r/bjjdrama

I have an anonymous personal experience that I feel convicted to share about a gym my children trained at for several months in Port St. Lucie, Florida
“Future Jiu-Jitsu School”

First of all, I want to say that the majority of the time spent there was seemingly great, and the coaches and staff seemed friendly enough, until the first incident occured. I had to speak to the female coach about a bigger, older child being rough with one of my children, and although to my face it seemed to be handled well, she then went up to another coach and I overheard her call me “gorda e feia” (probably thought I didn’t understand portuguese). I was shocked! This gym seemed like such a wonderful family gym, and I didn’t return with my children for at least a few weeks, and eventually decided we wanted to try jiu-jitsu elsewhere.

After speaking to the front desk guy, he informed us that all fees must be paid in order to cancel our account, which between the children added up to over $700!!! I had to pay my remaining balance, PLUS another month of fees. I asked if there was anything I could do to lessen these charges, and he informed me that this is standard gym protocol and there is nothing he can do for me. I was so disheartened by this and I just wanted to get AWAY from this gym as fast as possible, but they had to drain my bank account just for me to get out of there. We found another gym that seems much more reasonable, and when I told them about my experience at the prior gym, they laughed and said “that’s just their reputation”. Since then I’ve run into other parents who have shared their personal stories with me about their time spent at Future, and it’s honestly heartbreaking and disturbing to hear. A sad and awful experience over all, and a PSA for anyone thinking about signing up there.

Just like the Catholic Church is not the only religion to do so, I'm not saying that BJJ is the only martial art to harbor and protect sex criminals.

But it is the most prominent. Not so much in the prevalence of sex criminals but in the efforts to protect them. Whether they're big names or local nobodies. It would appear that kid diddling is the new meta in BJJ.

But why?

At the end BJJ is a silly activity. It's not that important. It could disappear off the face of the Earth and most people won't notice anything different.

Imagine if it was hopscotch instead.

Hopscotch schools, hopscotch associations, hopscotch seminars, hopscotch instructionals, etc. Then some people get rich off it.

Crazy, right?

Now imagine if some of these same people commit sex crimes but the hopscotch community does nothing about it. At best. At worst, they excuse it, downplay it, ignore it, or cover it up. For "good" reason. It will look bad for hopscotch if these criminals were exposed. Hopscotch schools may have to close down. There's a lot of money at risk too. And little Timmy won't be able to play hopscotch with his friends in the school again because the next closest one is three miles away. So best to let these people commit sex crimes with impunity.

But it's just hopscotch! Yet people will do their best to protect criminals for the sake of hopscotch. >!Yup, I got banned from the other place for the BJJ-Catholic Church comparison!<