One of the people I'm referring to went from white to brown. I have known him as a competitive grappler & MMA fighter since the early 2000's. I have no doubts about his skills. He's very skilled in a bunch of real martial arts (judo, kickboxing etc). His first instructor was kinda iffy, but he's now affiliated with a super good local BJJ black belt, whom I also know personally. My main point would be. What's the rush? Why not be a kickass blue belt & a kickass purple for a while, wreck shop, and then become a kickass brown belt. Why skip the queue?

there isnt any real time limit of on "how long you have to have it" Ive seen people get belts for a few months and bumped to the next one.

One of the people I'm referring to went from white to brown. I have known him as a competitive grappler & MMA fighter since the early 2000's. I have no doubts about his skills. He's very skilled in a bunch of real martial arts (judo, kickboxing etc). His first instructor was kinda iffy, but he's now affiliated with a super good local BJJ black belt, whom I also know personally. My main point would be. What's the rush? Why not be a kickass blue belt & a kickass purple for a while, wreck shop, and then become a kickass brown belt. Why skip the queue?

One of the people I'm referring to went from white to brown. I have known him as a competitive grappler & MMA fighter since the early 2000's. I have no doubts about his skills. He's very skilled in a bunch of real martial arts (judo, kickboxing etc). His first instructor was kinda iffy, but he's now affiliated with a super good local BJJ black belt, whom I also know personally. My main point would be. What's the rush? Why not be a kickass blue belt & a kickass purple for a while, wreck shop, and then become a kickass brown belt. Why skip the queue?

Having a competitor who can go back and forth with black belts compete against white or blue belts is 1. not fair for their opponents. and 2. dangerous. They should be at least a purple belt (advanced rank) at the point of being a purple belt you should be able to have the experience of not getting seriously injured from better competition. There are a lot of people who don't even compete until blue belt and having some extremely advanced guy faced a barely intermediate first time competitor could be dangerous and or ruin that other persons desire to ever even try to compete again. Yes there are really good blue belts that should be purple belts and there are blue belts that should still be white belts. But having blue belts that should be brown or black belts is just to much of a gap and dangerous in competition and they should be at a minimum of purple. If competitions didn't exist then it wouldn't matter. But they do and people compete and want to have fair reasonable challenges to grow and get better. Not massacres. I also hate seeing beginners sign up for advanced absolute nogi divisions as they often get their knees ripped because they just dont understand what is dangerous and how to escape danger yet and not knowing what is dangerous is dangerous and not knowing how to defend or tap in time is dangerous. Unless you just want to see hobbyist practitioners get injured or massacred some common sense needs to be applied in these scenarios.

Good points, but I think that belts are about depth of knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in stressful situations. Not who you tap. I have a guy at my gym that was, recently, a D1 wrestler. As a fresh white belt, his understanding of grappling, strength, stamina, and competitive spirit made him a very, very difficult roll even in a gi. His Jiu Jitsu knowledge was white belt even if he 'felt' like a more advanced partner. He cleaned up in the white belt division and then quickly got his blue. Not because of the wins, but because you only have to show a technique to the guy once and he retains it. He has blue belt knowledge. He is was, before the quarantine, cleaning up the blue belt division, but won't get promoted until he has a purple belt knowledge. Yes, it is a nightmare for most of the competitors, but how else would you do it? By how good you are in competitive rolls? This why I liked the old NAGA way of competing no gi. Beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels only. No belt levels just time on the mats. It led to a lot less sandbagging. I could have competed intermediate, but wanted to properly test myself and competed in the advanced division.

Again the only reason that belts annoy me personally is I can't compete up at certain competitions and challenge myself.

Ray Stevens, judo Olympian, got promoted straight to black by Roger Gracie & Mauricio Gomes after a couple of years of privates.

I think people are too precious with the belt system

Yes indeed, I have heard there is even a site created for checking people's belt ranks, if you can imagine!

