Refusal of Training

Just a question as a point of interest: have any of you guys ever refused to train with a particular member of your club?

Em

 

I've refused to roll with one woman, purely on the grounds that her gear absolutely stank, her fingernails were filthy and her toenails were a couple of centimetres long (I wish I were exaggerating). I was up front about why with her (though I wasn't as blunt about it as I'm being right now), and her hygiene's improved since then

 

No but sometimes I wish I had LOL.

 

Akky - yes I have refused to train with one person in my dojo for about a month till he understood why being an a-hole on the mats was unacceptable. Since then I will work with him as normal but any small sign of repeat behaviour and I will tell him to his face politely to stop and partner him up with someone bigger. He is nearly 30 years old and is an A class git.

Why, are you considering not training with someone? Is someone causing you problems in training?

Sever - are you serious?! Can't believe a woman would be that gross.

 

No, I haven't done that. It would be a bit rude.

 

Yes, I have. Twice. I hate working with guys who don't know their own strength and end up injuring people because of it. EDIT: this was at my kung fu school. No such prob in BJJ.. as the runt of the litter I get to pick my opponents.

 

I would start by saying that I believe it is the instructors decision who they decide to teach. So it doesn't matter what I think of an individual, if the instructor agrees to teach them, then they belong at the school. So on one level, I've never refused to train in the same class as anyone.

I have been disinclined to partner with individuals for techniques. But if the instructor put us together, I would not refuse.

I've also requested that my instructors not have me spar an individual for a time.

 

Almost. When my school was taken over by another area school, almost everyone left (followed the old instructor too far away for my mom to agree to take me as often as I wanted to go.) I was left there with a few students from the new school, which was a branch school, so we had really small classes. Once, I was there on a sparring day with just two little boys that were half my size. (And that's saying something, 'cause I'm small.) The instructor decided not to have us spar, otherwise I probably would have said something.

I'm not used to having a reach advantage anyway.

 

No, I haven't, but I have spoken to my instructor about the Hygiene thing. We had a guy who was so dirty at one of my schools my instructor told him he had to clean his feet to get on the mat! He used Windex!! Ick!!!

I also hate the people who just maul you.

 

In 14 years or so of off/on training, I've only refused to partner with someone once.

This was recently, in fact. I was trying out a free class at a local BJJ place, and the class was great for the first hour and a half. During the last half hour we free rolled, which was fine until this one guy sought me out specifically to roll with.

I'm about 5'8", 150 lbs (relatively out of shape)...and this guy was easily 6'2", 220 lbs (obvious weight lifter).

During training, he repeatedly made it a point to grapple like an A-Hole. He constantly talked down to me, scolded me when I couldn't break his titanium guard (his legs were huge), stuck his hands/elbows in my face...and otherwise acted like a moron.

Keep in mind this was my first class.

I put up with it for about 5 minutes (which is a long time during free rolling) before I stopped and said, "Alright, I'm done." I disengaged, took off my belt, and sat out until the next round.

Of course, the guy immediately freaked out and starting whining to the instructor about how I "couldn't handle his help"...after which I rolled with the instructor and had a pleasant time.

As you can imagine, I did NOT sign up at that place.

 

Yeah. Had this one guy I trained with for about 2 years. Every time we padded up to spar the only thought in his head was to go out and hit people as hard as he could to hurt them. He thought that by showing his prowess as an "ass kicker" that it would make him a better martial artist. Thanks to our Sensei for that mentality. As a matter of fact, my first sensei just got out of jail recently for roughing up 2 police officers. Go figure.

Anyway, I always tried to spar with people that needed the help with their technique as I was an assistant instructor at the time. Every once in a while I would draw "killer" in a session. One night I just refused to fight him and sat down. It wasn't because of fear, it was because I had enough of his bs and if I had stepped in, it would have ended bloody for both of us.

As fate would have it though, one night while finishing my 1st Degree Brown Belt test, during the sparring section with multiple attackers, he happened to be one of them. He side kicked me in the ribs and I thought he had broken a few so I set up a move where I saw him moving around behind one of the other attackers. I threw a left hook to keep him moving to my right and as he cleared this person's left shoulder I let loose with a right cross straight to his chin as hard as I could throw it.

Dropped him flat. After a few seconds he got up and staggered off the mat. Later he told me that it was the hardest he'd ever been hit and that everything changed color in the room. I smiled. After that, he had a bit more respect for the fact that he wasn't the only one in the dojo with "mad skills" as he liked to put it and became less of an a-hole to other students, helping them out instead of hurting them.

 

Welcome to about 90% of the BJJ schools around me. They all seem to be full of alpha male a-wads. The teacher at one actually claimed to be the best grappler in the state, despite him being a brown belt and a black belt being only 30 minutes from his school.

