As coronavirus-related restrictions begin to ease up, one blue belt is speaking out against his local government for what he describes as “fear-mongering” after they released a list of guidelines that include recommended hygiene practices for gyms hoping to reopen in the coming weeks.
The blue belt (who asked to only go by his first name, “Patrick”) called his local government “a flock of sheeple,” referring to himself as a “wolf” who “eats idiots for breakfast without milk.”
“My issue is that the government wants to tell us how to live our lives. I woke up today in a free country, and I can make my own choices about how I go about my day,” he told the Jiu-Jitsu Times. When asked what specific choices he felt the government was trying to take away from him, Patrick responded “all of them” before clarifying that he took particular issue with the hygiene recommendations that have been in place since the start of the pandemic.
“Enough is enough, you know? In the beginning, I understood. I made sacrifices, changed my routine, washed my hands even after I’d only peed. But it’s been months now, and the government still wants us to wash our hands with water and soap? For twenty seconds? Regularly? It just seems a little Gestapo-y to me.”
Patrick says that his outrage stems from the fact that the BJJ gym where he trains has a tentative open date following a satisfactory decline in new COVID-19 cases, and he doesn’t believe the “archaic” guidelines should still be in effect at this time. “This bullsh*t about sneezing into your elbow instead of the palm of your hand? If you look it up, and you should, that’s a textbook example of socialism,” he said. “Our country is heading down a dark path, and if you’re not scared, you’re not paying attention.”
The Jiu-Jitsu Times contacted a few of Patrick’s teammates for comment, and although we didn’t get any responses initially, it was soon discovered that a miscommunication was to blame.
“Oh, that’s his name,” said brown belt “Freddy” (pseudonym), who has rolled with Patrick on occasion, but says he tries to avoid it. “We all just know him as ‘Stinky Gi Guy.’ Because… well, you know why.”
“Yeah, he’s gross,” said a white belt teammate of Patrick’s, who also preferred to remain anonymous. “I don’t know if he comes to train straight from a physically demanding job or if he just doesn’t believe in deodorant or if his laundry detergent smells like decomposing rat mixed with curdled milk left out in the sun, but I think we’re all just kind of hoping he doesn’t come back.”
Patrick says his teammates’ words don’t surprise him, and that his BJJ academy has always had “an air of dictatorship” about it. “I’ve been asked not once, not twice, but four times to put deodorant on in the middle of class,” he said. “And I proudly said no. All four times, I’d put deodorant on the previous day, and since I hadn’t showered since, it’s not like I’d washed it off. That was just my coach trying to exercise his authority over me.”
When asked to address the rumors that he didn’t wash his gi, Patrick scoffed. “Of course I wash my gi. Come on. Rolling around in sweat like that? It would be gross not to.” The Jiu-Jitsu Times followed up by asking how often he washed his gi, to which he responded, “What are you, a cop?”
Despite his resistance to the recommended hygienic practices described in the government guidelines, Patrick insists that he’s been doing his best to “flatten the curve” and keep himself and others healthy during the pandemic. “Not gonna lie, I almost broke quarantine by hooking up with a few girls from Tinder. But chicks are high-maintenance these days. They want a dude with a $50,000 car and big muscles, and even though I can treat them better than those shallow ‘men,’ they won’t sleep with a nice guy like me just because I don’t have a bed frame or mattress cover. Absurd.”
Patrick says he’ll be jumping right back into training as soon as the gym doors open again.
