Community Standards

The safety rules keep people safe. These standards are about the culture we build together.

Being a Good Training Partner

Being a good training partner is partly attitude and partly skill. Both can be developed, and this is one of the most important things we look for.

Your goals on the mats should be to move well, explore, take risks, and have fun. Be playful. When you’re attacking submissions, your goal should be to get them while using a fraction of the strength you have.

If your goal is to hold people down as long and uncomfortably as possible, you’re not going to learn much and you’re going to make training worse for everyone around you. Coaches don’t watch who wins. We watch movement quality and playfulness, and that’s what we base promotions on.

Coaching Each Other

Our biggest goal for newer students is to develop concepts and dynamic problem-solving through play. If they’re cognitively overloaded trying to remember the five steps of a move you just told them, they’re not absorbing anything from the games. When a beginner pauses during a game and asks “what should I do here,” tell them the goal of the game, not how to win it.

Good feedback relates to a concept: “That transition felt loose, I could move my right arm a lot.” “When you’re trying to sweep me, I don’t feel elevated.” Feedback on a concept is helpful. Technique instruction without a concept is not helpful for how we train.

Under no circumstances should you address the whole class when you’re taking a class. If you think you have something to add, talk to the coach running the class. If you’re interested in coaching, reach out. We’d be happy to talk about it.

Disengaging

A common pattern for beginners during guard passing: they learn that coming in aggressively gets them swept, so they circle around with zero connection waiting for a chance to jump past the legs. If there’s no connection, there’s no grappling. You’re wasting time.

If you play, I’ll play. If you spaz, I’ll hold you down because I don’t like getting elbowed in the face.

Visitors and New Members

When visitors and new members come to the gym, our job is to show them that this place is fun and welcoming. That means being playful while sparring with them.

Show visitors how playful we are instead of how effective we can be on them. Represent the gym well. Take care of new students the way someone took care of you on your first day.

Inclusivity

We don’t care about your sexual orientation, gender identity, or any of that. We care if you’re a good training partner. If you make intolerant comments at the gym, you will be banned.

Sexual Harassment

It will not be tolerated, and you will be banned.

Many gyms have power dynamics that have been exploited. We take this extremely seriously.

Language

The gym isn’t your workplace, but it is a place of business that regularly has kids on the mats. Keep your language respectful. If something wouldn’t be appropriate at your workplace, it’s probably not appropriate at ours.

If you hear something you think is out of line, say something or talk to a coach. Culture is built and maintained by everyone in the room, not just coaches.

Rank

Jiu jitsu has a history shaped by 80’s martial arts movies and power-tripping gym owners. We don’t want that culture. We play a weird niche sport rolling around on the ground. Don’t take it too seriously. Rank doesn’t give anyone the right to be a jerk.

The Small Stuff

Showing up late. We’d rather you be here late than miss class. If you’re late, wait until a natural break. Don’t interrupt a group to ask what the rules are.

Clothing. Wear whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t have pockets, zippers, buttons, or inappropriate content.

Cross-training. We encourage it. Go learn cool stuff at other gyms and bring it back.

A Note on Gym Culture in BJJ

Some jiu jitsu gyms operate more like cults than businesses. We don’t do any of the following, and we think you should be skeptical of gyms that do: requiring people to call coaches “master” or “sensei,” disallowing cross-training, paying for belt promotions, lining up by rank to enforce hierarchy, telling members what they can post on social media, coercing attendance at paid seminars, or creating environments where lower-ranked students can’t say no to higher-ranked ones.

There’s real value in rituals that serve a purpose: lining up to conclude class gives structure, a “3-2-1 clap” helps signal when to listen vs. when to talk. We keep the things that help. We skip the things that exist to enforce a power dynamic.

Any environment that exerts undue control over members creates imbalanced power dynamics that can be exploited. If you see anything at GJJ that feels off, call it out or tell a coach.