Jiu-jitsu is for.....someone.

There's much to be said about the benefits of training jiu-jitsu. 

Or so I read on some blog written by a dude who thinks having access to a purple belt and a word processor means he has something profound to say about anything really. 

A blog post about jiu-jitsu. Such hubris. Such an utter lack of self-awareness to believe that anyone at all cares about your opinion on a niche sport. 

Anyways, let me tell you what to think when it comes to a certain elephant in the dojo with respect to our beloved sport of violent cuddling. 

In regards to the rampant sexual deviancy and occasional pedophilia... 

Wait, that's not it. 

Why you should be cautious placing your trust in a person whose only demonstrable life skill involves violence...

Shit, wrong notebook.

Why the mouthbreathers on Reddit's r/bjj should be nuked into an ethereal cloud of threads bitching about warmups and the abject uselessness of seminars and instructional videos by world-class athletes...

Nah.

(flipping through pages of notes)

So, as it turns out, there are a few elephants in the room, all of various shapes and sizes. In fact, there's a whole circle of them all sitting around a fire, smoking peyote and taking massive shits in every dark corner of the place. 

The excrement-spewing pachyderm I'm concerned with here is an old platitude, meant to invoke a sense of inclusion; the aphoristic version of a warm hug.   

Jiu-jitsu is for everyone. 

Not inherently malicious and often used with good intentions, this phrase has nonetheless been warped into a concept at least banal, if not disheartening. It leaves some to wonder, if jiu-jitsu is for everyone, then why the hell isn't it for me?

There's a heap of problems here, beginning with the word "everyone." Painting with so broad a brush leaves us with a canvas smeared with indecipherable bullshit, or perhaps elephant scat if we're to continue the metaphorical theme. 

It ignores the fact that each grappler's journey is uniquely personal. The forty-year-old business owner may not have the same motivations as the twenty-year-old competitor or the thirty-something mom of three. But we act like each of these examples should thrive in the same training environment, with the same stimuli, perform with the same intensity, and aim for the same goals.   

Gyms are living, breathing organisms, each with their own personality imbued from the top down. As with all social circles, there will be some that feel more welcome in a certain type of gym as opposed to another. 

As a coach, it's important to remember that YOUR brand of jiu-jitsu is definitely not for everyone and that's perfectly okay. In fact, it's what brings people in the door. Instructors who try to appeal to everyone often end up tepid and ineffective, hesitant to push their students for fear of driving away the hobbyists and unwilling to display warmth and understanding so as not to turn off the hardcore practitioners.

It's possible for gym owners to create a facility that has the best of both worlds, but it may require a larger facility with multiple instructors that can appeal to people of different cloth.

Already, we can see how the declaration that "jiu-jitsu is for everyone" begins to fall apart without a whole bunch of asterisks and qualifiers.  

Attachment to vague and lofty ideals, like the ones implicit in such a phrase, allows meaning to languish. I'd argue that if jiu-jitsu is for everyone, then it's also for no one. Much as in the art itself, precision is important. Without definition, the idea remains an abstract concept, leaving gym owners and instructors to trumpet nonsense into the void. Rambling posts about self-defense, weight loss, and confidence abound and echo around a chamber soundproofed from the outside world. 

What are our students' superordinate goals? 

What gets them to drag their tired souls out of an office or construction site after a long day to go to a sweat dungeon where they'll be relentlessly tormented by a fourteen-year-old juiced up on Skittles and the performance-enhancing drug known as puberty?  

It sure as shit isn't some ephemeral desire to break a dude's arm in a bar fight. It isn't the duplicitous assurances of a women's self-defense seminar. (In the context of a measly one-hour session, the best advice you can give to any vulnerable populace as far as defending themselves is how best to kick someone in the dick and run.)  

So, if not a formalized system of brawling and groin-punting, then what is jiu-jitsu really about?  

It's about striving, community, accomplishment, structured discipline and goal-setting, work ethic, the meditative effect of true mind-body connection, a dissolution of ego that comes with the removal of winning from an equation of success.  

Jiu-jitsu is all of these things, none of these things, or a combination that lies somewhere in between.

Across this breadth of meaning, how can we presume to understand the motivations of every stranger who walks through our door, let alone impose some arbitrary system of values upon them?

And who are we really talking to here? Is it a marketing tool, meant to draw in new clients? Or is the phrase directed at those already participating?

 

My cynical side whispers that perhaps the whole thing is just a convenient way to shift the blame for a student's failure entirely upon them. 

Imagine this scenario which may hit too close to home for some readers:

A newish attendee in a rumpled gi and upside-down knotted belt slinks up to the instructor as he lounges against a padded pillar in the middle of the room. He pretends not to notice the student at first, instead staring intently as a high school wrestler permanently reduces the distance between an accountant's T3 and L4 vertebrae with a double under smash pass.

"Dr. Professor Sensei Overlord Sir?"

"What's up, brah?"

"I'm just, uh, having a lot of trouble getting out of bottom mount," the student says. "I panic and feel like I'm suffocating. Usually, I tap out just from the pressure."

The instructor ruffles the hair of his student who is also a grown-ass man. He draws on a decade of experience before offering the reply of a Zen master.  

"Ever try just not getting mounted?" Professor asks. 

"Yeah, I did," says the student. "I don't feel like I'm getting any better lately. Starting to wonder if maybe this just isn't for me."

"Harden up, son," encourages Sensei to a man three years his senior. "You'll get it."

The conversation ends as the maligned accountant from earlier goes flying past in mid suplex, blood and tears flecking Coach Overlord's face.  The cowardly student sidles off the mat for the last time. 

Kids are soft these days, Professor thinks. Oh well, that's his problem. Doesn't he know that jiu-jitsu is for everyone?

Hyperbolic fantasies aside, I realize that despite my disdain for the whole spiel, its popularity and general well-intentioned-ness means I'm probably in a minority of curmudgeons here. Perhaps we can grab the phrase by its trunk and twist until it behaves better.

I propose a simple change: swap everyone for anyone. 

Everyone evokes homogeneity; anyone pays special attention to the individual. There's obvious nuance here as well, but it's hard to keep a catchphrase pithy and memorable when you have to bullet-point every example in the multiverse for which grappling might not be the best idea. 

We could try this: In a given population, it is likely that an individual randomly selected would derive benefit from training jiu-jitsu in one form or another in an environment appropriately suited to their unique needs and preferences.  

Clunky. Nuance is important, but brevity is the soul of wit. 

Jiu-jitsu is for anyone.

Or we could, of course, take this elephant out back and bury it, along with all his dickhead friends. 

-M