Where My Ladies At?

When it comes to the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competition scene, the ladies divisions are often sparse. I won’t pretend I have been in the game for an exceptionally long time frame, but in the 9 years since I began Jiu Jitsu and started competing, I am lucky to see a handful of female competitors, especially at the local competition level. It can be discouraging to train incredibly hard to prepare ourselves for a competition, only to have no one close in size or skill level show up. It can be helpful to have tournaments post the sign ups in advance, so others can see if they have the possibility of opponents, but it still takes that first person signing up to do so. Personally, I sign up as often and whenever I can, and I hope other ladies follow suit. As an outlier (sub 120 lbs and brown belt), I know I often won’t have anyone until the larger scale tournaments a la IBJJF, but I am always willing to compete in a higher weight bracket just to get matches. Just trying to be the change I want to see in the world.

Unfortunately, at the local level, there just isn’t a variety of women signing up to compete. There is a smattering of white and blue belt ladies, and then it usually just drops off. Sometimes we are lucky enough to see the occasional purple belt, but at brown, I may as well just wish in one hand and shit in the other, and see which fills up faster. I know there are plenty of upper ranked ladies in my area, but perhaps they just haven’t been hit by the competition bug like I have and I can’t force anyone to love to compete in the way that I do. It’s just very disheartening to show up time and time again with my bag of gear laying unused in the backseat of my car.

I often see BJJ women try and start online petitions to add more weight categories or age categories for women, but business-wise this makes little sense. Business models are often based on supply and demand, and we can’t even fill up the brackets we currently have, so why would these larger corporations and promotions ever feel the need to offer up any more? There is nothing I would love to see more than equal pay and equal categories amongst all the female divisions, but I know in my heart of hearts that right now, it would be almost foolish to wish it were so unless we physically see the changes made with our peers.

I’m truly sorry if this blog upsets you, as I know many BJJ women out there reading this will oppose to my philosophy on the matter and vehemently disagree. They might see this post as me being negative towards women in the Jiu Jitsu world, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I want women to show up and compete. It is my dream that we would dominate the brackets and everyone who wanted a match would find one of equal balance. But the higher in rank or age that you go, or being on the lower or upper end of the weight spectrum, puts you at an incredible disadvantage for finding willing opponents. Women are such powerful beings, so why all the hesitation?

I know many things come into play such as time and cost, but men deal with this too and very rarely do they not ever have a sole person to compete against. I can’t remember the last time I had a match at a local tournament and even at the large scale ones I’ve either had to move brackets or I would be exceptionally fortunate to at least have one appropriate person. I don’t know much more of what I can do besides keep signing up and hoping that seeing my name on the competitor lists inspire others to sign up as well. Maybe if we had any companies offering sponsorships or incentives to get these badass women on the mats too. And if you have any ideas to help, please, I implore you, flood my inbox. In the words of Elastigirl, “Girls come on. Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don’t think so.”