I remember, that when GM Flavio Behring came In France In the very first time at the end of 90's, the highest rank where blue belt, and he decided to promote tree People from blue to Black belt the same Day, "to help jiujitsu growing faster". As a 8th degree Red belt, no one can really go against his will.

There was actually a Danish guy who lived in france and trained under Flavio back then. He came to Denmark to teach the first ever BJJ seminar and was wearing a black belt with a blue bar. He had some story about how instructor blue belts got to wear a black belt. It was kind of a weird logic and nobody was really buying it :D but might have been connected to your story there

Yes at first they had that kind of belt, those guys : Christian Derval, Patrick Bittan and Alain Nagera comes from the Cercle Tissier, the first BJJ academy in Europe, who organise the very first Seminar with Rickson Gracie in 1995. That gym was kind of the meca for a lot of french community praticioners, in early 2000 they had around 300 students and People who comes from all the country to train and refine the game. That academy is in Paris. On the same time, in South of France and Italy, David Giorsetti was one of the pionniers, as the Fernandez brothers Emmanuel and Frederic in South West. Manu Fernandez was my first teacher back then and we organise also in 2003 the very first Seminar with Laurence Cousin, Brown belt at that time, who becomes few years later the first non brazilian female world champion in adult Black belt IBJJF. Memories.... i gonna try to find, i still have all of the magazines from that era, with blue belt teaching techniques and doing instructionals VHS, we where waiting to learn new techniques so much, it was pretty rare back then. And i still have pictures somewhere with those weird Black and blue belt, i gonna search and add it to the post when i found it.

Belgium is awesome: I was born in Brussels, but haven't spent as much time there as I'd like. Though I will be back for the leglock camp in Leuven next month. I don't like leglocks, so it's an 'eat your vegetables' situation, but I will enjoy checking out all the great art again. :D

If you guys came in France, take one of two days to visit us in Belgium, it's not so far and we had pretty good arguments like Belgian Beer, Belgian Chocolate and Belgian fries ;-) Everyone should have a belgian friend XD

All I remember in Belgium was some pissing statue. I was only there for like 2 hours though.

Yes at first they had that kind of belt, those guys : Christian Derval, Patrick Bittan and Alain Nagera comes from the Cercle Tissier, the first BJJ academy in Europe, who organise the very first Seminar with Rickson Gracie in 1995. That gym was kind of the meca for a lot of french community praticioners, in early 2000 they had around 300 students and People who comes from all the country to train and refine the game. That academy is in Paris. On the same time, in South of France and Italy, David Giorsetti was one of the pionniers, as the Fernandez brothers Emmanuel and Frederic in South West. Manu Fernandez was my first teacher back then and we organise also in 2003 the very first Seminar with Laurence Cousin, Brown belt at that time, who becomes few years later the first non brazilian female world champion in adult Black belt IBJJF. Memories.... i gonna try to find, i still have all of the magazines from that era, with blue belt teaching techniques and doing instructionals VHS, we where waiting to learn new techniques so much, it was pretty rare back then. And i still have pictures somewhere with those weird Black and blue belt, i gonna search and add it to the post when i found it.

Cecle Tissier as in Cristian Tissier's school? Wow, he came to Montreal for several Aikido seminars that I attended back in my Aikido past life. So his academy invited Rickson? Had no idea that he influenced bjj in France.

BJJ lacks a belt validation process the way judo has because BJJ lacks a centralized rank authority and the use of the board to certify promotions. If you come in with other experience or if you trained for a long time without rank recognition the expectation is generally that you just spend a shorter amount of time in each rank rather than skipping ranks wholesale. You do get situations where like Josh Barnett was promoted from white to black just to be able to compete in a black belt division (https://jiujitsutimes.com[...]you-think/). I think those are weird and it's kind of on the community to decide if it wants to accept them (given that there's no centralized governing body to accept or reject each case). With respect to black belt degrees - BJJ typically doesn't use them to indicate a level of skill or service to the sport. BJJ, in general, uses them solely for number of years as a black belt. There are exceptions - John Gorman is a coral belt per the IBJJF, but he hasn't been a black belt as long as Chris Haueter (who's not yet a coral belt by time-in-grade). That case largely seems to be because of John Gorman's role in the IBJJF so it's an almost ceremonial promotion (more akin to getting promoted in judo for being on a board helping to run some level of governing body). So I'd personally say - any colored belt promotion not given by a black belt (or at least signed off on by a black belt), I don't personally agree with and any promotion that skips degrees of black belt regardless of the rank of the person awarding it I don't personally agree with. It'll be on the community to decide at scale though. Seems like the person could just be a black belt and wait the six years to be a 2 stripe.

The Grand Place of Brussels

Seriously though one of my purple belts (Ben) is from Brussels and I agree that you guys have some of best fried potatoes in the world. Maybe it has something to do with the water? or chocolate?

By the time you receive a 4th Degree ~ Coral belt, you can pretty much do whatever you please I think

Seriously though one of my purple belts (Ben) is from Brussels and I agree that you guys have some of best fried potatoes in the world. Maybe it has something to do with the water? or chocolate?

Where's the rain? :)

Coral belts are 7th degree black belts, from what I understand. I don't agree with the logic regarding their ability to do whatever they want though; not a good precedent to set. Drew's assessment was spot-on in my opinion.

Coral belts are 7th degree black belts, from what I understand. I don't agree with the logic regarding their ability to do whatever they want though; not a good precedent to set. Drew's assessment was spot-on in my opinion.

...but would it seen as legit if he was a true Master ? In martial arts in general, Master are allowed to do what they want sometimes. I remember, that when GM Flavio Behring came In France In the very first time at the end of 90's, the highest rank where blue belt, and he decided to promote tree People from blue to Black belt the same Day, 'to help jiujitsu growing faster'. As a 8th degree Red belt, no one can really go against his will. It's not the same case but when you see guys promoted to Black belt In really short among of time, like 18 month for Travis Stevens, Masters sometimes didn't respect the rules. But is this consider as legit, when the decision come from that kind of autority ?

This is very interesting, and while it is before my time, I almost sort of understand it. Looking back at the example of Caio Terra/Bruno Malfacine: 'His promotion “landed” on the same year in which the IBJJF set minimum time frames for each belt, making it mandatory for a brown belt to stay in this belt division for a minimum of 1 year before being promoted. As Caio had not hit the time frame outlined by the federation, he was blocked from competing at the 2007 Brazilian Nationals (Brasileiro). Later that year, and although the federation had plans to veto Caio (and Bruno Malfacine for the same reason) from the World Championship, the IBJJF made a last-minute exception accepting both athletes in. This was the last time someone with less than 1 year experience at brown belt was legally allowed to compete as a black belt in an IBJJF tournament.' (from BJJ Heroes- https://www.bjjheroes.com[...]caio-terra) Belt politics is one of the stupidest parts about BJJ, and keeping in mind that the IBJJF (as much as they are derided for other decisions) are about as close, albeit not in the standard sense of governing bodies, to a sporting authority that we have and it wasn't until 06-07 when they started to tamp down on time in grade regulations/registry. Of course, I am not trying to defend the IBJJF, however the broader point was the stories from the 90s being recounted, while comedic looking back to them were a relic of their time and indicative of the 'wild west' days. UFC 1 was November of 1993, so even if GM Behring was in Europe in '99, the date from the 'premier' of BJJ to the world was just about 5 years old. 5 years doesn't seem like much, but consider the changes to the sport from 2017-2022, today.