Subscribed.

Part of me thinks you're trolling.

It’s been common for a long time for people to promote up to their belt level. Once there started to become more instructors, they tried to stop that practice, but it still exists today.. . Besides, in the end of the day, it’s up to your next instructor to accept your belt level or not. If somebody shows up and they’ve been promoted too quickly, the only thing I do is delay their promotions until they’re up to standard.

There was a thread, kind of like this a while back

https://www.beltchecker.c[...]p;id=15711

I’m not trolling.

My first BJJ coach was Daniel Valverde. He was teaching at an ATT affiliate in South Miami. After a few months of training, Daniel left the gym and started a gym in downtown Miami with the Nogueras and Anderson Silva. I didn’t know any better, so I stayed at the gym location and training with my buddies and one of the gym owners, Juan Carlos Faraldo.

“Juanky” first started at the Valente Brothers but was quickly asked to leave after going too rough with the black belts. He later started training under Daniel Valverde at his own gym and coached Jorge Masvidal during his MMA career.

I’ve got a picture somewhere of Jorge and Juanky giving me my blue belt.


Juanky’s jiu jitsu is unconventional, crafty and strong. He’s also a hilarious asshole that gave me my blue belt as a blue belt.

https://youtu.be/oLa_vzBa[...]AYAvnTuM26

I personally reason quite pragmatic in those cases, looking at if it could had been done differently along the line with the same people involved and also having more tolerance with minor degrees of retroactive rearranging if it is believable that the promotee was in good faith (a white belt receiving a blue belt from another blue belt is more believable than a brown or black belt accepting a degree from someone with too low a degree) and a clear ambition to be transparent and put all cards on the table.

Unfortunately, other activity on Beltchecker has taken up my time here lately, so I haven't looked into the rest of your promotion history and lineage (yet), but I could actually be ok with it considering the circumstances and with you bringing it up yourself. So now I'll be called a hypocrite a few more times :-)

So no need to start back at white?? :p

O.k., let‘s start a new discussion about the uniqueness and exclusivity of BJJ…

I practiced Judo since I was 8 years old and already a Judo BB for nearly 20 years by entering BJJ.
The years before finally switching to BJJ I teached an old style non-IJJF Judo without all the artificial (BS-) limitations of „sports-Judo“. At least without the rules of a big affiliation and their restrictions.

Some of my higher ranked students switched directly to BJJ Bluebelts one day we changed the label completely to BJJ.
To be honest: Nobody was interested, who promoted the guys to Bluebelt and if that was according to any damn other affiliation (after succesful leaving Judo affiliations behind).
The truth was on the mat and none of these guys did later fail in justifying his belt in competitions or in any other way.

Actually I sometimes think that it is a f***ing coloured belt and not any professional qualification, a scientific study or even any master degree. It is more or less only the second step (after the first on the mat).

.

It’s the dichotomy of belts and ranks. While they are essentially worthless, we also value them so much.

My favorite part of thinking about where my hits came from and studying people’s lineages is discovering the hidden histories of how different styles get handed down from master to student.

All our individual fighting styles depend on our own body types and the body types and styles of those that taught us.


My gym has a cool mural of a few dudes that were addicted to getting better at fighting their friends. I oftentimes look up at them and feel their judging eyes telling me I suck at full guard.

It’s been common for a long time for people to promote up to their belt level. Once there started to become more instructors, they tried to stop that practice, but it still exists today.. it’s always been acceptable (not all places) for a person to promote up to their own belt level. Besides, in the end of the day, it’s up to your next instructor to accept your belt level or not. If somebody shows up and they’ve been promoted too quickly, the only thing I do is delay their promotions until they’re up to standard.