Choosing to protect your ears or not is a personal choice and you can belong to one of two categories; embrace your BJJ ears or protect your BJJ ears.
Embrace Your BJJ Ears
In Brazil where BJJ is widely practiced, it is common to have these “BJJ ears.” It’s seen as a sign of pride actually to have these ears. The more damaged the ears the more passively is demonstrated how experienced the fighter is so BJJ fighters with cauliflower ears wear it like a badge of badassery. If you were on the street and happened to cross paths with someone with BBJ ears – beware of his stellar ground game! Some girls, especially ones in the sport even find them attractive. I’ve heard people have gotten hired because of these ears. Say the hiring manager or boss also practices BJJ and you go into an interview with BJJ ears – you’d already have a mutual connection! Or you could be going to the beach and you bump into a couple of BJJ grapplers and become instant friends.
Protect Your BJJ Ears
On the flip-side, professionals who work in settings where image is important (sales, business, hospitality) or where you work often around people than you would prefer your ears to look normal rather than with beaten up cauliflower ears. To people who are not familiar with BJJ ears you appear as if you are on the same categories of criminals or mugger. Sad to say but it is true that people judge others by the book of the cover. You only have one chance to make the first impression. If you are single or in a relationship how would your potential mate or significant other find you in terms of attractiveness? Would it get you a swipe right or left on Bumble?
Consider Your Category
If you got to reading this far into the article and still decide to train and roll without any ear protection – to train as you go type of mentality than at least invest yourself some Caulibuds magnets (%15 Off Discount Code: BJJEARS) for precaution so you can keep your ears intact from swelling one day after BJJ class if your ears turn red and aches. I belong to the second group and have worn ear guards during class every time since my ordeal with cauliflower ears a month into learning BJJ.
So it comes down to your line of work and how you want others to perceive you. These are things to consider and could make or break your ear (no pun intended 😊). Do you want to wear your cauliflower ears as a badge of honor or do you want a low key look like everyone? You look normal but can choke and submit people like a BJJ ninja?
There can be an underlying ego self-preservation or peer pressure to not wear ear protection because you think you’d be the one or you’d think people in your dojo think that you’re a wussy. You only have two fragile ears protruding outward from your face. Yes, you can get it surgically fix, a blue belt in my class did this and he looks normal but that comes with costs and risks in its own. There are also a select few of individuals who just don’t get cauliflower ears – I had to roll to find out the hard way from experience. My inner ears’ cartilage are harder than the outer so my first experience with cauliflower damage occurred in the inner ear rather than the outer ear.
Comment and share your thoughts below and thanks for reading.
Ossu!