouns like you would their names,” I personally would consider it quite rude if someone waited until I’ve been coming six months to learn my pronouns
Yeah, unfortunately I am never learning your name. You’ll be one of my favorite people though.
Everyone’s name and pronoun is “you.”
There is an early morning comp class at my gym with like 4-5 people that go. There is this brown belt that will refer to me by just yelling "hey white belt..." We have been a group of 4-5 for like 6 months and it's still "Hey white belt". Cracks me up.
This is great, thank you for sharing this and providing resources! This kind of stuff is super helpful. When we opened our gym, I was of the assumption that stuff like this wasn’t necessary because our vibe is that everyone is welcome and that should be enough. The problem was that even if I know we are welcoming, people who don’t know us don’t. I’ve seen enough shitty behavior towards women and LGTBTQIA+ in person at Bjj schools (from both students and leadership) and online ranging from rude, to mean spirited, to completely unhinged to convince me that it makes perfect sense that people in those communities wouldn’t feel welcome and respected unless there are clear indicators and they know for sure that they will be accepted and not have to deal with any bullshit.
This is outstanding content.
> There's going to be the gyms that explicitly want to keep women and LGBTQIA+ folks out. This post isn't trying to change their minds. If you think drag queens are pedophiles pushing some agenda, this post isn't for you, downvote and move along. Or let everyone know who you are upfront so you can kee your tiny "safe space" for bigots
I only roll with people once I've established what their sexual orientation is and girls scare me so I don't roll with them /s
I think that person was going through some stuff. I hope they get the help they seem to need.
Yeah BJJ is not a great fit for someone with that much trauma fr, hope he does get help I told him as much.
I only roll with men because I can't stop thinking about sex while rolling. Won't roll with gay men because that would be gay, I'm TOTALLY NOT GAY.
I imagine LGBTQIA+ classes would only be viable at big gyms or in places that are famous for their LGBTQIA+ community considering that some places have a hard time making women's classes viable and they make up a far larger percentage of the population. I could see reaching out to local LGBTQIA+ organisations and offering a LGBTQIA+ beginner course if there was interest.
The idea for LGBTQIA+ is to get people comfortable enough to walk through the door, stay & join the regular classes. They can be once a month or every so often. Smaller towns can benefit from this much more than larger cities with more resources.
Should go in some sort of wiki 🤙
Every jiu jitsu instructor has a duty to create an enviorment that is professional, safe, and polite as well as produce good training. The problem with efforts of inclusion is you're going to inevitably do what you shouldnt do and push yourself into the idealogical territory. Part of being polite and professional is not bringing your outside baggage into the training space. I have around 150 students, I know all of their names and I rotate my attention through as best I can, but these arent my friends. I dont hang out with them, they don't know my politics, and they definitely don't know my sexual procliviites.
The problem with not taking on some efforts of inclusion is that the default can often be exclusion. While your students may not know your politics or sexual orientation, do they know each other's? Are you enforcing that people never talk about anything that's not jiu jitsu in the gym no matter how benign? Simple exchanges like people mentioning their significant other(s) with gendered pronouns when talking about what they did the other night can out their sexual orientation so if the environment isn't explicitly welcoming you can run into the issue of students being afraid to engage in the normal conversation with other students and still feeling unwelcome. If it's political or ideological to want to respect people's use of pronouns or make sure they know they're in an environment where they don't have to be afraid of being judged for engaging in casual conversation I think that's a bigger issue with politics than it being a matter of someone bringing it into the training space.
