BJJ is full of wankers

A gym thankfully free of wankers

If you’re new to Notes from Ringside, and to be honest as I only started this blog a few days ago, you’re all pretty new, I apologise. Prepare yourselves for my first public rant.

The subject that has irked me enough to write about it here is probably quite a contentious one, for it involves many, many people who run blogs. At the risk of severely pissing off a sizeable portion of the blogging community here goes.

I hate BJJ blogs.

I have never come across a bigger bunch of self-obsessed, egomaniacal piss-artists than I have in the world of martial arts. They intellectualise everything. They debate trivial topics to the point of distraction. They self-importantly muse about how their spider guard is coming along nicely, that they’re really starting to feel like they deserve their belt, but that they struggled with that big strong white belt last night.

To all you BJJ bloggers out there: Shut the fuck up.

As I’m involved in mixed martial arts, I manage to avoid the majority of these knob-ends, but as I’m heavily into my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I still encounter them from time to time.

The internet is home to every single jiu-jitsu nerd out there, and you can bet they’ve nearly all got their own blog. Whether they’re in California or Canada, Malaysia or Macclesfield, their inane posts about learning methods and pointless diatribes on the ‘real’ essence of jiu-jitsu are everywhere.

I’m absolutely sick of hearing about the latest revolutionary training method some purple belt has created with the aid of a whiteboard and a few substandard training partners. I’m really, really tired of listening to the story of some out-of-shape IT worker’s second shoulder surgery. And I’m really, really, sick of pretentious BJJ blogs.

If you blog about BJJ and you use it as a journal for your training, that’s fine. I’m not bothered. I may even be interested. If you use it to communicate with friends and acquaintances who aren’t nearby, that’s fine. I dig that.

If you’re using it to promote yourself as some kind of jiu-jitsu authority or to appear clever, then fuck right off.

This world is full of ego-masturbation as it is, and BJJ is supposed to be one way of cutting through the bullshit and finding your own simple truths.

Combat sports are humbling. You think you’re doing well? Someone comes along to kick your ass and put your ego back in it’s place. Having a good day? The afore-mentioned 200lb white belt will change that for you when he smash-passes you and keylocks you.

I’m all for intelligently analysing your game with the intention of further development. But if you’re going to do this, back it up on the mat. Roll. Roll often and roll hard. Roll with people who challenge you. Roll with people who make that flowery omoplata sweep impossible. Roll with people who tap you.

Then, when you’ve discovered that all that intellectualising wasn’t worth shit, go back to your blog and ask yourself – did I gain anything from this, or would I have been better off just going to class, getting on the mat and rolling?

Let’s kick the bullshit out of BJJ.