We Aren't Apples

It's time for the jiu jitsu community to stop the scourge of sexual assault in our academies.

Another day, and another eminent professor at a renowned jiu jitsu academy is facing accusations of sexual assault, a megalomaniac abusing his status to exploit students and indulge appetites. The responses from the jiu jitsu community at large skew toward the predictable: A wave of that instructor’s progeny disassociate with the academy in question, equally prominent peers come forward to admonish the accused while urging suspension of judgement until all facts have been revealed, and the tiresome chorus of apologists eager to blame the victim, branding her as manipulative, opportunistic, infatuated, etc. Meanwhile, the sport’s largest governing body lays down a backbeat of bland outrage and promises to champion standards of behavior that should be a given but that are regrettably necessary to codify.

Nothing new under the sun, and what’s glossed over as always is the reality that a student’s life has been shattered. For too many the sympathy will be for the perpetrator and not the one suffering. The events, despite revelations of increasing detail, blur to abstraction as we draw focus from the human consequence and instead scramble to make it clear that most of us are not like this and would never do that, and that jiu jitsu itself shouldn’t be painted with this brush of predatory sexual depredation. As is blathered again on so many social media threads, “don’t let a few bad apples spoil the bunch.”

Here’s the thing: we’re not apples. What has happened, is happening, and will happen again isn’t an opportunity to point out that you are decent. It’s an inflection point, a moment our community can either continue scurrying away from these incidents with performative shock, or finally decide enough is enough. Let’s stop acting surprised. We know when (typically) female students are targeted, groomed, and abused by people in power who have no conscience, who make a series of calculated decisions to dehumanize someone over whom they wield twisted charisma, and then leverage that to get their rocks off.

This loathsome cycle is, of course, not exclusive to jiu jitsu. It has afflicted humanity since, well, humanity. But framing it in those terms further fuels the shrug-and-throw-your-hands-up detachment so many of us respond with, an ugly amplification of the “boys will be boys” mentality that turns so many blind eyes.

Don’t be so weak as to succumb to that rationale. We train because it tests our mettle, mental and physical. We take pride in rigorous classes, demanding sparring sessions, and the challenge of competition. We are also quick to expound for anyone within earshot on how jiu jitsu improves our character as much as it does our fitness and fighting ability. That supposedly sterling character shouldn’t tarnish so quickly when confronted with a troublesome truth, especially when the well-being of a teammate or training partner is at stake. In fact, that’s the precise time for said character to be demonstrated.

Our supposedly sterling character shouldn’t tarnish so quickly when confronted with a troublesome truth, especially when the well-being of a teammate or training partner is at stake. In fact, that’s the precise time for said character to be demonstrated.

This kind of abuse doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Students being preyed upon requires a support network, sometimes active, but usually passive. Creeps and those who empower them know how to circle the wagons, even inadvertently. Assistants look the other way, spouses and stakeholders mentally detach or urge silence, prominent students refuse to accept that their hero is flawed and instead turn histrionic ire on the accusers. Preserving image takes priority over probity.

It’s time to do better. Instead of mildly formulaic outrage or worse, dismissive denial, we need to live up to the billing of our art. If someone you teach or train with comes to you with an issue, a worry, a fear, believe them. If it’s false, that will shake out. And if it’s true, enough said. Prior to that, pay attention and have the goddamn decency to act before a concern becomes a crime. If you pick up on an instructor who is abusing their power, confront it, make it known, shut it down. Yes, that takes courage, integrity, and rectitude, but that’s what’s needed now, and for real. Let’s read the slogans painted on our school walls and printed on our t-shirts. Let’s be worthy of them. We’ve allowed this contagion to flourish. Let’s be the ones who end it. Let’s be the complete jiu jitsu practitioners we purport to be. Don’t be a fucking apple.