NATIONWIDE — The annual January white belt migration has begun, sources confirmed Monday, as gyms across the country reported an influx of brand-new students wearing ill-fitting loaner gis, asking how long it takes to get a black belt, and standing in the exact center of the mat during warmups. "It happens every January," said one purple belt at a gym in Denver, who asked not to be identified because he has already called out sick for the next three weeks. "You come in, there's seventeen white belts doing breakfalls into each other. Someone asks if we do sparring on the first day. One of them is already wearing a rash guard with a skull on it. You know what you're dealing with." Head instructor Marcus Pfeifer of Ridgeline Combat Athletics in Columbus, OH, confirmed that enrollment is up 340 percent since January 2, which he described as "great for the gym" and "personally, very tiring." "I taught fundamentals on Monday," Pfeifer said. "I had thirty-two people in a room designed for eighteen. I showed a basic hip escape. One guy asked me to repeat it. Fair enough. I repeated it. A different guy asked me to repeat it again. I repeated it. A third guy raised his hand and said, 'Can you show that one more time, but slower?' I have been teaching hip escapes for fourteen years. I have never been asked to go slower." The new students, who gym regulars have begun referring to collectively as "the Resolution," share several distinguishing characteristics: they paid for a full year upfront, they have watched approximately forty hours of Gordon Ryan footage, and they cannot yet perform a proper forward roll without creating a five-body pileup. "My guy tried to pull guard on a stack of folded crash pads," said blue belt Janelle Torres at a gym in Philadelphia. "I don't know how to explain how he got into that position. I looked away for maybe ten seconds. When I looked back, he was upside down on the crash pads, and they were somehow scattered. He said he was 'working entries.'" At a gym in Austin, TX, a new white belt reportedly asked a brown belt during his first class if they could "go light but, you know, for real." The brown belt, who has competed at IBJJF Pans, said "sure" and spent the next five minutes in mount while the white belt attempted what witnesses described as "a bench press motion with both arms extended, pushing on nothing in particular." The white belt later told a friend he "held his own." The loaner gi situation has reached critical levels at several gyms. Coach Alicia Bautista of Ground Zero BJJ in Seattle said the gym's supply of twelve loaner gis was exhausted by January 4th. "We had guys in A0 gis that fit like a crop top," she said. "One guy was in an A5 that he had to hold shut with both hands. He couldn't grip fight because he was gripping his own gi closed. He still tried to roll. He said he was 'adapting.'" Bautista added that two new students arrived on the same day wearing gis they had purchased from Amazon. "One of them was a karate gi. The other one was — and I'm not making this up — a judo gi with 'JUDO' embroidered on the back in four-inch letters. He asked if that was okay. I said yes because what am I going to do, send him home?" The impact on existing students has been significant. Veteran members at multiple gyms reported that their preferred drilling spots have been occupied, their water bottles have been moved, and their rolling partners have been replaced by people who grab fingers and don't know what "tap" means yet. "I got heel hooked by a two-day white belt," said one purple belt in Miami who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Not because he knew a heel hook. He was trying to do something else — I still don't know what — and he accidentally ended up in a configuration that was technically a heel hook. I tapped because my knee felt weird. He said, 'Did I get you?' I said yes. He said, 'What was that?' I said it was a heel hook. He said, 'Cool, I'm going to add that to my game.' He has been training for forty-eight hours." Veteran students have responded by moving all rolling sessions to the 6 AM class, which the new members are physiologically incapable of attending. "They'll come to the 7 PM," said one brown belt in Chicago. "They'll come to the noon. They will not come to 6 AM. Six AM is a lifestyle commitment that requires you to have already quit once and come back. It's a filter. It works." Gym owners, meanwhile, are walking a delicate line between welcoming the revenue and surviving the chaos. Pfeifer said he has hired a temporary assistant instructor for January and February, "just to handle the volume." The assistant instructor is a blue belt with eight months of experience. "He's great," Pfeifer said, in a tone that suggested he was still convincing himself. The yearly pattern is well-documented. By February, attendance will begin to thin. By March, analysts predict the mat will be back to its usual twelve regulars, three of the new white belts will have quit citing "a schedule conflict," six will have purchased a $400 instructional they will watch twice, two will have gotten injured during a drill they were warned not to go hard on, and one — exactly one — will turn out to be actually good. Nobody knows which one yet. That's the fun part. The purple belt in Denver, who initially called out sick, has reportedly begun attending open mat at a friend's garage until February. "I'll be back when the herd thins," he said. "Nothing personal. I just can't teach another grown man how to tie his belt for the ninth time in one week. There's a limit." There is not, apparently, a limit. He will be back. They all come back. --- *The Porra is a satire publication. All characters, gyms, and belt color migrations depicted herein are fictional.*