I literally did not read what you said. I am normally a chill person and don't have the bandwidth to deal with your nonsense but if there's things I dislike more than conflict it's bullies. Keep talking about me and I'm gonna make your experience on this platform far less fun.

Just be chill about it!

Meanwhile, it is bat (and gator) mating season, where I live. I advise everyone to not mate with either. However, I have hung my bat house. My wife has downvoted the proximity versus the distance that I hung it from the house. Her argument is that if the bat house is too close to the house, the bats will be flying around the house. My arguments were: 1) If they have a bat house, they are less likely to attempt to roost on or in the house, and 2) The bats flying around the house help mitigate the mosquito population. She still downvoted my choice. Worse, she claims she outranks me. This is the nature of voting, where everyone can cast a vote. So, I have re-hung the bat house in a location, where both of us, are slightly dissatisfied with the choice. Life goes on...

If on Bathousechecker, I'd up vote you and down vote your missus and stand by it even if she and her friends called me bat crazy for it :-) Have bats around my house too and love them for helping with the mosquitoes and they really do no harm, as long as I refrain from eating them or their poop. More annoyed with the roe deers eating away at my tulips, even if they're cute. And my daughter would pull rank if I wanted to choke them for it. She's got a mean RNC and Swedish child protection laws prevent me from taking her out, so she knows she'd get me in the long run.

Just wait until I put my Only Bats channel up, there's the real money... Must be 18 years old or older, in bat years. https://www.youtube.com/w[...]FHY0NBsoNU

Would the channel by any chance be named Bately legal?

Maybe belts are similar as handicap system in golf. In BJJ you just want players with similar handicaps to compete against each other. So you have a own bracket for each belt and you get some sandbaggers who stay in blue belt to win 100 competitions... For none competitors belt in not so useful. You could say that it is some kind of sign of skill or apility to roll, but after half year break or like today a student came after 8 years of break - belt is still the same as 8 years ago, but rolling is not. Not really a problem as people are allowed to talk and share thoughts in practise. Also we do not use belts in nogi.

The spectrum of competitor to hobbyist is where belt ranks can get a bit tricky to compare 1:1, e.g. a blue belt who competes regularly versus a blue belt who trains 2x a week. It's something I've tried to harmonise when I was looking at things like a BJJ curriculum, but the simplest solution I could come up with was having set criteria and if people meet them, then promote them faster. So that blue belt who competes and wins regularly should go to purple belt fairly quickly if he's scoring gold consistently and so on. This does happen, but you also get people who will say it's not good enough, e.g. I remember someone in a video saying that Danaher refused to promote a purple belt even though he'd beaten black belts in comp or something along those lines (happy to be corrected). But even the above is tricky and I haven't really come up with a way to harmonise technical knowledge and technical application, e.g. the guy who has a lot of technical knowledge but isn't crash hot in comp versus the guy who does very well in competition, both could potentially be black belts if you prioritise technical knowledge. I don't think the opposite is true, like someone who does very well in competitions with poor technical knowledge, since they'd just hit a ceiling at some point without the knowledge on how to overcome their own shortfalls. I think competing does force you to sharpen your technical knowledge through technical application at higher intensities. So a competitor being promoted faster makes sense to me if they are consistently winning. For those who don't want to compete (e.g. me), it's potentially a slower route to refined technical knowledge, but you absolutely can get there with time and dedication to getting in good rolls in class / open mat. I hope the above makes sense, it's something I've tried to grapple with when looking at how belt systems should function without reducing it to competitive prowess. Technical knowledge for me is king but there also needs to be sufficient technical application to be able to demonstrate that knowledge. You don't have to be the very best in that sense, but good enough that you can apply what you know fairly consistently.

also just to add a bit more, technical knowledge doesn't necessarily mean something like "technical articulation", or the ability to explain things well to people. some people have great technical knowledge and application but aren't as strong with articulating them. i think articulation is something for coaches to focus on since doing and teaching, while related, have different skillsets. that's something else i delve into for work and something i occasionally see in instructor programs in BJJ, like how to teach people using different pedagogical approaches

I'm with you on this. Technical knowledge is definitely king. Without that as the main standard for belts, factoring in age, athleticism, and injuries would make it way too hard to keep rank consistent.

Likewise, in the contrary, violence aggressively delivered, can be multiplied against a lot of skill, or a little, but can still be remarkably efficacious.

No doubt. Nicky Rod (and others) is proof that athleticism, applied correctly, can overcome decades of technical experience in competition. But when it comes to actually tying a new belt around someone's waist, how much does that athleticism factor into the decision?

The quick often use quickness, the well balanced, use balance, why should not the strong use their strength? Everyone does. Technique is a multiplier, but it must be multiplied, against something. Or, nothing times nothing equals....

If you had to put a percentage on it, how much do you personally weigh athleticism and gym performance versus skill in your belt decisions? There's obviously no right answer since there are no rules dictating this, though maybe it would be better if there were. You've been around the game longer than most, so your insights are appreciated.

