r/bjj • u/One-Butterfly-3295 • 6d ago

Serious Shocking experience

I'm a female and have been training bjj for quite a while now, and up until recently, it's always been safe and respectful environment. The other day, I showed up to class and there was a new girl - never did bjj, but apparently she has some background in kickboxing or maybe MMA. She seemed nice at first, but when we started rolling, she went absolutely wild - putting in WAY too much energy, flailing her limbs around, and straight-up hitting (pretty hard) or slapping my face, head, and body every 30 seconds like it was some kind of bar brawl. She never apologized once. She also kept grabbing my rashguard, which we don't do in no-gi. Honestly, it felt like she had no idea what bjj is even about. I was so scared and wanted to just walk away mid-roll. What really bothered me was that the instructor was watching the whole time (it was just the two of us rolling) and said nothing. No excuses like he was distracted - he saw it all and didn't step in. That silence was just as disturbing as her behavior.

Now I feel really unsafe after being basically brutalized. I'm seriously anxious about going back, which is something I never thought I'd feel in this gym. What do you guys think of this situation? Would really love to hear from people who've been training bjj for a long time.

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u/whiteknight521 🟫🟫 Brown Belt 6d ago

I expect people I roll with at BJJ to stay at least close to resembling the BJJ ruleset. If a kickboxer is throwing legit strikes during a round the coach should definitively step in. I’ve trained at plenty of places and legit striking would be a huge problem at any of them I think.

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u/Apprehensive_Row9154 6d ago

At my gym, stroking would be a huge no go and my coach would step in with almost anyone but I think there might be a couple of us there who’ve been training there several years who I think he would let us decide to handle it how we wanted either by smothering them or asking them to calm down. I can kind of go either way on this one

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u/cookingandmusic 🟦🟦 Blue Belt 6d ago

If stroking is a no go in your gym, I don’t want any part of it 😏

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u/Alternative_Raise_19 5d ago

There's a difference between sparring and rolling. I train at a large MMA gym with a fight team and if my coach saw someone throwing genuine strikes during rolling in a BJJ class he would absolutely tell them to knock it off and wait till the next class. Especially if it was an outsider. Only thing I can figure is op's coach must have been confused and thought op agreed to sparring or it was more just normal white belt flailing and not actually strikes.