But I refuse to train with one guy at my school. Because he has a temper problem. If you score a few solid shots on him, while sparring. He goes ape and starts screaming and throwing haymakers. Which would be fine because i'd get sparring and street fight training at the same time...but he out weighs me by about 150 lbs.

 

Stungun fu

 

I've had plenty of people at my old MT club back home that loved to go pretty hard during the sparring which was fine, their were plenty though that loved to give it out, but could never take it. I've never shied from a fight though and have duly recieved: A broken toe, two dislocated toes, a black eye, a broken nose, dislocated thumb and fractured arm. I've never refused to spar with someone even if I've been completely mauled by them.

In fairness the dislocated thumb and toe problems were my own fault.

I imagine its slightly different in something like BJJ though.

 

I refused to spar with one guy after sparring with him once... he wore MMA gloves that were more like weight lifting gloves and he went full on...while everyone else was wearing normal MMA grappling 4oz and not going full on.

I had a bit of a go at him and told him to either borrow someone else's glove and hold back or just grapple, he wasn't happy with what I told him and he started bad mouthing me at people "Bill cant take my punch...blahblah" . Y'know, the usual confused rambling male jibber jabber for like weeks.
So I called him out to square off whenever he wants, no reply and never saw him again.
(this is also the 1st and only time I challenged someone for real)

 

There's one bloke at training you have to really keep an eye on, no control and has a bit of a women complex. Also thinks its funny to go all out all the time even when drilling new techniques.

I've never refused to train with him but have had to bring him back down to earth on a few occasions. (Figuratively and literally speaking)

We don't really have any stinkers, quite a nice bunch really.

 

Very friendly Judo dojo, never a problem except one occasional student who doesn't shower before our AM class (or else he poops his pants when thrown, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.) I have never had to do ground work with him but eventually that terrible day will come. One other guy had what might have been bird doodoo on his leg for a long time, but he finally washed the damned gi.

I also do a Kempo style in which we wear heavy protective gear and go full force. There are usually one or two guys I am afraid of-the TKD ones who can get a nasty head kick through to a short guy like me, one guy who doesn't pull his knee strikes (freaky even with a cup on), and another very tough dude who likes to try offbeat, painful stuff like an incomplete sweep that ends with a kick to the achilles tendon. These are actually the most rewarding guys to work with (well, except the knee in the nuts guy) and I not only spar them but let my son do it too.

There is also a very pretty lady who comes to our class once in a while who is offended every time you say anything, good or bad, about her technique and gets all indignant when you hit her, as if she didn't know what MA is all about. We do coed sparring from time to time, and I try to avoid this one since I am afraid to touch her.

In the end, EmberkSW is right on this issue. Since we are all dependent on the Sensei's judgment for safety matters, it's his call. Just the same, if I really felt someone was acting in a dangerous manner, I can certainly imagine refusing to let my son fight him.

 

Well, exactly. MA training shouldn't be a cult, don't check your brain at the door. But my experience with my instructor is that our school doesn't tend to keep the overly aggressive types.

 

I've had a BB refuse to let me roll with someone in a grading before, never refused anyone personally. There's a couple of people I am disinclined to partner, mainly as they can be so awkward.

 

I've never refused to train with anyone, but there have been occasions where I probably should have. One group of people who I don't like training with is children. They're too small for any rough stuff, and they cry for no rational reason. They make poor training partners for adults because they are not mature enough to realise that it's not acceptable to scream and whinge about very mild physical contact and they are not old enough to give reasoned consent for an activity like sparring with an adult.

Apart from that, there's the stinkers, the people who tell me they're into 'street fighting' when they're obviously in no fit state even to fight with my yorkshire terrier, the people who insist that what we're doing is in some way 'unrealistic' because we're wearing gloves, the people who don't seem to understand that sparring is an exercise and whack away without warning while I trying my best not to hurt them, the people in the aforementioned group who whinge about it when I do end up hurting them, women (and men, but most of these have been women) who think the object of full-contact sparring is to lightly tap the other person, the men who think sparring with women is in some way sexual and tediously refer to it as such, the men who date a girl I was making a move on and are in every way due a good beating, people I dislike personally(it's not safe. Except when they're the sort of person you can trust not to take things too far.), the people who have to stop literally every ten seconds because they can't be bothered to exercise, people who refuse to take jewellry off, whitebelts who think that they're bruce lee, instructors who encourage them to think so, people who refuse to hit me back- and in extreme cases, actually run away from me, women who think scoring cheap points in sparring is an exercise in applied feminism, men who think sparring is an opportunity to beat women up in a socially acceptable way, overly competitive people (One person did a victory dance. All I will say is that pride comes before a fall.), inept blackbelts (one of my pet hates.), people who refer to sparring in social situations in a way that implies they've been hard done to,

Oh, and Gary. That's about it.