Things We Don’t Do at Sabre: #3 School Uniform

At Sabre, you can wear whatever gi you like.

Our club colours are black and red, so I usually wear a black gi, and probably 90% of our students do the same. But we have people wearing blue gis, white gis, grey gis, green gis and even camouflage gis.

The camouflage gi gets the obligatory dad joke every single time.

“Where’s Olly?”

“Dunno. He was here a minute ago.”

“Can’t see him.”

It never gets old.

Well, it does. But we keep doing it anyway.

I’m aware that there are BJJ academies where things are rather different. At some full-time academies, you must wear a white gi.Not just students, either. Visitors have to wear white too. If you don’t have one, you can rent one. And students aren’t simply required to wear a white gi. They’re required to buy the academy’s own custom gi, with the academy logo, from the academy.

You can make an argument for this.

You can say it’s about preserving tradition. You can say white symbolises something. You can say that it’s easier to see whether a white gi is clean.

All reasonable arguments. I don’t buy them.

The white gi itself isn’t the problem. If you want your academy to wear white gis, crack on. There’s nothing wrong with that per se.

It’s the escalation from “we wear white gis” to “you must wear our white gi, which you must purchase from us” that I find uncomfortable. As well as “visitors must wear white gis too”.

At that point, it starts to feel less like tradition and more like control. And, frankly, a little bit like profiteering.

I’ve seen the same philosophy extended to NoGi. Which is even harder to justify on the grounds of tradition.

The heritage of NoGi rashguards is beautifully vivid and varied. There has never been a traditional NoGi uniform colour. Quite the opposite. Some of the best rashguard designs in BJJ are colourful, ridiculous, artistic or completely bonkers.

And yet I’ve seen academies where everyone is required to wear black shorts over black spats, with a black rashguard.

Black. Black. Black.

Don’t have the right kit? Don’t worry. There’s an academy shop.

Again, I don’t really buy the argument that this is about preserving tradition. It’s a dress code. And that’s where my school teacher brain starts to find this interesting.

I spend my working life in a school, and I actually believe in school uniform.

It has a genuine purpose.

For many children, particularly those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, uniform removes some of the anxiety and social pressure around deciding what to wear every day. It can create a sense of belonging. And, if we’re being completely honest, teachers also understand that having a relatively harmless set of rules to enforce is useful.

Uniform infringement. Tie not done up. Shirt untucked. Wrong shoes.

Deal with the little things.

Teacher wisdom says that if you allow every small rule to be ignored, eventually bigger behavioural problems become harder to deal with.

But BJJ isn’t school.

My students are adults.They’ve paid to come and learn how to grapple.

I have no particular desire to exert control over what they wear beyond the obvious requirement that it is safe and appropriate for training.

You want to wear a white gi?

Great.

Blue? Fine.

Grey? Absolutely.

Green? Why not?

Camouflage? Wait a minute… Where did he go?

And if you want to wear a rashguard covered in tigers, skulls, cartoon characters or something that looks like it was designed during a particularly vivid fever dream, knock yourself out.

Interestingly, despite all this freedom, most people at Sabre choose to wear the Sabre rashguard. But that’s because they want to.

Every so often I’ll put a message in the WhatsApp group:

“I’m doing another rashguard order from Subguards. Who wants one?”

That’s the extent of my sales pitch. There are no compulsory purchases. No uniform inspections. No requirement to buy Sabre kit in order to train.

And I genuinely like seeing people turn up in different rashguards. There are some great designs out there, particularly from my old friend Meerkatsu. I’m also rather partial to Scramble.

But I digress.

The important thing is that when someone chooses to wear a Sabre rashguard, it actually means something. They’re choosing to represent the club. They’re choosing to wear the club’s colours. They’re showing that they’re proud to be part of Sabre.

If I’d forced them to buy it and told them they couldn’t train without wearing it, I’m not sure that would tell me anything at all.

There’s a difference between having a club identity and enforcing a club uniform.

At Sabre, I’d rather have the former.

If you want to wear Sabre kit, I’ll be delighted.

If you don’t, that’s fine too.

You’re here to learn BJJ. Not to pass a uniform inspection.