Let me ask you this: Why is it not an mandatory information when you make your Beltchecker profile? Personally I couldn't care less about my lineage.

I got three lineages. All should be easily traced. I do not check lineages before verifying. I only verify people I know or those who are very well known by the community already.

2nd degree BB for promoting you to BB

God> Deepak Rao > Lasu Rogers > Rocco Nikil> That other guy who promoted himself > and then Me! So easy to verify!!

I find it hard to understand the comment how you couldn't care less about the linage. Should not 'the background or history of a person or thing, especially as conferring distinction or quality' be important to who you are as a practitioner? Are you stating it is ok for you to train and I will use David's sarcastic linage to make an example. If you were promoted and trained under a fake like Rocco or even better Lasu, the belt you hold is in question. Now with that said, if you are under a qualified instructor and that person isn't in my instructors linage, I do not care as long as it is ligit.

As long as you can trace it back to somebody who is generally recognised as legit in BJJ, all good.

Restricting black belt promotion to 2nd (or 3rd in some cases) degree black belts is an IBJJF rule. Some affiliations may adopt similar rules, that’s their call. But it is absolutely not a rule or law for all of BJJ.

"I know for a fact that I don't train under a fake."

As I have recently switched gyms, I decided to see what it took to verify my own current linage. BJJheroes did not list any coach I have trained with or any of their promoting instructors before one of the dirty dozen (Chris Haueter) ... I was surprised they don't list Michael Chapman (owner of Impact, extremely well known in the US West Coast region), someone who has 25+ years on someone like Andrew Wiltse. So I do hope that people actually do make an effort if the connections aren't immediately obvious. That said... My current instructor immediately shows up on several BJJ and MMA related sites, ranging from interviews with BJJ podcasts, guest instruction notes on some gym websites, LinkedIn, competition records, etc... Despite not being one to really put himself out there (he doesn't have a beltchecker profile) and being a small town dojo coach, it was hard to deny he existed. One step back in the lineage chain before him? Michael Chapman. Easy. Same for the gym I went to before that. Could even find a video interview uploaded to youtube from almost 15 years ago. He's easy to find when it comes to content that is pre-Instagram social media era. So I don't think because 'they don't do facebook' is really much of a valid excuse: Especially as I think it raises more questions that a gym DOESN'T have a Facebook or social media presence. Gym before that? He's well known. Not for the best of reasons. But well known. And I have class photos with all 3 of them. One even despite training at his gym for only 2 1/2 months. Time to verify each AND the next step back in each of their lineages? Less than 5 minutes. Total. Step back before that? Most hit the dirty dozen or are just one step further removed from. I want to say 'I hope people do due diligence and make an effort to verify,' but I also have to say 'It shouldn't be hard to verify at all if someone is legit and has a history of training, attending camps, dropping in, competing or teaching anywhere.' So when it comes to the profiles, the onus is on those creating them, obviously, to provide what is needed... and I have yet to meet a single person who wasn't hiding something that couldn't easily find someone else who could verify them and with evidence. I left a gym under bad circumstances and have removed, both from social media and here, my associations and photos from that period. As a white belt 2 years in, I still had plenty more to provide from elsewhere. To use a relatively recent example, I find it astoundingly unbelievable that in 10+ years of training that it usually takes to get a black belt, an instructor couldn't verify his own lineage. Honestly, it seems like it would take more effort to fake something than to simply go train and actually do it.

There are no tablets of stone from God saying a 1:st degree white belt can't promote you to black belt. But even if you had the skills to match a black belt, why on earth would you wan't to be promoted with a lineage which would forever put your formal rank into question? Why would you want all your future students to have their promotions facing the same questioning? Sure there's a difference between receiving black belt from a 1:st degree white belt or from a 0-1:st degree black belt, but still, why put yourself (or anyone else) in that position? Sure you can have other standards than the IBJJF equivalent if you don't want to go through them, but apparantly doing so to get belt ranks faster and easier just lessens the value of it. If you want to have other standards, I would strongly recommend these standards deviate in the opposite direction. E.g. when I got my BB, there was expressily a 3:rd degree promoting instructor standard within my lineage. The 2:nd degree BB standard is well established and I would guess that more than 90% of black belt claims on Beltchecker are connected to a 2:nd degree BB or higher promoting instructor. The question has been up for discussion before and why would all BB:s who are promoted under the 2:nd degree standard recognise a BB promotion with a promoting instructor with a lower rank? It will NOT be generally recognised. Period. Why even think about going there? Is that really in the character of a BJJ black belt?

