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Writer's pictureSean Diviney

How to Make Your BJJ Teammates Hate You: The Complete List

Updated: Apr 1


A man with an angry look on his face

Hygiene

  • Stop cutting your nails

    • Bonus points if you shoot collar grips from a distance or work leg pummels

  • Stop showering

  • Don’t use deodorant

  • Walk on the mat with your shoes

  • Walk on the floor with your bare feet, then step back on the mat

  • Have some intimate “alone time” before class and don’t wash your hands

  • Use a gi without washing it

  • Regularly add raw garlic cloves to your diet

  • Wear spats, with no second layer

  • Stop brushing your teeth

    • Bonus points if you mouth breathe next to your partner’s face in back control


Sparring

  • Get a pin and then just sit there with your weight on top and don’t try to advance/submit

  • Only go for wrist locks

  • Take grips and inside position between the slap and bump

  • Use the wall, edge of the mat, or other people sparring next to you, to control your opponents movement and finish a pass/sweep/submission

  • Always roll like it’s the finals of the world championship

    • Bonus points if you are 30+ lbs heavier or 10+ years younger than your partner

  • Move your partner around by cranking on their fingers

  • Punch/kick your partner and when they complain tell them you were just pushing them

  • Use the oil check

  • Coach tap

  • Throw a temper tantrum when you get tapped

  • Grind your elbow on your partner’s face to get the choke

  • Grow your hair out and don’t tie it up

  • Don’t wear a rash guard and drag your sweaty, hairy chest across your partner’s face

  • Cultivate five o’clock shadow and grind it into your partner’s face to turn their head

  • Ask to go light, then go 100% after the first 10 seconds

  • Go 1000% for 60 seconds, then sit out for the remainder of the round to catch your breath

  • Learn 3 moves, just keep trying to get them, and never expand your game

    • Bonus points if you can keep this up for over a decade

    • Double bonus points if you ignore your professor’s pleas to try something new and then ask them when you’re going to get promoted

  • Make excuses before you shake hands so your partner knows any submissions he gets on you don’t really count

  • Stop sparring and throw a temper tantrum any time your partner inadvertently bumps you, pokes you, or taps you with something you don’t know

  • Fake an injury to get out of a bad position

  • Drip sweat directly into your partner’s eyes or mouth

  • Instead of grabbing the gi, grab a handful of your partner’s skin

  • Use pressure points

    • Bonus points if you tell people you do them because you’re a street fighter

  • Beat the crap out of new people

    • Bonus points for neck cranks, heel hooks, and grinding your elbow in their face

  • Don’t cover scabs and wear a rough gi, so you bleed all over everyone

  • Hold a submission after the tap just to make sure your partner knows you won

  • Celebrate after tapping someone

  • Try to open the closed guard by driving your elbows into your partner’s thighs

  • Go for submission when you’re inside the closed guard

  • Wear a cup and use it as a fulcrum for armbars and kneebars

    • Bonus points if you hip thrust it into your partner’s lower back in back mount

  • Explain how the submission you’re in wouldn't work in da streetz, MMA, or broadsword combat

  • Play really slow and loose and light until you get your sneaky collar grips in, then maximum effort

  • Keep score out loud every time you advance position

  • Complain a submission is not IBJJF legal and therefore didn't count

    • Bonus points if you don't compete in IBJJF competitions


Ego

  • Refer to others of your belt rank as “The White Belts,” “The Blue Belts,” etc as though you outrank them

  • Treat lower belts like dirt

    • Bonus points if you demand “respect” when they stand up for themselves

  • Brag about who you tapped

  • Complain about someone else’s promotion

    • Bonus points if they consistently tap you


Learning Technique

  • Don’t give a reaction to your partner when they’re working a setup that requires a reaction

  • Give so much resistance to your partner that the move they’re trying to learn doesn’t work

    • Bonus points if you find a way to say “see, I told you it doesn’t work”

  • Tell your partner all the ways they’re doing a technique wrong on their first drilling rep

  • Drill the technique 2 or 3 times, then insist you’ve got it and don’t need to drill it any more

    • Bonus points if instead of stopping, you work on a new technique from Keenan Online instead of what you’re professor is teaching


Teaching

  • Make fun of students who ask questions

  • Spend half of class on warm-up exercises -- if we wanted to workout we would have signed up for CrossFit instead of BJJ

  • Promote yourself to junior professor and provide unsolicited corrections/suggestions to your teammates

    • Bonus points if, when called out by your professor, you blame it on the student you’re correcting for asking you to help

    • Double bonus points for using a fake Portuguese accent

  • Pull everyone aside after class to demonstrate a gimmicky technique you found on the internet

  • Have a bunch of unwritten rules and enforce them with beatings

  • Ignore your demonstration partner’s tap when explaining a technique

  • Provide unsolicited coaching to people who outrank you

  • Teach techniques you saw online, but haven’t pulled off in sparring

  • Fart while demonstrating the triangle choke


Tournament Behavior

  • Cheer against your teammates opponent rather than for your teammate

  • Get your whole crew together to mock the guy you just tapped

  • Shout over your professor to coach your teammates

    • Bonus points if your instructions contradict your professor’s

  • Heckle the referee

    • Bonus points if your teammate is disqualified as a result of your heckling

  • Offer to drive your teammates to the tournament, then no-show

  • Offer to drive your teammates from the tournament, then leave without them

  • Offer your teammate some of your “banned substance containing” pre-workout

    • Bonus points if they get stripped of their medal

  • Ignore a verbal tap and wait for the ref to call “parou” before you release an inside heel hook


Dude Specific

This list is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, so I’ve intentionally left out anything having to do with sexual harassment and assualt. I don’t want to minimize the seriousness of those actions by lumping them in with basic hygiene.


  • Refuse to roll with women

    • Bonus points if you direct people to a YouTube video that explains why

  • Only roll with women

  • Don’t use strength until you get caught in a submission, then power your way out

  • Mansplain technique

    • Bonus points if she outranks you


What did I miss? Let me know in the comments.

 

A special thank you to Bunty Bhatia, Ann Mullen, Shuofei Yang, Gary Raydon, Chris Lovelace and Sean Lynch… your suggestions have been added to the list!

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