Was gonna come and flame away, then I see the site owner responds seriously ... backs away from the thread :) Also, get a haircut! Hahaha, could not resist!

I just have a bunch of the cheapest rugby helmets I could find, they've lasted for years and work great. The ones I have now must be 4-5 years old so I don't remember what brand it is or where I got them. Somewhere online :)

You might want to check out water polo headgear too... I think it basically functions like a rugby helmet but without all the padding. The long-haired hippy slackers on my high school wrestling team used those things. My training group right now consists mostly of females with long hair, but they all put theirs up and don't use headgear... Personally, I rock a buzz cut for a reason.

Herman Li from DragonForce (so, he has full on mega long metal hair), used to be my regular training partner back when I was at Roger Gracie HQ.

Haha WTF, that's a blast from the past. I used to listen to their first two albums fairly regularly back about 15 years ago. I seem to vaguely recall an interview where he mentioned being an MMA fan (and they had a song called 'Operation Ground and Pound'), but I never knew he actually trained.

French braided pigtails tend to work best for me. I sometimes will pull the braids back into a low bun too if they start coming out in the middle of class or if I'm worried about someone stepping/kneeling on them. I'll also do a high ponytail, braid it, and wrap it into a bun if I'm in a hurry but it tends to fall out after 3-4 rolls.

Yeah, he was super humble about it too. I'm not into metal so I had no idea who he was, until we got to talking about jobs a good while after we first started training together regularly. When he said 'yeah, I play in a band', I thought he meant just for fun, like a hobby. Then he said no, that was his full time job, so I looked up the band and...yeah, not just a hobby. ;) Really nice guy. I assume he still trains, but he found it tricky due to all the touring. Haven't seen him in years, as I haven't trained at Roger Gracie HQ for 11 years now.

How long does it take to properly braid pigtails, out of interest? I certainly would never need to do that to my own hair, as I have less of it every year, but interesting to know in case I ever need to help braid a friend's hair before a comp or something. ;)

I got this for when I was trying to let my ear recover and prevent the cauliflower: https://www.canterbury.co[...]ard-p12773 It's pretty inexpensive and works well. Gets a bit hot in summer though so I only wear it if I get the tingle in my ears.

I don't like headgear so I just let it fall apart in training. I can always take the extra minute of a breather to tie it back up. :D Also I have plenty of hair, so I don't mind losing some when it gets stepped on or ripped from the skull by some other method. Comps are another matter. Braiding is the only thing that works, but typically I don't bother. Also the referees are supposed to pause the match and have you tie your hair back up if it opens during the fight, which would be great as my cardio is crap, but I have found this rule is seldom respected... One comp a while ago, I got into a bit of a hurry to make it to my first match so didn't have time to set up everything properly, and during the first minute my hair fell down on my face and my pants untied. The ref didn't give me a chance to fix them during the rest of the match so I just ended up grappling the rest 6 mins with limited visibility & mobility. :D A friend of mine was supposed to give me a strong rubber belt band from a tattooing machine, I still want to try that...

My hair always gets in the way when I'm training. Sometimes I'm caught in a bad sub and I ask them to let go so I can tie my hair. Hasn't worked yet! Lol

Most men who start to train with long hair tend to go for shorter haircuts once bluebelt+

If you rolling with long hair, you should be strangled with it for starters. Wear head gear to avoid being taken and submitted due to a lack of etiquette by RNC by hair. Ps. You knew this was coming

Well, most men are w̶i̶m̶p̶s̶ balding!

One of the women in our academy used the combo of breathable swimming cap + wrestling headgear. She looked like an oldschool airplane pilot :D Most men who start to train with long hair tend to go for shorter haircuts once bluebelt+ Most women with long hair braid.

Well, most men are wimps!

My god these locks. Tatu is Jiu Jitsu Fabio!