As far as the guy that's a judo blackbelt, The best of my recollection a judo blackbelt can't compete as a whitebelt in IBJJF, they can only compete as a bluebelt. I know 2 blackbelts in judo who were given bluebelt right away. As for wrestlers that's a tougher one to answer, because they don't like to be on there back, and need to learn a guard game. Some wrestlers commit to learning and others don't and that slows their progression in jiu-jitsu.

Professors, from a belt perspective, how do deal with athletes who may be new to BJJ, but are extremely advanced in grappling arts.

People who don’t know them get upset when they get smashed and accuse them and our professor of sand bagging. I understand that this is an alternative to IBJJF but we still compete, and these guys don’t meet the time in requirements to be promoted. How do you deal with situations like this? Do you promote them if they are not worried about IBJJF? Do you have time in requirements for belts?

As far as the guy that's a judo blackbelt, The best of my recollection a judo blackbelt can't compete as a whitebelt in IBJJF, they can only compete as a bluebelt.

Have they cleaned out absolutely everyone in their divisions and won the world championships, and now there's nobody else to pose a challenge to them? My opinion: there's really no rush. They will never be blue belts again, so let them have their glory. I have a couple blue belts at my gym who could probably beat me in competition. My excuse, of course, is that I'm old and gimpy, but, nonetheless, I would probably lose to them. Does this mean they should be promoted to black belt, or that I should be demoted? I don't think so. Jiu-jitsu takes a long time to fully sink in. It takes a certain degree of maturity, and requires the ups and downs that only come with time. You're not limiting these guys by holding them back, but rather, helping to enrich their experience. Just my opinion, of course!

...Get them to TEACH as soon as possible. That's where the real understanding happens....

In our organization, rank promotions are based on three things: (1) Fighting ability: How well does the student perform in sparring (or tournaments) against a skilled, resisting opponent of comparable experience level and attributes (e.g., weight class, age, etc.)? (2) Technical knowledge: How many techniques does the student know and how well do they know them (and, at higher levels, how well can they teach)? (3) Character: Is the student a good training partner who promotes a safe learning environment inside the school and a good representative of the academy in the community? Often, students who come to BJJ from judo, wrestling, or MMA are very good in terms of sparring ability, but not necessarily technically proficient in all areas of Jiu-Jitsu (e.g., guard), and I might not have known them long enough to accurately judge their character. As long as a student is appropriately qualified in all three areas, I'm happy to promote them to whatever rank I think they deserve, though I've never done this for anything higher than a no-stripe blue belt, and only after knowing the student long enough to get a good feel for their overall technical game and moral character. I also want to be careful to not insult my long-term students by promoting somebody new over them when they've put in so much dedicated training time.

How do you deal with situations like this? Do you promote them if they are not worried about IBJJF? Do you have time in requirements for belts?

I've personally always thought having an objective for each belt makes this problem go away. I like to view this as follows: White to Blue: Bottom Game - Pin Escapes, Guard, Sweeps, etc. Blue to Purple: Top Game - Passing, Pin Attack's, Positional Transitions, Etc. Purple to Brown: Stand up Defense: Staying on Your feet, Recovering from fails takedown attempts, Standing Back Up, etc. Brown to Black: Stand Up Offense: Initiating Takedowns, Takedown to superior position, etc. So, you can be a world champion, but if you have no guard game, not a blue Belt. You can be smashing champions, but if you can't pass, you're not a purple belt. And so on.

I've personally always thought having an objective for each belt makes this problem go away. I like to view this as follows: White to Blue: Bottom Game - Pin Escapes, Guard, Sweeps, etc. Blue to Purple: Top Game - Passing, Pin Attack's, Positional Transitions, Etc. Purple to Brown: Stand up Defense: Staying on Your feet, Recovering from fails takedown attempts, Standing Back Up, etc. Brown to Black: Stand Up Offense: Initiating Takedowns, Takedown to superior position, etc. So, you can be a world champion, but if you have no guard game, not a blue Belt. You can be smashing champions, but if you can't pass, you're not a purple belt. And so on.

So by this system, any judo black belt automatically gets promoted to BJJ black belt as soon as he reaches purple belt level.