How to Get More Women to Compete at Your Gym

A woman at your gym pulls up the registration page for a local tournament. Her division is empty. She closes the tab.

The next woman checks a week later, sees the same empty bracket, and closes it too.

A competitor on r/BJJWomen put the loop plainly:

That loop is the default for women in BJJ competition. Each woman is making a sensible call alone. Your gym can make a different call for all of them at once.

Funny enough, at NEO Martial Arts we don't tell anyone to compete. If you want to, you compete for yourself, because competitions are hard.

But when one of my women decides she wants to, I don't want an empty bracket, a bad merge, or a room full of bigger training partners to stop her. Most of those are yours to fix.

I was the pioneer female instructor at NEO. Coach Patrick started teaching a small group of women at our gym, then handed it over so our women's BJJ program could be overseen by a woman. The idea was actually never about competing. When I took it on, it had no female competitors.

Today about four adult and masters women compete, plus a group of teen girls, 12 to 16, who are actively competing.

Here's how we clear the way when one of them decides to go.

Why Your Women Don't Sign Up

The r/bjj thread "Empty Female Brackets" has both sides of it. One reply: "everybody else is staring at the same empty bracket. If you won't sign up, why do you think someone else will?"

Another: "At my gym there's only a couple of us women who compete."

Karate has the same problem. An instructor at Lion's Heart Family Martial Arts entered the 18-and-over women's division as a yellow belt and found "no one who is a yellow belt."

Up a weight, down an age, or into the absolute

When a women's division doesn't fill, she gets moved.

A competitor on r/BJJWomen: "out of 12 tournaments and 38 matches, I've had a match in my actual weight/age/skill division once." Another: "I'm almost always down an age category and up a weight class."

I know this one personally. Locally, I've almost always had to fight up a weight class or down an age group. It's the only reason I started competing internationally and putting that kind of money into it: it's hard to find women locally.

Even at the biggest events, we don't get as many opponents as the men.

She has only trained against bigger men

Hillary VanOrnum, head coach at Unicorn Jiu Jitsu, remembers the women she came up with. Every one of them was the only woman in her gym, with only male training partners.

Then she got to her first tournament: "oh, my God, there's other women my size and my belt that I can compete against."

Josh Littleton at Cast Iron Jiu-Jitsu remembers someone putting the gap this way: "A woman going with a man, average delta is like 50 pounds probably, maybe more."

The barriers nobody says out loud

Vicky Beckett's piece for Women Who Fight lists the rest:

• Childcare
• Asking a male coach to travel and corner her
• Water weight at the weigh-in
• An entry fee that feels wasted on a likely walkover

Cost deserves its own post. The rest only come up if women feel they can raise them, which is part of safe gym culture.

The Empty Bracket Is a Gym Problem

A study of 23 women who train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in the US looked at why women stay in the sport at all. It named a male-dominated sport and gender norms as barriers.

The top fixes the women suggested were more women's-only classes and seminars, and being supportive of new women. The study was about training, not tournaments, but those are gym moves too.

One woman can't fill a bracket. A gym can.

Send Them as a Team

At NEO, we have three or four local tournaments where we basically tell people: if you're going to do a competition, do these ones.

They're the largest events, some of them in our city. Because we've picked them, we put our full support behind them. That means a full coaching staff, competition classes, and a community focused on helping those athletes prepare, whether they're competing or not.

So my women end up signing up together. They talk among themselves, realize how many others are going, and see the whole community investing in it.

For picking which events to back, see choosing tournaments.

Get the names in early

For a major, we start talking about it a couple of months out. Some women commit right away to get the early-bird fee. Some wait until the last minute.

We tell every one of them to register sooner than later, because their names could be the reason other women get encouraged to sign up.

To be honest, I can't point to a time a division filled because my women got in first. It could have happened.

I actually tell my women to check local brackets for other women before they sign up. When they look, I want them to see their own teammates there too.

Fill the bracket with the gym down the road

Women already coordinate entries across gyms. One competitor on r/BJJWomen describes Facebook groups for women grapplers where people post which comps they want to enter and ask others to sign up. Sometimes a women's coach posts a list.

Text the women's coach at the next academy before registration opens.

I'll be straight with you: I haven't done this for my adult women yet. Coaches from other gyms have reached out to me, mostly to fill girls' divisions. I wouldn't be surprised if I start doing it for women next.

Or run the bracket yourself

If the open circuit can't fill a women's division, run an event where you control the bracket.

An in-house tournament with women's divisions works. So does a women's superfight on an interclub tournament card, matched by size and belt ahead of time. Promoters have tried it bigger, too: Kyra Gracie announced a women-only cup in Rio in 2018.

Prep Her Against Women Her Size

Our ladies program is a sub-program of NEO. It teaches the same system as our teen and adult programs, but it's a women's safe space and a beginner safe space. Community comes first there, and we mostly do positionals, not much live rolling.

So when one of my women decides to compete, she keeps coming to the ladies program, because that's her people. But if she has to choose something on the schedule, I steer her to teens and adults, and especially competition class. That's where the intensity is, and the different bodies, especially competitive ones.

I also roll with her more myself, at competition intensity.

Then I point out specific people in the room for her to roll with. Usually people close to her size. If not, higher-belt competitive teenagers, or men who give her a challenge without putting her at risk of injury.