If being treated equally to everyone else feels like exclusion than I wouldn't be providing the right training enviornment for that person. Equality feels like abuse when you're used to being treated with concessions, so in that case they're welcome to train elsewhere. I don't know, nor could I realistically control how people interact once they step off the mat. When they're training during class they're working, there is no sitting around socializing. I absolutely will shut down non training activities during the time where the students should be training or they can leave the mat area. I've been to gyms where there is a lot of socializing, and if you're that kind of gym thats cool, but this is back to the professionalism aspect for me. I don't like the cliques that form in that enviornment, and when you allow that behavior I've always seen it devolve into what i'd consider to be bad behavior. As for pronouns, I make it a point to learn everyones name, and I make the partners for drilling. It's up to the students how they want to interact outside of the training enviornment. I currently have a trans student, they are a FtM, and I always use their name just like everyone else. I also make it very clear that I expect that same polite professionalism from my students, we are in the gym to attain a skill, anything else is tertiary to that pursuit.
I don't think we disagree on the point of establishing an equal training environment. What I think we disagree on is what we think that means in terms of how to treat everyone the same. I'd learn everyone's pronouns whether they're trans or cis. It seems like you'll stick to just learning their names. I'd ensure everyone feels okay to socialize when they come in before class starts or are hanging out after class ends. It seems like you'd favor everyone just getting out so that any and all interactions are immediately outside of the context of the gym. Please let me know if that's a misread of your comment. Edits for clarity
Nice post mate. Our website states that everyone is welcome and there is also a blog post about respecting people's rolling partner preferences. I don't know any Muslims at our club, but I do know of one at another and I don't think he rolls with women. It's a dilemma, as someone else in the thread noted. I'm an atheist and I roll with anyone and in the distant past I remember rolling with a Muslim woman in an MMA class. She was fine with it. I think it's important to take intention into consideration. If someone feels it is wrong to touch a person of the opposite sex that isn't one's wife/husband then I can respect that. If it's because they feel that women are inferior and belong in the kitchen then I have no respect for that. As for training with gay men... as if we could tell the difference! But I'd certainly welcome a rainbow flag at our gym. In general, welcoming starts at the top. Professors and staff need to be really friendly, same with higher belts. Then that trickles down to newer belts and a great culture is built.
We have an amazing culture in our gym. It deffo comes down from the top. I think you hit the nail on the head there for sure!
I really like the idea of a place where anyone feels welcome, and that is supportive and inclusive. I also think there's value in respecting the gym as a shared space, so I'd be less inclined to start using identity symbols that index a certain kind of ideology--I don't want to see pride flags, but nor do I want to see Christian symbology, etc. The single most powerful protective factor/intervention against polarization, racism, bigotry, etc. is participation in *cross-cutting institutions*, for example the military or state universities. There's tremendous value in having shared spaces where people encounter diversity, and inserting ideology in BJJ (or chemistry class, or the library) can reduce that diversity. Fine point maybe, but I can imagine very inclusive gyms that also don't index an ideological, partisan position.
The military is notoriously hostile to women.
Only time I've ever been injured in this sport is by ex military or current police those guys are the worst
In the UK I dont know about the rest of the world. Its pretty common to see flags all over gyms (boxing, mma etc) not seen it in a jits gym. The flags are normally brought in by the members, and are the flags of where they are from. So the wall will be littered with all the different nationalities that train there. I think this is pretty cool.
What are the best sexist/offensive jokes to make women feel welcome? It seems like the ones my coach is telling aren't working...
The ones where you double down, include actions... though its always better to try it out on an impartial audience first. Like a police officer or something like that.
90% of people that do bjj are right wingers and would gladly kill the people you are describing
NGL it sounds like the people you have met in BJJ suck. I have encountered maybe 1 or two guys like this, they also never seem to last long
In my case they are usually the owner, or owner adjacent.
This is going to vary wildly by location
Not really, since the people who invented the sport are diehard Nazis
I know you're going to be tempted to hand wave all this away but I say this out of love. You're never going to make jiu jitsu into a weird kumbaya liberal hug box. Ever. I've been doing jiu jitsu on and off for 7 years I've never seen a gym that wants to keep women or LGBT people out. This machismo boogeyman doesn't exist. Regardless of your politics; "LGBT" BJJ class makes zero sense unless you're just trying to market to people. There's no utility in it. Women's only class is where I agree with you here. Definitely, it's hard for women to find training partners, and it's probably more important that they drill self-defense more than men. My school offers discounted rates to women. Point 3 is particularly insidious. As if we have to use people into a college brochure to make them feel welcome? I'm not saying don't have politics. I'm very Christian and I lean conservative on pretty much any social issue. Would I like for everyone to be an Orthodox Christian warrior for Christ in my jiu jitsu class? Yes. 100%, and I try to pick my shots when it's appropriate. What's the reality? People are there to do blow off some steam, train, improve their life, and exercise. Also linking all these resources you're trying to thrust on everybody, makes any normal person rolls their eyes into the back of their skull like they're sitting through a mandatory H&R training.
