Until the rules for the awarding of belts in the BJJ are unified, belts are only an auxiliary tool for categorizing people during tournaments / open sparrings with foreigners.

If the belts did not allow us to use more techniques, I would be in favor of eliminating the color belts, but that would cut the BJJ to the judo level, just to prevent the fighters from hurting each other .. only white belt rules for all weight / age categories.

Personally, I see all the lower belts as preparation for the real world .. the world of brown and black belts without restrictions on the use of techniques.

For me, the most funny are titles such as "European white belt champion" or "World White Belt Champion" :D

Jan, how does this sound:" In a group of very slow runners, I am the fastest".

Still I compete in weighted pull-ups in over 60 y and under 90 kg. Ok - it does not have a group "not so strong", "a little stronger" and an open class.

If BJJ did not have these silly white belt, blue belt, and so on competitions, it would not have been so popular.

as a competitor it may be an indicator for categorizing people (with sandbagging problems)

as a teacher, a recognition of your ability to transfer skills, approved by teachers themselves

always subjective

They are handy to grab so as to throw or sweep your opponent.

I only talked about the level of the European Championship or the World Championship.

The national / local level certainly needs categories of lower belts.

I like the concept of the ADCC World Championship ;)

Btw I like this article https://www.reddit.com/r/[...]dma_about/

The way I came up was we didn’t formally have tests. You eventually knew what was coming when the professor would roll with you a lot more. Or you’d see him watching you rolling during/after class.

Usually beltings were before class either before or after warm ups. He’d have us line up or “have a seat”. Then he would begin talking about promotions and what they mean, etc. we would all be looking around on who it could be, and I recall getting that “I’m gonna throw up” feeling if it began sounding like it was me.

What I do now that I have my school, is I’ll watch people during class/rolling. I will also listen to someone trying to help/explain the move to their partner if they are having problems. I don’t interrupt and check to also see if they can explain the move to someone else, and why certain things work, etc.

I’ll also have some classes where I’ll have them show me “o goshi”, or “Americana”, etc. or if we are warming up with throws I’ll walk over to a pair and ask them “what’s the name of that throw you just did”.

One thing I also do a lot is I’ll give them many names to one move. Like Americana is also a “Key lock”, or a Kimura is also a “double wrist lock”. As at tournaments we have not just BJJ practitioners, but also catch wrestlers, sambo, etc.

I also have some association schools, and before I have them on board, I will test the instructor. I will ask them to demonstrate certain things, explain to me why they work, explain what to do if defended, etc.

As for what the belt means, I was in a rough spot for many years when I left my old school. The politics were too much for me, and it hurt me to leave as it was my second home. I was a brown belt for a LONG time, and had to buy another as the first one dissolved away from use. I wanted to rank my students up, the right way, so I wanted that next belt not for me, but for them.

I love watching my students progress, the looks on their faces when they get a stripe, or the terror when I give them a belt.

This is an essay/article I wrote a while back where I give my insights on the rationale behind the belt progression. I can't say I'm a fan of the punch-card system some teams use, but to each his own. I'm also not a big fan of tests....I figure you've either proven yourself, or you haven't.

https://www.bjjee.com/art[...]lt-system/

Oooh, my article got referenced :D

Anyway, belt system makes it currently the only combat sport that is pretty approachable to hobbyst level practicioners starting at adult age and that's a pretty cool thing.

I couldn't have said it better myself :)

Who can teach? Often I hear that you need to be a blue belt or you need to be a brown belt to teach.
Do you need to be skillful in teaching? - to teach?

I actually think pretty much the other way around (for personal reasons as a competitor).

In many smaller (non-Federation) Finnish comps, we only have White Belt and Colored Belt (blue to black) experience divisions, and this has been working fine. If it’s a little bit bigger event: White, Blue and Elite (purple & up). (Downside is that often these combined belt divisions have rules from the lowest belt level, so no kneebars etc. for the ”Elite”.)

Plus (and this is connecting to the point Jorgen made about approachability for hobbyists) I absolutely love that I can travel to the European Championship (cheers from Lisbon!) and face guys who are the same weight, approx. the same experience level AND the same age as me - and still get a bracket where the final would be the 5th match!

