A student had been training with me for over a year. We talked about more than jiu-jitsu. Work, family, books.

But something had been bothering her the whole time. I didn’t know it. She told someone else. And it eventually got back to me.

I reached out three ways. No response.

A week later, the office got an email asking to freeze her membership. She still never responded to me. Several weeks after that, two more emails, one to the office to cancel, and one to me. While she was telling me she wanted to cancel, she brought up all the things that had bothered her all along.

I’ve seen this before. A student came to me after spending time at two other schools. He made friends. Hung out with them outside of class. Even met my wife. Over a year went by. Then, after summer break, an email. He’d found a school closer to home and wanted to cancel his membership. It was two sentences.

I tell students all the time that the biggest benefit of jiu-jitsu is connection. People who’d never talk to each other outside the gym somehow become friendly once they’re on the mat.

I ran into a training partner at the mall once. It’s jarring, seeing each other in regular clothes. His wife was there. He introduced us, and she goes, “Oh, one of your jiu-jitsu friends,” like it was the cutest thing.

And then sometimes you get the funny ones. I think about the cancellation email so obviously written by AI that I could imagine the prompt behind it. I just smiled and shook my head.