I already wrote above, what the belt means to me and what it represents. Right at the moment I read Rick Eliss‘s book (Roy Dean Black belt), who is a matured grappler, „old grappler handbook“- how to thrive in Jiu Jitsu over 40. One chapter of his book is „what the belts really mean“ and I thought i might quote some of it here, cause I like his viewpoint: „…There is kind of a narrative you better tap anyone below you (in relation to belt rank). And if you don’t it means you don’t deserve the rank. That narrative conveniently ignores that humans come in wildly different sizes, ages, athletic profiles. ….you are a 48 year old purple belt with a bulging disc in your back, a demanding job, family obligations and you train twice a week, yet somehow you expect to soundly defeat the 28 year old blue belt in his athletic prime with nothing but time and energy to train. This is where the belt system exposes an essential question: What does the belt actually mean? Is a bluebelt someone who can defeat every white belt on earth? Of course not. That’s absurd thinking at any rank. What the bels really offer is a general sense of where you are in the journey- your journey, measured against yourself. Have you accumulated enough knowledge, skill and mat time to be a purple belt compared to the person who walked through the door on day one??“ He also writes about what Rener and Ryron call „the Boyd belt“, what made sense to me …. „Your belt represents your journey through the art. It doesn’t mean you’re supposed to dominate every person wearing a lower rank, regardless of age, size or training frequency. That expectation isn’t just unrealistic; it’s a recipe for disappointment and premature retirement from the mats……“ „That’s what the belt really means: you haven’t quit…….“ Quotes from Rick Ellis book: old grappler handbook- how to thrive in Jiu Jitsu over 40

I already wrote above, what the belt means to me and what it represents. Right at the moment I read Rick Eliss‘s book (Roy Dean Black belt), who is a matured grappler, „old grappler handbook“- how to thrive in Jiu Jitsu over 40. One chapter of his book is „what the belts really mean“ and I thought i might quote some of it here, cause I like his viewpoint: „…There is kind of a narrative you better tap anyone below you (in relation to belt rank). And if you don’t it means you don’t deserve the rank. That narrative conveniently ignores that humans come in wildly different sizes, ages, athletic profiles. ….you are a 48 year old purple belt with a bulging disc in your back, a demanding job, family obligations and you train twice a week, yet somehow you expect to soundly defeat the 28 year old blue belt in his athletic prime with nothing but time and energy to train. This is where the belt system exposes an essential question: What does the belt actually mean? Is a bluebelt someone who can defeat every white belt on earth? Of course not. That’s absurd thinking at any rank. What the bels really offer is a general sense of where you are in the journey- your journey, measured against yourself. Have you accumulated enough knowledge, skill and mat time to be a purple belt compared to the person who walked through the door on day one??“ He also writes about what Rener and Ryron call „the Boyd belt“, what made sense to me …. „Your belt represents your journey through the art. It doesn’t mean you’re supposed to dominate every person wearing a lower rank, regardless of age, size or training frequency. That expectation isn’t just unrealistic; it’s a recipe for disappointment and premature retirement from the mats……“ „That’s what the belt really means: you haven’t quit…….“ Quotes from Rick Ellis book: old grappler handbook- how to thrive in Jiu Jitsu over 40

No doubt. Nicky Rod (and others) is proof that athleticism, applied correctly, can overcome decades of technical experience in competition. But when it comes to actually tying a new belt around someone's waist, how much does that athleticism factor into the decision?

I personally look at skill as a force multiplier. You can fight against opponents that are larger than you increasing to a point with your skill level. So, in my opinion providing they can demonstrate the move athleticism should not factor heavily if at all. A brown bear would kill us all but that would not make it a black belt in bjj.

So that blue belt who competes and wins regularly should go to purple belt fairly quickly if he's scoring gold consistently and so on.

It's a great point - coming off an injury myself, I now am much quicker to tap, much less explosive overall, and honestly just grateful to be on the mats. I'm content being pretty poor in terms of technical application at this point, since there were 2 years where I couldn't train at all and I want to make sure I can keep training. Re the point above about people losing technical knowledge over time due to time off or illness (e.g. dementia) - part of what I think may factor into this is the belts serving as recognition of what you have achieved in terms of developing technical knowledge? If, after time off, you come back, you will likely have forgotten a fair bit. However, the belt as a testament to what you had achieved previously can't be taken away. When I came back to training after those couple years off, it was something I was very self-conscious of / anxious about, the fact that I was joining a new gym where no-one knew me and I knew I would not be able to roll how I used to. But I spoke with the owner and showed him evidence (my beltchecker profile), talked about my experience overall in BJJ and also offered to put him in touch with my former coaches and he was happy enough with that, that I wasn't faking my rank. Objectively speaking in terms of both knowledge and application, I'm not as good as I was pre-injury, but I think at least in terms of knowledge, I am quickly catching back up and, if anything, likely to exceed where I was as I am more constrained now. So perhaps the belts can be construed as signifying what you have achieved in terms of technical knowledge (grounded in application), with ongoing training acting as a way of validating that knowledge. I think most instructors would be reticent to take someone's belt off them if they've had an extended gap in training which serves this point, provided of course they can substantiate in some way that they had trained before and had a gap, rather than using that as a cover story to fake rank