And a couple of another things about BJJ which probably seem OK for American/Canadian people ( I guess you even don't see an issue with that) but were wild or weird for me as for an European person:
1). Most of BJJ gyms have this "we are family" thing. Like "We are family. Buddy. We are family" "our family", "no, we are family" etc. and then run to the debt collector bureau even if the person forgets to stop the contract or postpone a payment even for one day
WE ARE NOT FAMILY. I just pay for your servicies and help you to put some food on the table in exchange for your servicies. That's all.
2). Strange binding contracts. I understand that it is a common thing in US/Canada and a marketing strategy but to my mind it is very uncomfortable thing. Thank god that it is not common in Europe and you can still find an "old school" gym like pay and train and you can stop going there any time without any explanation and excuses if you don't like it or feel uncomfortable there.
3).When I was training in one well-known and famous franchise they were taking photos every training before,during and after each class, even if I didn't want. I guess they were sending daily reports to the central office or their headquarter which looked like some cult scientology weird s...t
making my uncomfortable trainings even more uncomfortable.
4). Downgrading and harassment of other martial arts representatives and inability to stand any criticism. Especially we can see such things under "judo vs. BJJ" type of videos with a lot of hate comments from BJJ practicioners or under the videos where sambo champions like Islam, Khabib and others destroy BJJ black belts. When all these social media magnates like Mask or Zuck started doing BJJ too, all comments in social media with criticism of BJJ for some magical reason been strangely deleted, reported, marked as a "spam" or been blocked every time. Which is also weird.
All this doesn’t really inspire to continue training and keep going in this sport, because I’ve never seen this in other martial arts, (only in CrossFit
)