Well im a guy who respect the Rules. I don't agree with many of the Rules 100% and i do believe that in very few certain situations there should be some exception. But This HAS to be Written somewhere and Explained thoroughly. Not following the rules that are set simply because some guy is a beast of Nature is not enough for me. The Black belt doesn’t only represent a fighting level and skill, it represents our time and effort to the Art and we are supposed to know many more things like the history and have techniqual knowledge to pass on. If it represented only Fighting Skill then people could go to a top Level Wrestling school and start giving out Puprples and browns. Or even go to a Nightclub and find a good number of security guys that kick ass and give them a belt or 2 as well. For example, a while back we had an instructor (with legitimacy issues imho but thats another story) that promoted a guy from White to Purple, when we asked him “Hey bro what happened with the Blue Belt”, his reply was “He was very good and If I had given him a blue now in a year I would give him Purple” (while the minimum from blue to purple is supposed to be 2 years) the guy that got promoted I don’t remember him competing in Bjj at least. The FUNNY thing with this situations is that this guys usually use examples like Ray Stevens or Josh Barnett or some other people that they Can’t compare by any chance. So if there are to be exceptions to the “Rule” it SHOULD be Written down somewhere and explained. Because situations like this give bad example and set precedent.

Playing devils advocate: What rule though? Who makes the rules? If there are to be discussions about history then who promoted the Gracies ? BJJ came from judo, this is a fact. We know for a fact that Jigoro Kano didn’t promote the Gracies. So therefore at some point it must have been based on skill level. Maybe it’s time things came full circle? Give the ability for a coach to assess someone’s skill level (not that they crush people in competition, that is a different subject entirely) , but assess where the student’s ability actually is. Where do the techniques they are doing in relation to attack, defence, transitions, situational awareness, game plans etc actually fit on the belt system ?

Well let's take it one by one: 1) The rules that are accepted by the vast majority and follow them and are set by IBJJF 2) They make the rules... it could be someone else, but they are the ones that built this construct and it's a self sustainable construct (also important imho) 3) Who Promoted Jigoro Kano??? Who promoted the Teachers of Jigoro Kano in Traditional Jujitsu Koryu before he created his own way and his own belt system and tradition.??? the Gracies did the same and people decided to follow 'their' way and that way has some rules that are set by them. (thats a short version that can become a huge discussion) from the Moment you choose to follow that Line you follow the rules that the creators set. Funny thing is that in ALL my years training i never saw People Argue about the origins of SAMBO for example, i didn't hear many people say 'oh Sambo should be called Russian Judo' while on the other hand we had for many many years people say and try to promote the idea 'oh bjj should be called Brazilian Judo'. So since you follow that styles you follow this rules. 4) Yes skill level is very Important and it is something that plays important role in promoting someone but there are plenty other factors that cannot be thrown out simply because someone is kicking ass.

But why should the IBJFF determine the criteria and feel that they “own” BJJ? They do not. This is exactly why there are other organisations out there like BJJ Globetrotters as to avoid the politics of the IBJFF. Regarding Sambo, it is safe to say that they don’t really follow much “tradition”, certainly not to the extent that judo and BJJ do. If they did then the same discussions would likely ensue. Judo wasn’t called judo, or at least the term wasn’t widely used when Maeda taught the Gracie’s. Before it was called Kodokan Judo, it was Kano Jiu Jitsu. It is Kano Jiu Jitsu (later called Kodokan Judo) that was being taught by Maeda. Then there are the discussions that could follow regarding Kosen Judo. Watching footage of Kosen Judo, one could very easily accept that they are practicing BJJ. And I agree, it is certainly not about “kicking ass”, that is not the point. It is about being graded to a belt proportional to actual skill level and knowledge.

The rules that are accepted by the vast majority and follow them and are set by IBJJF

The Mendes bros just broke the rules by awarding a black belt to an 18 year old. The IBJJF rules state that a black belt is only for athletes 19 y.o. or older. Legit or not? :)

Age is usually counted by year born, not by actual age. So perhaps she will turn 19 this year?