The rest of getting someone ready is in how we prepare athletes.

Borrow partners from other academies

If your room doesn't have women her size, borrow them.

OB Jiu-Jitsu Collective in San Diego opened its Sunday women's class to every academy for free. Co-founder Alina: "it's free any academy is welcome."

A women's open mat a few weeks before an event works the same way.

Why women partners make her better against everyone

Sarah, owner of G.I.R.L.S. Gym in Portland:

Settle the Merge Before Check-In

This happens quite a bit, especially at locals and in masters divisions. The worst time for her to decide whether she'll fight a woman 40 pounds heavier is at the table, alone, 10 minutes before her match.

It can go badly. One woman on r/BJJWomen found no other women in her division, and "they made me compete against an 11 year old child prodigy. She subbed me in less than 30 seconds."

The more usual version, from another competitor: "usually they'll only move you up one weight bracket, and it's pretty rare they'll move you up a belt unless both parties agree to it."

Rules vary by organizer, so read that event's rules before you promise her anything. BJJ weight divisions and women's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu cover how the divisions work.

What I tell my women

I tell them up front that it happens often, and that it's happened to me, too.

Local is still a safe place to test yourself outside the gym. It's not a big investment, and you might surprise yourself.

And honestly, when I do see someone in my actual division, I feel super, super blessed. I almost give thanks to the women who put themselves out there, because they gave me the opportunity to compete.

I tell my women to adjust their expectations. Most of the time, they still take the opportunity.

Where I draw the line

Belt jumps don't happen often in BJJ. Moving up or down one weight bracket is usually fine, and so is moving down an age group.

Size gaps I take case by case, depending on her goals and why she wants to compete. But if you have a rooster weight going into heavy, it really just doesn't make sense.

At the locals we go to, absolutes are usually blue belt and above, and that match is her call. I lay out the risks and let her choose.

Settle these with her before the event:

Keep her focus on jiu-jitsu, not the scale

Water weight is on Beckett's list for a reason. If there's one thing I make sure we do differently at NEO, it's around weight and the weight cut.

I find a lot of eating disorders and a lot of nerves can come from it. There's a safe way to make weight, and a very unhealthy way that I still see people doing.

So don't hyper-focus on it. If making weight is a reasonable goal for that tournament and won't add to her nerves, do it. If she's a white belt going into her first one, she should just focus on the jiu-jitsu.

Put Someone She Trusts in the Corner

If a woman is part of the ladies program at NEO, I prioritize being her main coach.

Funny enough, I always end up with a bunch of women on at the same time, because they're usually the same level and close in weight. When that happens, I ask them which other coaches they're familiar with and get those coaches in their corners. Their teammates, partners, and kids are usually there too.

Whether that coach is a woman doesn't really matter, and I wouldn't even prioritize it. The match is about the athlete, so we pair her with the coach who will help her the most.

At NEO, the coaches are aligned. It's one voice, so the athlete doesn't get confused.

Asking a male coach to travel and corner her is one of the barriers on Beckett's list. If your gym makes the corner a given, she doesn't have to ask. The rest of the day is in our tournament day system.

Show Her This Gym Sends Women

A lot of our competitors at NEO are teenage girls who've grown up competing.

As the women in the ladies program find their space in the gym, they start signing up for locals on their own and getting curious about events like IBJJF. And it does help when they see the younger girls in the program actively putting themselves out there and doing it so consistently.

The women who do commit, they inspire and give back to the rest of the community so much that it does encourage others to try and put themselves out there.

Post your women's results like they matter

A medal photo on the wall, or a shout-out after class, tells the next woman this gym sends women.

Sarah at G.I.R.L.S. Gym had a student nobody expected to compete. She didn't do well, but she stepped on a competition mat when she never believed she could. Afterward: "You could just see the difference in her body, her head being higher."

For the ones who don't win, here's how we handle a first tournament loss.

Tell her what it felt like

I was really nervous for my first competition, at white belt. I lost my first match. Then the nerves went away, and I won my second and third and took silver.

I tell the kids and the women it's like jumping off a diving board for the first time.

It's scary. It's hard to take that leap. But if you find that bug for adrenaline, man, there's nothing like it.

The Tools That Help You Fill a Bracket

Five women and a group chat work fine for one event. Across a season, someone loses track of who paid, and who's still waiting on a teammate.

This is where your software can carry some of it. With Smoothcomp Connect, included on every Gymdesk plan, you can endorse the events you want your team at and see which members are interested. Members see which teammates are in before they register, so nobody has to be the first name in the bracket.

From there, you can send reminders to anyone who hasn't signed up before the tournament registration deadline, register members from a pre-filled form, and see who has registered and who has paid, listed separately. Competition planning covers the endorsing, interest, and reminders for events on Smoothcomp, and each member's competition records sit on their profile next to their belt and attendance history.

We've started using it at NEO, and the interest part is what I'm most excited about. Instead of waiting for my women to come to me, I can see early which events they're interested in, so I can be proactive with that conversation.

Every Name in the Bracket Makes the Next One Easier

The loop that empties a women's bracket runs the other way too. One name in the division makes the next woman more likely to sign up.

We run NEO on Gymdesk's martial arts software.

I never force people to compete. But I let them know the benefits and the value of competing, and I make sure that when one of my women decides to go, the gym is ready for her.