I trained around 3 times a week and never took any breaks apart from injury recovery. Injuries took me out for probably close to 2 years though. Took me 13 years. So 11 without breaks. I'm pretty aligned with the stats from this site:

Average time to black belt
12 year(s), 0 month(s), 12 day(s).

I think it has a lot to do with what era you are talking about. It took me 19 years start to finish, but that was with two breaks of around 3 years each. So, that was around 13 years of training. But some of that was getting back up to speed after each break. So maybe it would be 12ish years, looking at it that way.

I think a bigger influence on your question is the era when you trained. There was a very strong hesitancy to promote Americans to Black when I started in the 90's. I remember meeting Richard Bresler in 1996 and he was a zero stripe Brown then. At that point he had been training daily with Rorion for ~17 years. There were a bunch of people of that generation who should have probably been promoted sooner. Once the stigma was removed, you will see the average time shortened.

Just look under stats here on the site :) I know it also includes those who took breaks, but since there are over 1000 black belts here, it should still give you a pretty good idea of the averages.

https://beltchecker.com/s[...]hp?p=belts

I think I'll just consider myself "above average" then. Thanks for the confirmation, Graugart.

Speaking of hobbyists, I think the classic "takes 10 years to get a black belt" only applies to exceptional individuals, at least around here.

If BJJ is just an extracurricular activity, one has to be naturally very athletic and a quick learner, or have an applicable sports background, winning consistently at national level on previous belts (usually this and the previous points are combined), or be a devoted instructor during the color belt years (such as a head coach of a smaller club) to get it in 10.

(I'm speaking about what I have observed in the Finnish scene. I see more 10-year blues than 10-year blacks. :D)

Alternatively of course, one can have a bunch of "mat rat" years with multiple trainings a day etc.

I will be very happy if I can get my brown in 10. The corona break of 3,5 months has been the longest one for me. Full-time job; training 4-5 times a week, teaching 1-2. No talent whatsoever. :D

Christian,
I think the stats on the site are great, but I think there might be some issues. The above stats include the people who entered their belt info incorrectly, right? Like the guys that said they were white belts for 30+ years. I think they accidentally entered their start of white belt date as the day they were born. While there may be an aspect of truth to this, I think this is going against the spirit of things and skewing the stats.

Josh

Those stats only includes verified profiles. So it will have to be checked and receive enough votes from the community before it's included in the stats. That should weed out almost all of the incorrect profiles.