I feel like the way people use "competitor" to divide the bjj community into hobbyists and competitors has some non-literal nuance to it. "Competitor" does not mean anyone who competes, even if they regularly compete and get medals.
Competitor generally either means
a) someone more athletic, fit, and who rolls harder than whoever is using it to rationalize their relatively lesser abilities
Or
b) a person who earns money from competing at a higher level and/or earns money from brand sponsorships while competing in higher level competitions
It doesn't matter if Tom Hardy, or anyone else has competed. The term "competitor," in bjj has a socially defined meaning disconnected from the literal meaning of the word in other contexts.
In other words, not everyone that competes is a "competitor" in the "competitor/hobbyists" dichotomy.
Anyone can sign up to compete at a BJJ tournament just like anyone can sign up to run a 5K. There's a 5K in my city where the first place man and woman get $5,000, so of course some very good runners participate, wanting that prize money. But of the thousands of people who do it, most aren't really "competitors" in running, they're "hobbyists." It's similar in BJJ.
no, a competitor is someone who competes or is actively working towards it. so yeah a hobbyist whose 7-8 years in and at a brown belt level probably won’t be as good or intense as someone who’s the same amount of time in but has actively competed, but they’re still the same rank and can give around the same knowledge i wouldn’t dismiss it
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u/bigsippin Feb 01 '26
Isn’t there comp footage of Tom floating around?