Where I agree is that the winner of some colored belt Master division certainly isn’t a ”European Champion” of BJJ.

Also in the Euros (where you got the Adult, Master and Juvenile all in the same event) it’s super cool to share the warmup mats, locker rooms, and local gyms’ open mats with the very best black belt competitors of the sport. (And not feel like you’re out of place, because you’re fighting* too... even if it’s other old people who are not very good yet.) Something quite unique to BJJ.

As you know, the Adult black belts at the Worlds and Euros have compact brackets because they need to gather enough IBJJF points to compete at these premium events. Adult colored belts Lightweight and Middleweight can have 100+ fighters in a bracket. It would be insane to mix in the top black belts with all the colored belts.

ADCC Worlds also have small brackets because of very careful pre-selection. Amazing to watch, but unlikely for a hobbyist to ever make past round one (a Trials win is possible, though definitely not for me).

[*I’m hesitant to call sport BJJ matches ”fights”, but that’s what the IBJJF does.]

Depends on the situation. The situation is different in Brazil and another in the Czech Republic. At the moment we have less than 25 Black Belts in the Czech Republic who could teach (some of them live permanently abroad).
Based on the experience so far, I can say that people with a blue belt can also be great teachers. It really depends on the person and their abilities.

And that's just what I was talking about. The World Championship is simply a top competition for top fighters. Moreover, if in the case of belts no one can guarantee that the participant really belongs to the category.

We all know situations where bjj white belt is a black belt in judo or has a white belt although he should be a long time ago a purple belt.

As long as there is sandabagging, in my view, World Champion titles in lower than brown / black belts have no weight. As I said, I would like the absolute category (no distinction of belts according to the rules of brown / black).

And try to think about inflation of titles in connection with the fact that one may be a multiple European champion in one year, because each organization can organize its own European championship.

You can even become an IBJJF (Masters) European champion THREE times in one year :D Ridiculous!
(Lisbon, Barcelona, Rome)

Personally I think belts are a good idea and are generally awarded properly in BJJ. But there are exceptions, it's not uncommon for a lower belt to beat up a higher belt on a consistent basis. I'm also specifically mentioning BJJ in this aspect because in other sports I have the feeling the belts are awarded just for repeating a set of moves on a non resisting opponent. While in my experience in BJJ it's awarded if you can execute technique on a consistent basis against live opponents either during sparring or competition.

But again there are always exceptions but generally if I spar vs white belts I know that most of the time the technical level will be lower then let's say vs blue belts or purple belts and will watch out for some wild movements from them incase they get in situations they don't know. Also I feel like I put on the submission slower and more controller vs white belts because I have the feeling they might not understand what's happening all of the time and might want to make sudden jerking movements which can really hurt them. This is not so common vs higher belts, at time I notice that higher belts even tap before the submission is fully set because they know it's pretty much over and can't escape anymore.

Yeah, I sometimes wish BJJ didn't have belts, they can cause a lot of issues. I'm not a fan of hierarchical structures, I much prefer heterarchical (yay, I don't often get the chance to be pretentious enough to use that word :P ). Every time I get promoted, I always feel like shit about my jiu jitsu and it just heightens my impostor syndrome.

But yeah, they also do have some uses. As an instructor, it's a handy quick reference point. E.g., when there is a brand new person, I can quickly look around for a blue belt and pair them up together (as I always want to make sure they have a good first class, with somebody experienced who can welcome them in). It's an easy way to delineate in competition, so people of roughly equivalent skill levels get to test themselves against eachother. You could do it by time, as happens in nogi comps, but time isn't always the best measure. E.g., I've been training 14 years, but there are plenty of people who have been training 5 or 6 years that could beat me up (e.g., a young, athletic purple belt who competes a lot. Even some blues).

Belts are also handy as a sort of teaching qualification, given that BJJ doesn't have any other widely accepted certification for that. This 'teaching certificate' element of a belt is also why I think projects like Beltchecker are important, because there needs to be some level of quality control on that. Naturally not every black belt (or purple or brown) wants to teach, but having that belt is seen by most people as enough of a justification if they want to open a school and indeed promote people (unusual at purple, but not uncommon at brown, promoting to blue at least).

