The Importance of Hygiene in Jiu-jitsu and Respect for Training Partners

Hygiene! The most important thing you can do for your training partners. If you do not have good hygiene, I don’t really want to grapple with you. Hygiene does not just involve washing your gear so you don’t stink, but all sorts of cleaning to ensure your partners want to keep training with you.

To get the big thing off the table, if you do not keep yourself clean you can contract a myriad of pretty nasty skin diseases from the mildly annoying ringworm to the potentially fatal MRSA. I have had a couple of skin diseases in my years of grappling, and it is not an experience that I want to repeat. So in order to keep yourself disease free, you should work to keep yourself clean.

Listen I am not a doctor, I am not giving you medical advice, but I will give you the advice of someone who has been grappling for over two decades. Shower after you grapple, as soon as possible after you grapple. There are tons of products out there for anti-bacterial/Anti-fungal/etc soaps. I am not here telling you which soap to use just to use soap when showering after grappling. You should shower as soon as possible after training, if you are fortunate enough to train in a gym that has a shower then you can clean immediately after you get off the mat. If not, shower as soon as you can after you train.

Your training partners do not want to share diseases with you. I can guarantee that. So inspect your body regularly for spots that could be potential skin diseases and always err on the side of caution. I knew someone years ago who was a fantastic grappler, very talented and worked hard. Unfortunately they contacted MRSA as a result of a training partner trying to conceal a spot that they thought was no big deal. My friend ended up losing an arm as a result of the MRSA infection which sidelined his grappling career and ultimately made him quit grappling because he did not want to encounter that risk again.

Laundry! The thing about Jiu-jitsu that takes up the most amount of your time.You should wash your training gear frequently. I also tend to wash my gear separate from the rest of my laundry to prevent anything going from my training gear onto my regular clothes. Again there are plenty of products out there to keep your gear clean, sanitized, and smelling nice. I am sure you can find your own preferred product. I am just asking your to wash your gear frequently.

Brushing your Teeth. If you are like me, you like garlic and onions in your food, but that comes with the caveat that you have to brush your teeth more frequently. I recommend that you brush your teeth before training considering you are going to be up close and personal with your training partners. Nothing worse than trying to go for an arm triangle when your partner is sputtering out the equivalent of toxic fumes right in your face while they try to breathe.

Finger and toe nails should be kept trimmed and neat. I don’t think I have ever been scratched by a toe or finger nail that I didn’t have to work to keep from getting infected. Also, I have several scars from people's jagged nails scraping across my skin. I recommend getting a pedicure (because it feels nice) for your toe nails and either getting a manicure or taking care of your finger nails. I also know a lot of people, including myself, paint their nails in Jiu-jitsu because it adds an extra physical barrier to prevent nail fungus.

And lastly my most important thing. Wear your damn shoes when you go into the bathroom. Most gyms have kids classes and I can tell you as the parent of a child in that age group they cannot aim at all. They are terrible about hitting their target which in turn spreads germs around the bathroom that I certainly don’t want getting on your feet and the shoved half in my mouth as you try to do a gogoplata.

Hygiene is one of those common sense things about Jiu-jitsu where you think everyone would get it from square one, they problem is while most do, some don’t and it is always helpful to have hygiene brought up in ways to share the message that we should keep each other safe by keeping ourselves clean.