A dating expert has ignited debate in the BJJ world after claiming that Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academies are experiencing an “epidemic” of women getting involved with their instructors.
The controversy began when Jake Shields endorsed a viral post questioning why some beginners bring their partners to co-ed Jiu-Jitsu sessions.
The post described scenarios where new students, often with little physical training experience, are dominated by far more skilled instructors while their partners observe or participate in the same class.
The dating expert added fuel to the fire by describing the phenomenon:
You’re a couple. You go into the jiu-jitsu school and your wife watches you be completely infantilized and emasculated by some big buff Brazilian guy who ties you in knots and then makes you tap out several times.
Their argument suggests that these power imbalances – skill, physicality, and experience – can create uncomfortable or potentially destabilizing dynamics within relationships, particularly when the instructor becomes the person guiding the spouse’s training.
As they put it:
She’s now on the ground grunting with this good-looking, in-shape Brazilian man who just put her husband in a choke.
I just don’t think people understand what that does evolutionarily.
The expert even pointed to high-profile speculation involving Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, referencing claims that the former supermodel became romantically involved with her Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor after her separation from Brady.
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