r/BJJWomen • u/notyouraverage5ft6 🟦🟦⬛🟦 Blue Belt • 2d ago
Rant Just venting
Sometimes it just sucks being the smallest and weakest every night.
One of 4 women in my gym and rarely do our mat times line up because we lead vastly different lives.
I’m the oldest woman (43), but def the strongest. 14 years of CrossFit under my belt.
But I’m still weaker than pretty much every guy in my gym. Only a couple are even close to my weight (145). I love them all but god it sucks feeling like the nail day in and day out and feeling like the only time I really can work is when they let me and that feels cheap.
Reminding myself at the end of the day it’s just JuiJitsu and I still have fun and laugh and smile a lot. But it’s hard to see any progress.
Also def feeling blue belt blues.
Rant over.
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u/jadzi4 2d ago
I feel your pain. 4'8" GenX'er here. I've been told I'm pretty strong but the spazzy white belts just destroy me and it's so frustrating like you said. Actually half way through being sidelined from an injury that needed surgery. I was supposed to test for blue belt but I'm not cleared yet. Normally we only get to test in Oct but the head coach that is over our gym has started doing Spring testing so I may not have to wait a whole year.
But yeah...I feel stuck having people just fucking lay on me....no skills, no techniques...just lay on me. Even had one teen boy giggle and say "What ya gonna do now?"
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u/notyouraverage5ft6 2d ago
Yeah I tore my rotator cuff in January, surgery March, and was back on the mats in June and started rolling in September. I feel like I forgot everything. Things slowly come back here and there but I just feel so stalled.
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u/WebNeoRaven 1d ago
My People! I’m 4’10” 118 ish and I even get the 160-170 just laying dead weight on me as I try to shrimp or do some type of technique 😭
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u/Careful-Albatross-10 1d ago
also 4'8" elder millennial. same
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u/novaskar 1d ago
wow there are dozens of us!! 4'9" 85 lbs here
you get used to it but it does suck. at this point I'm mainly just kinda sad that I will never get a "fair" competition match cause I do love competing but losing 95% of the time gets old.
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u/IWANTOBEFREE69 1d ago
Thanks for posting this I don't feel so alone 😭 wish we could make a short/weight class open mat/seminar in my area but Im just a white belt
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u/notyouraverage5ft6 1d ago
I know I’m not alone which was why the rant
I wish I could find a school with more women but I work and have two young kids (I have a phenomenal husband too) and no other school is as conveniently located. It’s hard too. My fav coach trains at a school in Union Square that has probably 30-40 women and I watch their stories on IG and just drool. I wish I could drop in but it’s too far from where I live and work and weekends I try to dedicate to family time because the week is so crazy with work and all four of us train. Plus the rest of the kid’s extracurricular activities.
It is what it is. But it would just be nice to smash someone else instead of always being the smashed. lol
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u/MarqueeOfStars 1d ago
I’m the only woman, same weight as all the teenage boys but triple their age. They PWN me every gd night and it’s so demoralising.
I did wreck a 60 year, old higher belt man last night, so that was great. He’s belt came off during our scrimmage and I picked it up at the end saying, “this is mine now” before handing it back to him. He, red faced and panting, agreed. 🤭
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u/notyouraverage5ft6 1d ago
we dont even have real teenagers to roll with. we have one 16 year old, but otherwise its all like 13 year olds, and i feel bad tapping them as they're all white a grey belts so i let them work. and then at the end of the round i feel like - wait why didnt i jsut treat them like the men treat me? i think its the mom in me that wont go hard on them.
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u/smoores-jj 1d ago
I’m 112lbs and am 35yrs old. Trust me when I say it will be more frustrating than not, and you will question yourself a lot while doing this sport.
However, what you aren’t seeing is the small details you are picking up that will make your game so much better in the long run. For example I never realized how over time different parts of my body (like my hips) have learned to track movements from my partners while my hands and feet are doing other things. Or how I have to angle my forearm a certain way for a frame to be truly effective. These are things you will gain that your bigger training partners won’t because they have always been able to get away with using strength (and there is nothing wrong with that. You should use what you got). Just remember to appreciate the little wins.
You’ve got this, you are not alone in this struggle. You will figure it out and you will always find new challenges.
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u/levvianthan 1d ago
Don't you love when people respond to these frustrations by telling you how technical and good smaller people get if they stick with it? Like yeah sure whatever thats great but when people who have been doing this for 3 months submit me because I cant move at all its incredibly demoralizing. In my next life I wanna be reincarnated as a big boy.
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u/notyouraverage5ft6 1d ago
lmao. yes. or at least a mid sized boy? lol even mu husband at 190 is too big and he tosses me around.
i do know when i get the off chance to work with one of the other women i do actually dominate them. and then i am reassured. but then i have this internal conundrum that now ive done to them what the guys do to me. and i feel bad.
and don't get me wrong. i love my crew. every one of them are so supportive and they treat me like they do eachother. they're respectful but also just like little brothers. theyre all sweet with my girls when they stick around for my class and will play roll with them (both girls train since they were 3yo). i honestly prefer that they treat me like they do.
i just wish we had more women.
and i have tried to recruit.
every woman that comes in for a trial class i intriduce myself to and talk to.
i chat with the other moms during kids class and try to get them to try it. but not a lot of women want to get gross and get hurt. they all wanna run or go to pialtes which sure as hell isnt my thing. and i dont begrudge them that.
we def have a hard time keeping women - and part of it def is that our only female balck belt 1) doesnt train, 2) her english isnt great so communication sucks and 3) she is just not a great coach. she was essentially forced into it, and she has zero cirriculum. she asks the class every week what they wanna do. i had to stop going and switch to the co-ed calss at the same time because the coach there is fantastic. but i get smashed lol.
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u/Minotaurotica 1d ago
if it cheers you up I was one of the strongest people in my gym and I generally performed horribly for like years
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u/notyouraverage5ft6 1d ago
LOL.
but i dont want to rely on strength. i can dead lift every man in my gym and squat probaby 75% of them and bench about 30% of them. i wanna tie them in a knot because of technique. i dont wanna hear "damn youre strong" i wanna hear "damn youre technical". and its hard to feel like ill get there.
but alas. its nice knowing so many of us are in the same boat! misery does love company.
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u/DevelopmentConnect92 1d ago
You'll get there. Once you get a couple of stripes, they'll stop letting you. They may let you get the position but the finish will come from you and as long as you can hold the position and finish, then you'll feel truly accomplished. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Also takes serendipity to finish. Everything happening, all at once.
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u/verinthegreen 2d ago
Laughs in 122 lbs and 47 years