A story that came up on the Overdogs BJJ podcast has the jiu-jitsu community talking. During a conversation between host Mikey Musumeci and four-time black belt world champion Dominyka Obelenyte, a gym in Tennessee was brought up for allegedly banning rash guards, not only for women, but for men as well.
Dominyka raised the story mid-conversation, noting that the head instructor at the gym had a rule prohibiting women from wearing rash guards. According to her account, the rule extended to men too, and women in the Tennessee BJJ community were well aware of it and reportedly horrified.
“There’s a gym in Tennessee where actually the head instructor had a rule where he actually disallowed women to wear rash guards. And I think the rule extended to men, too,” Dominyka said on the podcast.
The implications of such a rule are straightforward. Without a rash guard, women training in a gi would essentially be left wearing only a sports bra underneath.
Musumeci was surprised and asked, “Wait, what do you mean?”
Dominyka replied, explaining, “Like you were not allowed to wear a rash guard. So if you’re a woman, you just come out wearing your bra,” he said.
The possible rationale the panel landed on was the IBJJF’s own ruleset, which does not allow rash guards to be worn under the gi in competition. Musumeci suggested that may have been the instructor’s stated justification.
“In IBJJF, we’re not allowed to wear a rash guard under the gi. So that’s probably what his logic was,” he said.
Whether that reasoning holds up is another matter. The IBJJF rule applies to competition, not to everyday training environments where rash guards are standard and widely considered a hygiene and comfort essential.
Applying a competition ruleset to a training gym, particularly in a way that affects how women present themselves on the mat, drew immediate skepticism from everyone on the podcast.
What made the story more troubling was that the rule allegedly applied regardless of age, meaning underage girls training at the gym would have been subject to the same restriction.
The gym was not named during the podcast, and it remains unclear whether the policy is still in place. Dominyka indicated she was uncertain about the current status, saying she knew the instructor had the rule at some point but was unsure if it was ongoing.
