What to Pack for a BJJ Drop-In on Holiday

Every grappler knows how valuable luggage space is. Maybe you're on a budget flight, praying they don't make you test your bag in the sizing frame. Maybe you're eyeing the 8kg cabin limit and wondering if the gi is what tips it. Either way, everything you pack is competing for space with something else. Here's what you need to bring, what you can buy when you get there, and what you can go without.

Tip 1

Gi or No-Gi

The most important question, as it will decide the rest of the bag.

Plenty of academies are gi only, particularly older and more traditional ones. If that's where you're going and you turn up with a rashguard, you're limited to whichever no-gi class happens to fall on a day you're free.

But a gi is going to be heavy and take up a lot of space, even the ultra lightweight ones. You'll probably have to use a laundry service straight after as hauling a wet gi for the rest of your trip would not be ideal.

Before you sacrifice half a suitcase, check whether the gym hires them out. Most academies used to visitors do and usually for very little.

If you've decided to go the no-gi option, a lot of gyms also sell rashguards, which is a better souvenir than a fridge magnet and means you can pack even lighter knowing you'll buy something when you land.

Tip 2

A Towel

Most gyms won't have a towel for you, so if you're planning to shower there, bring your own.

Training on holiday tends to get slotted in around everything else you've got planned that day. If you're heading straight from the mats to lunch or a museum rather than back to the hotel, a shower at the gym stops being optional.

Even if you're not showering, a towel to wipe yourself down between rounds is always worth having.

Microfibre is ideal. Small, light, dries fast. Or take one from the hotel. Nobody has ever been arrested for it.

Tip 3

Antibacterial Wash

Don't assume the gym has soap. Plenty don't, and it's not something you want to find out about while you're standing in the shower after class.

Hotel soap will do at a push, but I'd bring something stronger. I travel with a small bottle of Hibiscrub and use it in the shower straight after training. An antifungal spray does a similar job, and is the better option if you can't shower immediately, which happens more often on holiday than at home.

Decant it into a travel bottle if you're flying hand luggage only, or you'll be handing it over at security before you've even left. Anything under 100ml is fine.

It's worth the small amount of space. You're rolling in an unfamiliar room, with people whose skin you know nothing about, in a climate warmer and more humid than you're used to. Ringworm is a bad souvenir, and it follows you home to your own gym.

Tip 4

A Mouthguard

I stopped wearing one a long time ago. The better you get, the more control you have over a round, and you know your own room. You know who's calm, who has no idea where their limbs are, and who to avoid.

On holiday you have none of that.

You're rolling with people you've never met, in a gym you don't know, with no read on any of them. And you don't know how the room treats a visitor. In some places, everyone wants a round with the new guy.

A mouthguard weighs nothing. A knee to the mouth on day two means finding a dentist in a country you don't speak the language in, and spending the rest of the week unable to eat properly, which for most people is the actual point of the holiday.

Tip 5

Knee Support

You'll be tempted not to. On holiday you feel fine, the knee hasn't complained, and it's one more thing in the bag. Then it's day five, you've been out every night, you've eaten your bodyweight in bread, and you're walking into a hard room cold. That's when you want the sleeve.

To conclude, none of this needs to take up much room. A rashguard, shorts, a mouthguard, a knee sleeve, a towel and a small bottle of wash will fit in the corner of a cabin bag.

Everything else that normally lives in your gym bag can stay at home. Flip flops, finger tape, hydration tablets, a spare rashguard. Useful, but not worth the space, and easy enough to buy when you get there.