Jewlery in class
 

Hi!

We have a student who wears earrings even when her sempai asks her not to. Our sensei has yet to comment on it to her in person, but always tells our newbies not to wear any jewlery during training. This student has been in our club for a few years, but seems uninterested in removing them.

I'm not writing to complain over this student, I'm just wondering what rules you have out there? Do you find it important to remove jewelry or not? In karate class she would never be allowed on the mat if she refused.

Regards,

Patrik

A matter of choice:
 

In our dojo, it's a matter of personal choice. We don't wear watches but I wear a couple of rings and a small necklace. The girls often wear ear rings and such.

I would say that, in your case, the notion of enforcing the rules and her respecting the authority of Sempei is probably the larger issue. If Sempei says to do something, the kohei should do it. If a kohei is not respecting Sempei in that way then it needs to be addressed, IMHO.

Same in Judo.

Personally I have never been in a class where any form of jewelry was allowed, be it rings, necklaces or ear-rings. Glasses are allowed though.

I would be interested to know your sensei's opinion in this case, but not, as you say, to cause trouble.

It would be nice to hear the student's point of view as well.

I think it's a bad idea to wear jewelry for safety reasons. Once I neglected to remove the barbell that goes through two holes in my ear, and the instructor was demonstrating a pin on me, and slid me around so that the class could see what he was doing. My ear ground against the mat and actually drew blood. These days I always remember to take it out.

In our dojo, we strongly discourage people from wearing jewelry, but we're aware that some newer piercings might heal up over the course of one class. Hence, the rule is more like: Take out all piercings that you can.

This may be because we're a university club and this is a somewhat common phenomenon. Plus, we'd rather have people practice carefully in jewelry than not at all.

I believe this was addressed on a previous thread.

I do not let students wear jewelry for safety reasons. It is very easy for a ring or neckless to get caught in the process of a fall. The result could be serious-choking, neck injury, loss of finger or ear parts, serious cuts, etc. Additionally, the mat is a dirty place and a serious infection might result-always the possibility of a flesh eating bacteria. The nage could also be injured. I also admonish my students to keep their fingernails and toenails short as well to prevent scratches and cuts. Nothing worse than having someone rip their nails across your arm as you throw them.

Hmm, me, my brother, and my sister all take ours off. We don't really need them, though, since our dojo isn't that big.
Yummy!

At our dojo no one except one guy wears jewlery reguarly, and he takes his ear rings out. We all take our watches off.
Yeah, there is, actually... Cutting your own forehead with your thumbnail mid-throw. :\ But that's easier to fix than someone elses nails.

Basically no jewelry, that includes watches. Glasses and hearing aids are allowed.

But we let go of a view things like: Earrings are OK as long as they're not the dangling kind. Wedding bands or rings that are basically flat don't have big stones on them are OK, i.e.: Class rings are not OK.

Anything else is not OK, especially chains like necklaces and bracelets.

basically, the removal of such jewelry are intended for safety reasons, not only the wearer themselves but also for other people in the dojo. Just imagine what if the earrings fell off by mistake and people are accidentally pierced when doing ukemi or such.

But I let this matter to the people personally, if they knew that their jewelry would not cause harm to other people then it's okay for me.

In our dojo it's all jewellery off :)

A few of us wear glasses, a friend of mine managing to crush his on Monday, not during any technique, but when he'd put them down by the side of the mat whilst we were adding atemi to our techniques. We finished, he stepped back.. crunch..

I stepped on a earring stud one night on the map and it really hurt. The earring had lost the backing, falled out and then magically impailed itself in my foot. Ouch.

I already lost a few earrings during iriminage :D because I normally wear only small ones I am likely to forget about until it's too late. But yes, in our dojo, too, people are asked to remove all jewellery for safety reasons.

Anne

If it has the potential to hurt anyone during training at all, it's only proper and respectful to remove it (or properly protect/cover it). Why be sorry?

But then there is the pony-tail. When I was young I used to wear my hair long, and during training I would tie it back.

My Sensei demonstrated a technique with me as Uke. He brought me down with Ikkyo and pinned my arm. As he released me, I tried to get up quickly in order to re-attack. Before I could get up, he grabbed that damnable pony-tail and pinned me a second time with it.

It's funny what we do to be cool when we're kids.

But realistically, in a life-threatening situation, all it would take is hair getting into my eyes as I try to defend myself, or someone grabbing a handful and using me as a giant fly-swatter.

I've kept it trimmed closely ever since.

Ah, yes, the deadly kami waza...

There was a high ranking yudansha in OKC who used to throw people with his own pony-tail!

:cool:

Ah, crud! So you're saying I could have kept the Martin Riggs Lethal Weapon I look?

Well, I probably would've been scalped by now anyway.

In our dojo the rule is either take off all of your jewelry or tape it. No exceptions.

Now pony tails are a challenge. I saw a female student get thrown forward and in the process her pony tail was accidently stepped on. She was going away and her pony tail stayed-ouch. That could snatch one bald.

That's happened to me. Nage was nice enough to hand the clump of hair back.

I remembered back in 1999 when a friend and I became uke for our Sensei's 2-dan grading.

My friend had a ponytail back then. If I remembered correctly, my Sensei did an iriminage on him. After my friend fell, he tried to get up but can't. My Sensei accidently stepped on his ponytail.

The next training day, my friend came in not just without his ponytail but with a crew cut as well. He had his hair short for the past few years.
Until last year he started growing his hair long again. Now he has his ponytail back.

ponytail is slightly better than loose hair....

I suppose showing your student a few photos of ripped out piercings or tell her some one has SARS (not recommended if people around you gets offended easily). Personally I don't care if anyone will going to go and kill themselves, but it's just nasty if they are safety hazards to OTHER people.

so yeah. No jewelleries pwease