As BJJ awards belts largely on a meritocratic basis, I think it has so far been relatively robust, even if it does have the downside of being an instructor's subjective opinion. I am very opposed to the idea of belt tests, as that is the way belts could eventually get watered down, IMO. Exams are a rubbish way to test for BJJ skill, in my opinion: I think it should always be based on the opinion of an instructor who has watched that student over many years, observed how they roll with people and perform in class, plus the instructor ideally will have rolled with the student a bunch too (not always possible, given size differences, but still the ideal).

I was originally under Roy Harris, as a long-distant student and in his instructor development program. He had specific written-out tests for EVERY belt. In his opinion, the lack of standards was the biggest problem in BJJ, so he wanted a clearly established standard for all of the people under him, so everyone would know exactly what was expected, and so everyone would be held to the same exact requirements while still allowed to develop their own "game" within that criteria.

His blue belt test was solid. Roughly 150 or so techniques that you had to demonstrate on a non-resisting opponent. Emphasis was on the mechanics of the techniques. You could make technical mistakes in most of the techniques and still pass, as long as you had a good general idea of what the technique mechanics were. The points he really emphasized for blue belt was mount escapes, side control escapes, and to a slightly lesser degree guard passing. You had to demonstrate a "repeatable skill" with these areas, and your technical demonstration needed to be much more precise than any of the other areas. If you used speed or strength to get out, or were simply too imprecise, you WOULD be failed.

After demonstrating all the techniques, you had to show that you could control a live opponent in your guard for 3 minutes. Then 3 minutes of live guard passing. Then two 5 minute rounds of sparring, one round against someone bigger than you, and the other preferably with someone at least blue belt level themselves. Finally, you would roll with Roy himself for 5 minutes, where he wouldn't submit you with submissions, but simply "test your heart" as he put it, as he transitioned from position to position with excruciating pressure on you the entire time.

The Purple belt test involved teaching selected portions of the blue belt test curriculum at his request, and demonstrating a much broader variety of techniques live.
Each successive belt required more live rolling, more resistance while rolling, more experienced and/or larger and/or higher ranked oppenents while rolling, more actual rounds of rolling, etc. His black belt test is 3.5 to 4 hours long! Roy's idea of a good black belt is someone who can take on a 250 pound Division One wrestler and repeatedly submit him! From what I saw, considerable injury was also commonplace in Roy's brown and black belt tests.

I got my blue from Roy, and my purple belt from Roy's own instructor, Joe Moriera. Roy and I then had a few "falling outs" over the next couple of years. I grew disillusioned and tired of the politics and double standards, and really didn't care about belts anymore. Some personal life hurdles happened and subsequently, although I never stopped teaching and training, I spent a very very long time at purple belt. Eventually though, the needs and desires for my own students to receive rank forced me to go looking to climb that belt ladder again. I train and teach Jiu Jitsu because I love Jiu Jitsu. I care about belts now only because I run a school, and they do provide good incentive and encouragement to the newer students who often get frustrated with our beloved albeit challenging art.

I've read many arguments for and against "tests" over the years, and have spent plenty of time debating the pros and cons of both.

Looking back, I believe Roy's blue belt exam is a fine model to use to make sure everyone in the school/association has the same foundation to meet baseline expectations. It's a fantastic way to make sure everyone has well-rounded fundamentals, and does not reward the athletes who kick butt on the mats using only the same 6 or 8 explosive moves over and over. To this day I loosely follow that blue belt test as a curriculum, and use it while rolling, observing, and evaluating my students, before considering them for promotion. Like Mike Desrosiers above (my current instructor), I often watch how they explain things to others, ask them specific questions, make note of how they deal with certain postitions, etc.

I'm not at all a fan of testing for the other belts after blue, however. I personally feel those should be more personal and subjective. I would expect very different things from an athletic 22 year old male with a collegiate wrestling background and who trains 5 days a week and regularly competes, than I would a 45 year old person with no prior grappling, 2 kids and a mortgage, who struggles to consistently come in more than twice a week, who doesn't compete, but yet does a great job helping out newer students and who can explain things very well. Both may be worthy of a rank promotion, but for very different reasons and recognizing very different life circumstances and abilities.

At the end of the day, it's just 2" of cloth that gets wrapped around our waists, after all!