By Following a trying summer in which many Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fans found themselves exposed to uncomfortable realities about the sport, the community is excited to move past it and back into it happier times, having successfully been really mean to that one gym chain and the guy who owns it. Now, when an industry leader decides to actively promote someone despite them being the most high-profile abuser-protector in the sport, there will be some very stern responses in the comment for their social media manager to ignore while liking all the fire-emoji comments.
“When all those stories broke of coaches and teammates taking advantage of students, both young and old, it was really world shattering,” said BJJ purple belt Aiden Morris. “All you can think about when you learn about something like that is what you can do to help and make it better. It’s just why I spent so much time paying attention to what women were saying about ways to make things better, like analyzing my own actions, instituting new policies at gyms and creating an atmosphere where victims feel heard. That’s why I made sure to spend the last 3 months commenting ‘umm, protect predators much?’ whenever that one guy posts. It just feels really good to have fixed it, ya know? I hope all the women at my gym see that and know that I’m one of the good ones if they’re ever looking for a guy who shares their interests.”
Sexual assault now joins an extensive list of problems solved by the BJJ community. Other highlights include ending police brutality by making cops better at manual violence, fixing racism by saying it was pretty uncool to let Nazis compete without covering their tattoos first, and normalizing gay and trans inclusion by constantly incorporating the communities into insults thrown at teammates.
