would you agree that 'being a good Uke/partner' should sit at white belt? I personally believe that learning how to be the receiving partner goes a long way in calming the spazzing down. It's incredible how overlooked being a good uke can be when it is an integral part of learning anything grappling related.

My classes revolve around them. So at the danger of triggering people, my classes are mostly something akin to ecological. So just last night my class revolved entirely around “Exit strategies.” However these strategies are often implicit in other classes. Every class we practice inside position, connecting to our partner, destabilization, contraction vs extension, etc. So I actually get to see a lot of these concepts in my students. At the same time it is easy for me to see this in people that (have) train(ed) elsewhere, no matter their style or lineage

These are what i have for purple and brown. Mind you. These arent meant as absolutes. You can grow into a belt. So i do hand out blue and purple even if someone doesnt meet all the criteria yet. I do expect these to change in the near future as my understanding gets deeper and as the sport evolves.

For me: Spazzing means you’re uncontrolled and have the propensity to kick somebody in the face by accident. Explosive means that you Use your attributes to accomplish the technique.

That’s super interesting! for me, I’m not used to training like that so it would be a nightmare for me to track. Hahah. I seen a few videos on the ecological versions of training. I need to learn more, but it always feels like positional sparring with a purpose. I know there’s way more to it

I've seen a lot of attempts at this sort of thing and this is by far the best. Most of the previous attempts are variations of 'must know 3 sweeps from <insert guard>' and 'must replicate, under pressure, the exact specific sequence professor won the 1948 London Open with' 🤮🤢🤮🤢

I agree that is what spazzing it. But that's a very broad, to the point of inaccuracy, definition or explosive. Somebody could use any attribute to accomplish a technique. Strength, speed, weight, length, grip, etc to - none of with are required to be explosive as a prerequisite. I think a much more straight forward to say explosive is simply the use of power. Which is what go most sports define it.

Thanks so much. I really want them to be timeless and styleless. All encompassing, if you will, without losing practicality. Some decisions Im still not sure about. Like keeping positions like mount and side etc in blue belt. I do that mostly so my students understand the lingo at other schools. And maybe in the future ill bring grip fighting down to blue as it seems nowadays practitioners are way more aware of the importance. I dunno. Work in progress. So far it has been working out for me in practice.

Our club just awarded some blue belts and the blue belt one perfectly captures the things that earned them their blue. As a nearly-purple myself, I basically spent most my time working on grip fighting and improving distance management. The vast majority of questions I have for higher belts are about weight distribution. The brown belt one was really interesting too because I can see I don't do those things well enough. Interestingly it's the first time I've seen a decent articulation of the difference between purple and brown too.

How is the “use of power” not an attribute ? This is exactly what I just said. weight, length, grip, etc to - none of with are required to be explosive as a prerequisite. How are you going to accomplish the technique without these things? You need these things as well as speed and power. Or a combination of

Where did I say power was not an attribute. No that's not exactly what you said. You didn't mention power at all. You simply said that 'Explosive means using attributes' I'm pointing out that's a pretty bad definition for explosive, as most attribute have nothing with exploding. Eg. using flexibility to regain guard is using an attribute. It is however not exploding. This is a very simply point. 'How are you going to accomplish the technique without these things? You need these things as well as speed and power.' You need some or all of those things to do various techniques. But that does not justify classifying any attribute as exploding. Explosive in a sporting context, almost always refers exclusively to the use of power alone.

Coach's and professors, what do you look for at each belt. I know many schools and instructors look for different things. What do you for at a particular belt level?

I still don’t agree with what you’re saying at all. I said: Explosive means that you Use your attributes to accomplish the technique. You think explosive just means power If you use just power to accomplish a technique, it cannot be done without other attributes to channel the power. Grip, height, weight distribution, whatever. If you just used power with no grip, you have nothing. You just have power and no connection. You need to channel power using other attributes. So being explosive requires other attributes to be included or there is “no connection” you are powering into the clouds. Although I appreciate you wanting to correct my statement ,l don’t agree with you. it’s my statement, it’s my guidelines to promote. I don’t need your dictionary expertise on my promotion criteria.

That being said, those who compete find that White, blue, purple, brown and black Divisions ar interchangeable for words like Beginner, Intermediate, Upper-Intermediate, Advanced or Professional. You can be an Athletic, strong young dude with a good strategy of few good moves that finishes everyone in competition so it doesn't make any sense to keep you a blue belt wining for 5 years If you don't improve your general abilities yet get gold every time with proficiency in a few that work for you along with your

Sorry, I think I may have not used the best examples. The word 'upper intermediate: was just an example to say that belts can be replaced by any name you choose as the name of a Division, I now it doesn't exist LOL, the usual ones in ADCC an so on are the ones you mentioned. Mmy point is that if you're going to determine promotions based on how good someone is as a competitor, then it doesn't matter his progress in the Art itself if he keeps getting medals. I'm in the Spanish Military and we have different kind of rank promotions. - Time Based: Just don't die in 'X' years. - Classification Based: Medals, missions, courses, Your Officer's reports about you... everything good and bad gives or takes points that make you go up or down in the list of people eligible to get promoted. And in spite of that, you must have passed a short course that ends with a test so as to make sure you know what you should know. -Election based: In the upper ranks all of the above applies but instead o a point based system, the upper ranks and Politicians are the ones who decide who becomes a Colonel or General. O think classification based promotions should be the way to go, something Similar could be applied. The alternative is to forget about promotion an get a rope around the waist so that your jiu jitsu finally speaks for itself.

Intermediate / Advanced are not ranks though. They parallel rank as comp divisions but they are not ranks. Nobody needs or waits for a coach to promote to tPerforming at the highest level doesn't equate to holding the corresponding rank in BJJ. We have many wrestlers in top level competition these days. Great grapplers, nit BJJ black belts.

Although it's a bit cringe when rank and performance get completely decoupled for reasons other than age / injury. Not so common in BJJ, but quite prevalent in certain other martial arts.

I agree when rank exceeds performance by a gross margin. But not in the case of the reverse. There are many many people who are compete grapplers, legitimate whitebelts in BJJ, but would destroy the average BJJ black belt