by Jeff Meszaros

So, you’ve been training at the same jiu-jitsu club for a while now and you’ve decided it’s not for you. You’ve given it very careful consideration and concluded that it’s time to move on to another club or quit altogether.

But you don’t want anyone to call you “a quitter” so instead of quitting, you’ve decided to take the high road and get kicked out.

But how can you do it? How can you get thrown out of a martial arts club?

Here are a few ways. They’re guaranteed to irritate your instructor and, probably, your fellow jiu jitsu students too. Do some of these and chances are you’ll be told to hit the road very soon, if not immediately.

Don’t Pay For Classes

Refusing to pay is a fine way to get tossed out of any business; especially if you’re expected to pay up front. Walk into a coffee shop and shout “I refuse to pay for my coffee!” and see how that goes for you. You won’t get any coffee and they may call the cops to come take you away.

But, as hard as it is to get free coffee, there are actually many ways to get free jiu-jitsu classes. You can offer to clean the mats each night or, if you know some stuff, help teach classes or just bring in lots of people who will join. Do any of this stuff and you’ll easily earn your keep, even if you’re not paying for classes.

But that’s not your goal. You want to get kicked out, so here’s what you’ll do: Straight up refuse to pay. Act like jiu-jitsu is a God-given right; like air, water and decent wi-fi and say you should never have to pay for it. That should do the trick; especially if you refuse to help in any way.

Perhaps that’s too obvious and you want to draw things out as much as you can. Maybe you’re still on the “free trial” that some schools offer and you want to see how long you can milk that before someone loses their cool.

Here are some fun ways to make life agonizing for your instructor.

First, avoid them like the plague so that they can’t collect money from you. Run in and out of class before they can talk to you; or just come to classes taught by assistant instructors who might not know you’re avoiding paying up.

If you are cornered, plead a case of extreme poverty and say you can’t afford to pay the same rate as everyone else.

If they actually go for that, flaunt your riches as much as possible; like fancy jewelry and clothing.

Finally, try to pay with cash and make it agony to get money from you each month.

Eventually, they’ll conclude you’re just too much work and send you on your way.

Be Hugely Disrespectful

Maybe the money angle isn’t for you and you’d rather get bounced due to your awful behaviour. Here are a few ways to offend everyone and make sure you’ll get ejected:

First, don’t pay attention at all when your instructor is showing technique. Just walk away, turn your back or go hit up the water fountain. Make sure all of the other students see you do this.

When it’s time to practice a technique, don’t do what the instructor showed. Just make something up and loudly tell people that what you are doing is a better technique than what was shown; not that you even know what was shown since you weren’t around to see it.

This should be just a part of your outrageous disrespect. Really, you should take every chance you can to imply you’re much more knowledgeable than the instructor. When they show you a technique, make a “Pfffft!” sound and roll your eyes. During demonstrations, whisper loudly into the ears of those around you to give your critique of what’s being taught. Then giggle and walk away, shaking your head as you saunter barefoot into the bathroom.

Break All The Club Rules

It goes without saying that you should break every rule of the club. You can start with any requirements about uniforms. If they ask you to only wear white, you wear blue. Any request to wear a team kimono, or even club patches, should be immediately dismissed. If possible, wear a kimono with logos promoting another nearby club. Do everything you can to fly another flag and encourage your fellow students to quit, but don’t actually quit yourself. The plan, after all, is to be kicked out.

With that in mind, defy any concept of hygiene. Walk barefoot in and out of the bathroom. Actually, walk to the club barefoot and step onto the mat with feet so filthy, you could grow potatoes between your toes. And never, ever wash your gi. If you can, ball up your gi after each class and hide it somewhere in the club to marinate until you come back to wear it again. That way, you’re sure to spread ringworm and staph like an epidemic.

If anyone is crazy enough to train with you, make it the most regrettable experience of their life. Beyond your total lack of proper technique or basic hygiene, use no common courtesy.

Head-butt and slam all your partners. If heel hooks are illegal, guess what you love? Do things that would get you DQ’d even in mixed martial arts. Wildly throw up-kicks and elbows. Make sparring with you indistinguishable from a street fight, but begin by asking your partner to “go light” just to make sure you’ll catch them with their guard down.

If they complain to you about it, say “That’s how it is in the streets” and flash some gang signs at them.

On a that note, be sure that your philosophy on training is totally different than everyone around you…

If you’re in a sportive club, focus on street fights. If they’re into the self-defence idea, be super-sporty and talk about rules, points and time limits. If they wear kimonos, try to be a no-gi guy and never wear a kimono, even when asked. Even if there’s another club around the corner where all the students share your point of view, just stick it out and go against the flow.

Complain About or Decline Promotions

If you do any of these things, you shouldn’t be around for promotions but, if you are, there are two angles you can take; both awful.

First, loudly complain about not getting promoted. Even if you’ve never done anything to deserve it. Pretend it’s an unsolvable mystery how people with good attitudes, good attendance and good technique are being given belts that continue to elude you, despite your terrible attitude, shoddy attendance and total lack of any skill.

The other outrageous option is to turn down a promotion. If your instructor has put up with your nonsense for this long, you’ll have to step up your game. So, if they give you a belt, or even just a stripe, turn them down. Either politely refuse to accept it or, to make things extra nasty, take it off and throw it onto the ground in front of everyone. That should be the last nail in your coffin.

Cost Them Money and Time

You should, of course, try to stir up as much trouble and drama as you can. Talk trash as much as possible and, if you can, get people to trash-talk one another. Encourage people to share their most repressed jealousy and bitterness with you. If they do, spread it like wildfire.

If you can’t find anything juicy to work with, spread rumours and gossip. Just make up stuff if you have to, but get the rumour-mill spinning so the club descends into a madhouse of suspicion, jealousy, bitterness and broken hearts.

If you do this correctly, the instructor should be kept busy around the clock keeping students from going elsewhere; where you can learn jiu-jitsu without people having emotional meltdowns all the time.

If you’ve gotten this far, it’s a miracle. Any club on Earth should kick you out for any one of the reasons we’ve put forward; never mind a combination of them. But let’s say you’re still welcome at this club which, apparently, is run by a person who is either as oblivious as an opium addict or as dumb as a duck.

For whatever reason, they’ve let all your transgressions slide so far…

At this point your only choice is to break the law. You don’t want to go to jail, so you shouldn’t do anything too serious, but you do want to get kicked out and it looks like you’ll need to get the police involved.

So what can you do? Steal from the club. While everyone is out on the mats, go back to the change-room and loot it. Then show off what you stole on social media. Maybe even come to class wearing some of the clothes you stole. That should be the end of your membership at any martial arts club lickety-split and maybe the start of your new life as a convicted criminal.

It’s important to remember one final thing. Doing anything we’ve covered will invariably lead to your teacher sitting down with you to see what the issue is. Your teacher will want to have a chat with you about your behaviour, just to see if some compromise can be reached.

This is where you must not go off course by admitting anything. Do not admit any wrong-doing. Quite the contrary, you should make the argument that you’re the person who’s been wronged. Just blame everyone else and claim to be the victim of persecution. Then make an impossibly long list of things you want to see changed in order for you to stay.

If you do all this and you still don’t get the boot out the door, then there’s nothing you can do but admit you’re training in the perfect place for you.

About the author: Jeff Meszaros is a BJJ black belt based in Vancouver BC.

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