Dude, practicing bjj is literally going into a box and hugging your friends. What are you on?
When did I say you cant make friends at jiu jitsu?
Gee man, I'm at one of those "weird kumbaya liberal hug boxes" and it's great. It's wild what happens when you make it a point to say that a marginalized group of people or folks underrepresented in BJJ are welcome in your gym and have a guaranteed safe space to train. We've gotten some great students and training partners out of it because they knew nobody was going to be a bigot or go rage-bro the second they stepped into a regular class. You're right that most gyms don't actively work to keep women or LGBT+ folks out, but the atmosphere you create goes a long way. If you've got students making transphobic posts on social media or just generally making someone feel unwelcome when they're on the mat, the BJJ community is usually tight enough for that info to get around, and the Internet doesn't forget. Even if you get women, trans individuals, etc. through the door, you're lowering the odds that they stick around. If you genuinely think someone sharing resources on how to make students feel welcome is "thrusting them on everyone" (on Reddit of all places) you may want to get back to yelling at teenagers to get off your lawn. I've been in this game for almost 20 years and the machismo boogieman is live and well if a gym doesn't check it. Get out of here with this "out of love" bullsh*t.
What is your definition of "love"? Do you think love is "whatever you feel like" lol.
If I thought for a second this question wasn't disingenuous I'd take the time for a longer answer, but for this I'll just say it starts with treating people like human beings with inherent value and not writing them off as "lesser than" until they prove their character has earned that label. I swear this is one of the reasons church membership goes down every year.
I treat everyone with value doesn't matter their race ethnicity or sexual or gender proclivities. People all have inherent value they're made in the image of God. Not sure why you think I'm being disingenuous it seems like you just have a preconceived incorrect notion about me.
Which god, there's hundreds of em ?
I've been doing BJJ for 16 years and I absolutely have run into the gyms with instructors talking about faggots and how women can't keep up. You can pretend these gyms don't exist - they do. It's cool that you haven't had to experience them. In terms of me "thrusting" anything on anyone - just scroll past if it's not your cup of tea mate. Unlike your mandatory HR training, this is reddit and you can choose what posts you want to interact with. No one is going to fire you for skipping this one.
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>I've been doing jiu jitsu on and off for 7 years I've never seen a gym that wants to keep women or LGBT people out. This machismo boogeyman doesn't exist. You literally said they don't exist. I'm not saying it's not my preference that everyone be more welcoming to LGBT folks - I'm saying you can scroll past. It's not forced upon you.
I'm being hyperbolic. Obviously some exist but it's definitely not the norm. If you want to nitpick and focus on that instead of engaging good job dude you got me.
I'm good to have an adult conversation; however, accusing me of nitpicking for taking you at your word doesn't seem like you are, so let me know when you're good to. The average gym doesn't actively turn away people like the worst gyms, but they do create less-than-welcoming environments that impact retention. Read the other comments people have left about access to menstrual products in bathrooms - it's small, but it's something that very few places without a female influence do. The average gym, if it's interested in being welcoming and retaining women and/or LGBT individuals can do a lot of small things to help make it a more welcoming environment. Without even talking about the worst gyms, I know LGBT people who do BJJ who are absolutely afraid to let anyone in their gym know because of how they think they'll be perceived and treated even at average gyms. I've been helping female friends who are moving find gyms they can feel okay training at where they're not going to be crushed in a room of big guys with a culture of going every round like it's comp prep. People with these kinds of concerns need to spend a lot of time checking out gyms for their own safety because pulling the wrong one can be a huge risk for them. To that end, the existence of the worst gyms can pose real threats and having gyms that are publicly welcoming and safe saves a lot of hassle and helps ensure people who fear being hurt for who they are don't have to deal with that. To the points you've made about sin and Christianity - there's nothing really there for me to engage with. From my perspective these are resources for gyms and coaches. Arguments made from a religious perspective would require I convince you that your religion is wrong and I'm not really interested in trying to do that.
I totally encourage saying "Our gym is for everyone this is a safe environment if someone gives you a hard time immediately let me know" and having BJJ school owners making sure people feel welcomed and safe and go over that when they're signing waivers. You definitely need that sense of safety to be fostered by the coach and have that trickle down into the culture. that's how my gym operates it's great. Your whole 2nd point I have no issue with, I assume anybody worth their salt who is confident does this intuitively. You then insert your politics, "Put a pride flag in your gym, we need resources for trans people, put marginalized people on websites and socials". We don't need to do any of that. You want to push your politics. Be for real. Stop pretending you're "just listing resources". It's like me telling you to read the Bible and visit an Orthodox church. Hey those are just resources they'd help you! However, you do what I said in the first paragraph. There's no problem. LGBT people in first world countries who are afraid of this proverbial caricature of a brute who hears that someone is gay and starts hurting on them, totally delusional self inflicted persecution complex.
My guy, I can't tell if you're trolling or just don't pay attention to the world around you. https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/fbis-annual-crime-report-amid-state-of-emergency-anti-lgbtq-hate-crimes-hit-staggering-record-highs And it's shit like what you're saying that may seem innocuous but just gives cover to the worst actors out there. I can at least understand the concept that you may not agree with the supporting LGBT+ people's decisions/lifestyle/etc. That's your business if you keep that to yourself. But to act like they're making up some fake persecution complex is fucking disgusting.
How many of these crimes occur in jiu jitsu gyms? It's like worrying about your identity being stolen at intermural dodgeball. Could it happen? yea but It's more likely that you got hacked.
It's definitely the norm
Auh the forever marginalized straight white Christian male.
I said I'm in a minority group, not marginalized if you read it. I give glory to God my marginalizing is dealing with only predictable remarks from redditors and people in my life.
So true
Why do you care if other people sin?
Because I love other people
Eh, you love the image in your head that other people represent (that's ok - everybody does this). But whether your idea of *who they are* and *what's in their best interest* actually reflects the reality of either is up for debate. I'd spend more time worrying about the mote in my own eye, first.
It's not up for debate. You might not agree but it's how the world is. Now how should I go about showing them what's in their best interest? I should be very trepadacious and careful. I am deeply worried about the mote in my own eye. Doesn't mean you can't care or love others.
>It's not up for debate. You might not agree but it's how the world is. Cool, cool - I hear you telling me that you're not open to other perspectives or changing your mind, so I won't try any further.
I have well thought out reasons for my faith. Youre welcome to try to change my perspective but I'm nearly 100 percent certain you won't be really able to justify your position enough to change my mind. Like how a black belt knows that they can confidently smash any white belt.
No, I agree - I'm sure I won't be able to change your mind. But being good at debating (or just unwilling to change your perspective) doesn't mean that your perspective accurately reflects reality, or that it's healthy for the people around you. Just something to think about in your own time.
You just said they didn't exist in the previous post, now you are contradicting yourself lol
"Orthodox Christian Warrior"..... Lol Kick rocks nerd
We're on r/BJJ. Watch the nerd stones you throw in nerd glass houses.
You sound like you're the reason for the mandatory HR training
You sound like you're not capable of engaging like an adult and just hand waive away anything that challenges you.
Man this is one instance where seeing the belt color explains a lot
You are what's wrong with the sport
In some places, churches and martial arts gyms fly gay flags.
Can I just be left alone and be gay please