Craig Jones has just decided to share his opinions on the uniform policies that other BJJ gyms tend to use. It’s far from the first time that Jones has been open about his thoughts and he’s criticized several big aspects of the sport like IBJJF world championship itself. As usual, he gave the statement on a recent episode of El Segundo podcast shortly after talking about some of the other unusual practices he’s noticed in gyms around the world. Out of all the rules that a gym might have, uniform policies are one of the most criticized among BJJ practitioners and it seems like Jones actually shares those opinions:
“There’s no reason to have a uniform policy, except that you want your members to buy your merchandise. Guys, just make cool merchandise… Pay a designer and guys will wear your sh*t, you shouldn’t make them wear it.”
Craig Jones didn’t stop there though, he decided to name one particular gym that he knows has uniform policies in place and in his typical style he made a few light-hearted jabs:
“Rafa Mendes at AOJ (Art of Jiu-Jitsu), I believe you could only wear white gis. Is this a gym or is this a Klan meeting, you know what I mean? Why are we all wearing white fabric over us at all times, you know what I mean? Is it professor Rafa or grand wizard Rafa, you know?”
Although Jones clearly isn’t a fan of having restrictions on what color or what brand gi your students can wear, he does admit that there’s one particular area he does have some policies on:
“The only uniform policies you should have is if someone’s wearing something… if you’re a man and you’re wearing spats only. If you’re a man and you’re wearing vale tudo shorts only. The policies should be in regards to that, they shouldn’t be in regards to what you have to wear.”
Although it’s not universal, it is more and more common that gyms will have uniform policies in place. Like everything, it must have started somewhere and Jones has an idea on who might have done it first:
“I wonder what the first gym that did that was? Probably Gracie Barra.”
The recent episode of El Segundo podcast where Craig Jones talks about uniform policies that some BJJ fyms use was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of B-Team Jiu-Jitsu:
