At the end of the day, a gym is a business, no matter how much it feels like family. Over the years you watch people come and go, and some sting more than others, but it is their prerogative to pay for a different place’s service and you always hope for the best. However, sometimes there are ways people make their departure, which constitutes shitty behavior if I’m being perfectly honest. I understand severance happens, but does common courtesy and respect fail to show up 100% of the time? If you feel like your Jiu Jitsu is stagnant, and you want to seek out different instruction to align with your style, fine. Have the balls to speak face to face with your instructor and part amicably, especially if there is a precedent of ‘friendship’ in place. Planning for months to do this, using a team name just to compete so the IBJJF won’t place a hold on you, and plotting with another member secretively for months is disgusting. You know what you are doing. Especially if you have done this before, but somehow you’re always the victim. If it happens more than once, it’s starting to become a trend. Maybe the problem doesn’t lie with everyone else, when you’re the common denominator. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, well I guess I’m just the biggest idiot on the face of the planet wasting my time defending you for so long.
I’m going to talk about something that caused me as much heartbreak as if I had been broken up with, as the termination of a relationship weighs heavy on the heart. Imagine thinking you were close friends with someone for the better part of a year, enjoying their company, having them at your wedding, spending time together outside of normal gym time, and genuinely enjoying their presence and think it’s reciprocated. Lucky enough to be able to have a professor, who has taken time off of his salaried job to travel states away to coach them just so they wouldn’t be without instruction. A professor who selflessly devoted countless hours to his students, placing no limitations on cross training elsewhere because he wants his students to excel, only to be figuratively spit in his face and say he wasn’t supportive. Bitch, where? Hurt people hurt people, and if my words seem venomous, you’re right. I am distraught. I, the biggest dumbass in existence, not only thought I had friends, but close female friends at that. I was a nothing more than a joke to them. A mockery. A disposable pawn they were more than happy to use under the facade of a “friendship.” What a joke I am.
There were many times I would come home at night, wracked with guilt feeling ostracized, and crying to my husband that maybe I was a bad friend. I would bake treats and write apology cards thinking I had done something wrong to be treated this way, and I felt awful that maybe I was a bad person or a bad friend. I was preparing for a fight, something I get paid to do, and sacrificed my MMA training to throw on a gi and help them prepare for something that they pay to compete in versus where it’s actually my job. In fact, the whole gym changed the time in the clock just to accommodate their wants and needs and show support. But I guess that’s not supportive enough. I was told after this competition, they would then be more than happy to help me with my training, knowing that was a lie the whole time because they never planned on coming back. Spin that however you want to any friends foolish enough to believe you, but it’s wrong. You don’t use people like that, especially when they genuinely care.
Honestly, it is my fault for not trusting my gut instincts. I knew something was off for quite some time. If there is ever a dynamic where someone enjoys having superiority over another, where the other person is so submissive that they will oblige to any requests the other makes without a second thought, maybe you should question wtf is wrong with these people. Do you have a shrine of them hidden in the closet of your house or something? I tried not to let the cliquey and catty behavior bother me, but it did. If I suffered at poor leadership, it was only when I didn’t step in sooner to put a halt on this poisonous behavior. I guess I just so badly wanted to be included that I put up with negativity when I shouldn’t have. How desperate I must have been for friendship. The ignored texts and whispers behind my back should have been the first clue. Dedicating my time to help her child get ready for competition, braiding her hair, helping her work through some things, all because I genuinely had so much love for that girl, even offering to take her to and from training in their absence. Now, I don’t even get to say goodbye. It sucks.
I’m tired of crying about this. At the end of the day, some people are just awful, and don’t care how many people they hurt on their path to selfishness. As long as they have one minion, they are resolute in their asshole ways. Maybe I should have listened to the rumors, but I was bamboozled by the facade of friendship. At the end of the day, I can live with myself and the choices I make to do good in this world, (because the Jew guilt would eat me alive) and I can sleep soundly knowing I’ve never been anything but true to my word. Though I’ve been heartbroken, I’m learning to be grateful instead. Grateful that I’m not beating myself up every day wondering if I did something wrong. Grateful to not be surrounded by fake and cancerous people anymore. Grateful that the trash decided to take itself out. I wish I could heal immediately overnight, but the snakes in the grass have poisoned me, and it takes time to slowly suck that out. With the loyal team beside me, and some truly great friends, family, and my husband, I will survive, thrive, and learn to be alive again. I’m sorry I allowed myself to be treated so poorly, but never again. The grass may seem greener elsewhere, but my grass is enriched with the most support imaginable, and now, snake-free. Team Rubao Carioca baby. Take yo creonte bullshit outta here.
Love you and your heart. I was at angym and tried hard for other girls to like me and for a while kept thinking “what’s wrong with me” I’d go up to their little group and try and talk or input into the conversation and they’d ignore me. My professor would get upset with me for not “trying to make friends with them” Till my professor called me in and told me I was toxic and asked me to leave and not come back.
3 months later he called me apologized and realized it wasn’t me only because they started ostracizing his wife. Asking me to come back and like an idiot I did.
Him asking me to leave after being with him at that academy for 5 years was heart breaking, put me into a deep whole of depression and I just couldn’t control the tears for weeks. It’s tough always thinking “I’m the problem “
This. Exactly this. Uncontrollable tears and all. I feel that sister. <3
Sending you soo much love Sam. It’s incredible how you can put to words your feeling in a way that touches on others experiences as well. I wish you did not have to go through that heartbreak. If I know one thing about you, it’s this. This experience may knock you down for a minute, only a minute, when you rise, watch out because something truly amazing is about to come your way. I can’t wait to see and hear what it is!
Can’t wait to be that phoenix rising from the ashes!
Sam, I am both encouraged and saddened by your article. Encouraged because you had the bravery to speak out and put into words your experience with a person who did that to you and the gym. It will help in the long run more than you know now. Saddened because you had to go through it at all. From one torched gym owner to another, who had a very similar experience by the same venomous snake as you describe, my only words of advice are to try to heal a little everyday, knowing you weren’t in the wrong, and that hate can internally destroy you easier than any one villain. Some lessons are only learned the hard way, and truly trusting any student will never be the same. However, we all need to work hard to route out the evil in our sport. My recommendation is to pay your experience forward to the next gym where these people intend on training and try to warn them of what’s to come. Actions and history at their new gym will no doubt repeat itself and eventually the best thing that will happen is their reputation will continue to build until no gym owner will allow them to train. That way, at the end of the day and when it’s all said and done, their Jiu Jitsu will be total shit, the best they can do is to train in someone’s garage, and the snake will have no one left to bite but itself because all the toxin it injected into so many people who once chose to care about it will leave permanent scars. Stay strong and eventually karma will clean house.
Your blog posts are always timely and heartfelt. Your posts on Facebook inspire me… amuse me. . Sometimes make me cry. You are brave, compassionate, loving and so many other words … thank you for being you a strong woman I admire!