1. You actually know what an acai bowl is and look forward to them as a treat. Most people will have no idea what an acai bowl is. Some fitness people may have heard of acai as a supplement, but will never have experienced an actual acai bowl. When you have your first you almost feel like you have completed a right of passage.

2. You do more laundry that at any other time in your life. The good thing is that you won’t actually mind doing it that much. You know you that you need to be clean when you train. You understand it is a sign of respect to your training partners to not be the stinky training partner.

3. The number of T shirts that you own that are BJJ related, will far outweigh any other T shirts you own. In fact training clothing may pretty much outweigh most of your clothing full stop! Wink wink, this is available on our store! Adidas and Nike will be a thing of the past, as your T shirts express that you are part of the BJJ culture.

4. People around you notice that you are always in a good mood. BJJ training is actually fun and you can’t help but be a happier person if you are having this much fun. No matter what your age it’s fun makes us all happy and you carry this with you off the mat.

5. On a holiday you’ll take a gi just in case you can find somewhere to train. Actually thats what at you tell your partner! You actually check before you book that where you are staying is near a club you can train at. It can be complicated, but with our Gracie Humaita Student Passport, you can’t go wrong. You have to make sure that you can get at least one session of training in whilst away!

6. You look in the mirror and see random bruises and don’t remember what caused it. This will happen more and more especially as the bruises start to turn brown. You will develop a standard response when questioned about your bruising: “Oh it must have happened at training”. You become used to the inevitability of getting bruised.

7. You find yourself in work/school visualizing how you could have escaped that submission or work that technique, from last night. The more you train the more you will start thinking about the techniques you are learning, this could happen at any time. Initially its committing the movements to memory, then it evolves into figuring out counters. Maybe you keep a notebook and write BJJ “flow” charts of moves into them. Moving into planning your game.

8. You find yourself explaining to your non BJJ training partner that spending a $100 plus on a gi is reasonable. Doing this by comparing it to designer shoes, clothes etc. may work in this situation. Or explaining you will get many years of use, so it only works out a tiny amount a year. This will only work for the first one, so be prepared with your justification. Either that or you will have to deal with the looks you get from your partner, who is mystified as to why you want another one of those things that look like pyjamas.

9. Your Facebook feed is just full of BJJ related threads – unless its cute dog videos (we all like those!). The longer you train the more BJJ friends you will get, then you start following the BJJ superstars to see if any new techniques are coming up. Next it’s the BJJ blogs, for tips and advice. Before you know it the non BJJ posts become a hindrance.

10. Eventually you spend less time partying. No one wants to train with a hang over or feeling rough. Imagine being under a heavy side control with a hangover, not a good time. You will want to get up for training the next day, so it seems a waste to spend all that money in the bar, as well as missing training. This lose lose situation is a no brainer.

If these do apply to you then you can be pretty assured you are living the BJJ lifestyle and the best part is, you wouldn’t want to change any of it.