You don‘t have to feel bad! It is just that a cerificate means nothing (nower days everybody is able to work with photoshop). A pic of promotion or something like that might be a gamechanger. -But hey, it is „only“ a blue belt and with Your competition experiences You will get the votes necessary easily. Sooner or later.😉

I can only agree with Sebastian. You might get the votes needed for blue, but I would really recommend adding other pictures than certificates. Even if IBJJF competitions support a certain belt, they don't necessarily connect you to the claimed lineage, which is just as important (not least for the higher degrees).

Thanks for the votes. You asked earlier about lineage. My instructor is actually Allen Coble from Altoona, PA. The lineage goes Pedro Sauer, Sonny Achille, Allen Coble. Allen doesn't do the promotions at his school yet because he is a brown belt. Andy Bryant was doing them for his students and now Jeff Curran is. Also, I never got any pictures when I got promoted or I would post them. Allen might have. I will have to ask him, and I'll post them if he did. Thanks again for the votes. Much appreciated.

Thanks. I'll be sure to get pictures at any future promotions.

At least on the higher belts, it might get difficult to verify if it isn't a quick google (or global common knowledge) to verify their promotion connection to the lineage. If there is nothing easily found on google, you can always help yourself with pointing out good sources for following the lineage. In your case, I consider Pedro Sauer global common knowledge and very easy to find his further lineage. So source for Sonny getting BB from Pedro at a date Allen's brown belt promotion? And a source for Allen getting brown belt from Sonny?

With Pedro Sauer degrees, this page is good linking to on your profile to provide evidence of the Sonny or Jeff having a BB from Pedro. https://pedrosauer.com/re[...]ack-belts/

If you got your own belt from Jeff, make sure he is the "Promoting instructor" (leave comments on your "real instructor" to the comment section). Although I would personally verify a blue belt promotion from a brown belt, as long as there is good evidence, including on the lineage. The evidence should of course be with the promoting instructor, so can be problematic if you write Jeff but have a picture of Allen tying on your belt.