A View on Upper Level Rank Promotions in BJJ

[tallgeese]

In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu rank advancement can move at a snail's pace. It's an 8-10 year journey from white to black belt for your average participant with no prior grappling history who is attending class 2- 3 times per week. That's a hefty commitment.

Because of this, there's always questions about what each rank means. What should you be doing at each, what starts to qualify people for promotion, and there is an awful lot of comparisons with other players. This is unavoidable in an art where competition is a huge part of it.

So, when I ended up talking about what upper level promotions mean at a recent test someone decided to record it so I could stop saying it over an over again

Here's a clip from one of our affiliate locations when a couple of the guys are getting some well-deserved stripes on their purple belts. It pretty well captures what I think is the most important aspect of higher belt level promotions.

Any comments welcome.

[sensei8]

First of all...

Deep respect for you, Alex; now and forever!!

Secondly...

Congrats to Clint and Josh for their promotions; admirable across the board...respect across the board!!

Thirdly...

I noticed that their stripes were placed on different ends of their obi's; Clint's stripe was placed on his right, and Josh's stripe was placed on his left. Is there any significance to that?

Thank you for sharing the video!!

[tallgeese]

Thanks, Bob!

There's no signifgance to the side of the belt. Jits has a far more relaxed set of rituals than most uniformed arts. For that reason, you'll see people tying belts with the black tab where stripes go going right or left.

[bushido_man96]

Thanks for sharing that explanation. I really like what you said about family, and representing your Jiu-Jitsu, and the like. That really made sense.