I'm all for healthy debate and discussion.

The IBJJF rules often mean that the person promoting often doesn’t even know the recipient. Anyone who wants to cling to that system should probably stick with IBJJF, imo. '90% are under a second degree' and others are 'not generally recognised'? I'd challenge both of those claims tbh. It's extremely common, especially at elite levels for a student to reach black belt before their coach has been at black belt for 6 years. The IBJJF bureaucracy is bypass by having a 2nd Degree co-sign the form.

Me too! I think the first thing to know is that the 2nd degree promoting professor thing is not something that the ibjjf just invented out of thin air, but rather a long-standing tradition that the ibjjf tries to uphold, albeit poorly. 'Do you recognise Gordon Ryan's black belt? He was promoted by Garry Tonon, then a no degree black belt. Who in turn was promoted by Tom DeBlass (then a 1st degree black belt). Ruatolo brothers didn't spend the required time in any of their ranks. And Mica Galvao was promoted before 19. None of these guys were initially recognised by IBJJF. Do you share that view.' Yes. But each of these cases is a little different: Gordon Ryan, et al, probably had no problem on getting his rank OK'd by a 2nd+ degree BB, even retrospectively. The fact that the young phenoms, not reaching the appropriate time in grade, is not completely out of the ordinary, but I don't think it would be too much to ask for Mica Galvao to reach adulthood before getting a black belt. I think most of us appreciate the fact that children can't be BJJ black belts.

Officially, IBJJF does NOT allow a person who doesn't even know the recipient to sign off on degrees (through memberships). This is what they wrote to BJJ Globetrotters on the issue (https://www.bjjglobetrott[...]-the-ibjjf): 'When professors sign for memberships of students who do not train under their guidance, such actions risk damaging the integrity of the sport, which goes against the values of IBJJF' Of course, we all know that's one of many gringo rules, which doesn't apply to the big brazilian teams, but it's still the official stance of IBJJF. Personally, I'm generally fine with senior BB:s being the official promoting instructors of students of their own students when necessary (to some degree, even retroactively, to clean up some mess), as long as the official promoting instructor has the correct degree. In the past, I've had students of my own who have been officially promoted by my own instructor, as my lineage had an extra conservative policy with stripes and colored belts (except brown) needing to be awarded from someone two belts up instead of just one. As for your question on highly skilled BB:s who have cut corners on the promotion formalities, I would probably dispute but encouraging them to get their formalities in order through having someone higher up the lineage stand in as their official promoting instructor. Really shouldn't be that difficult. Even if you yourself and/or your promoting but under degree instructor has world class skills, I really think you're contributing to watering down standards by acting against the widely recognized 2:nd degree BB standard. It's not a good spot for the art to be in if the legitimacy of all <2:nd degree BB promoters is to be judged arbitrarily. Anyone and everyone not wanting to make that call would eventually just blindly recognise BB:s awarded from all BB:s, perhaps first going through a period of arbitrary judging of time as a BB. Six years as a BB is not arbitrary. Even though not everyone develops at the same rate during these six years, everyone still training will have developed in their understanding and maturity within the black belt. Then there is of course a time before the standard was established, which can still be quite arbitrary at times, but that time needs not be extended longer than absolutely necessary.

You all do realize that the votes and verifications on here are irrelevant, right? They have no merit outside of beltchecker. We are the rats in the lab being observed. 'Social Experiment' Jonah's opinion and those of the rest of us are all irrelevant. Don't take this stuff too seriously. People who are secure in their BJJ belt, lineage and abilities simply do not care about any of this. Go ahead and ask them if you do not believe me. Unless someone is an outright fake, don't invest too much energy and thought into irrelevant things. Makes people seem quite foolish and while it is entertaining it tends to drag people along because they get triggered.

One Johan is enough.

Having some kind of oversight makes sense. Beltchecker has done a good job of establishing some loose guidelines so far. My concern is that when people get obsessive about stuff like lineage and degrees on belts, you end up with the sort of nonsense 'traditional' martial arts people bicker about. I don't want BJJ to turn into that. I like that BJJ is informal. Keep the super formal crap away. :D