Our BJJ journey – doing our part to help others have longevity in the art and life
Part 1: Health, cleanliness, smelling good and hygiene…
Hello all, wanted to talk a little bit about our incredible journey in Jiu-Jitsu and the responsibilities we have around our training, our partners in training and how we keep each other safe which leads to longevity in our training.
The point of this is not to call anyone out – I often prefer to not have to talk to individuals on items like this but give a firm reminder to us as a group as some of us may never have been taught the proper way to care for your gear etc.
Part 1, we will start with health. It is imperative that we not only consider ourselves but also those that we train with daily. Health starts with good hygiene of both ourselves and our gear.
- No easy way to hit some of these but right up front – your finger and toe nails should be trimmed to a non dangerous level, this is a requirement meant to help protect you in a high contact art. From scratches to cuts to eyes poked We have had a few inadvertent nail related injuries resulting in damage to eyes, necks etc – please keep your nails trimmed – the risk of injury is greatly reduced.
- Good personal hygiene – this is as important as any other high personal contact sport guideline. You should be clean, free of any and all open sores and your fragrance should not be something you use to submit others. We can often be carriers of infections, fungus and disease without even knowing it. It is imperative that we monitor these things. I use tea tree soap personally, that being said you can use many anti-fungal, anti viral and anti bacterial soaps. We have partnered with Defense Soap and I can order whatever we would like. Good body wipes are also a strong deterrent both before and after rolling.
- As mentioned in item 2, do not come in and train with open sores, scabs, or something you think is just a pimple. What you think is a pimple might be staph or some other gnarly skin infection that while maybe very small for you, someone else may have an adverse reaction to.
Myth – you cannot wash your belt
Answer – total BS, PLEASE WASH YOUR BELT!! It carries the same fungus and invisible health risk that your Gi would if you didn’t wash it.
Speaking of your Gi – wash it after EVERY practice immediately after. Do not let it set there, it will smell like cat urine and that smell is very hard to ever get out. I will give you below what I use to wash my Gis. Private Chris cocktail.
I use the below items, and I do wash on hot water when needed and mostly warm when not trying to give extra heat to kill anything in the Gi. I also will often dry on high heat to also kill anything left in the Gi.
Note using hot water and high heat to dry may lessen the longevity of your gear and may also shrink, use at your own discretion and need. Sometimes you HAVE to do these to attempt to get foul smells etc out.
You can also use this to help justify a new Gi 😬
- Tide pods –
- Downy unstoppables
- OdoBan
