I think your last school has as many BJJ students as my entire state. My school will sometimes have over 20 students on a class, but fewer than 10 is normal. Open mats are usually the instructor, a senior belt or two and me. A couple other white belts occasionally show up, but the group is usually really small, sometimes just me and the black belt.
My other instructor’s school might have 100 students in total, with maybe 30 on the mats at once. They’re Renzo Gracie lineage too. I’ve only made the trip to take a class there once. Awesome school with a wizard head instructor, but too far for me to train at. I just train at his house in town. He’s a four-stripe brown belt who hosts open training sessions at his house once or twice per week. Open invite to anyone, even beginners. Sometimes there’s four or five of us, usually students from his school, but a lot of times it’s just he and I. I’ve probably rolled with him more times than everyone else combined in the last year. He trains at my other school quite often too. Lots of jiu jitsu interbreeding going on in these parts.
Back on-topic, there were about 15 white belts to roll with last night. This is a fantastic development after spending most of the winter getting whooped on by a small group of upper belts and only an occasional white belt training partner. I think I’m finding the right pace for these new white belt encounters, and I’ve done a good job handling the aggro younger guys too. My jiu jitsu mind is becoming sharper, and that’s a helluva good feeling.
Do you get many chances to roll with upper belts at a large school? Is it cool to walk up to an upper belt and ask to roll or is there some kind of hierarchy or custom that is followed?
Side note: only negative I found with rolling with newish white belts (I’m a no stripe blue), is that they are can be very erratic in movement. Often thrashing about and trying too hard. Last night I had a new white belt elbow me in my head , pull on my no gi shorts and grab my fingers. I don’t think I was like that as a new white belt. I put it down to bad attitude. /rant
Had a brand new (like first class new) white belt elbow me in the corner of the eye last year…HARD. The eye swelled shut in 5 minutes. I was pretty ruthless with him the rest of that round; it’s the only time I’ve ever been angry during a roll. Went home right after because I didn’t want to keep going with that energy still in me.
It is pretty common for me to get black eyes in training, but usually they look a lot worse than they are. This one looked exactly as bad as it was.
Depends what you mean by “upper belts.” I don’t know if there’s a universal definition of that term. I was a white belt for most of my time there so to me anyone with a colored belt was an “upper” belt LOL. I guess I’ll just assume you mean brown/black since purple is more or less the “middle.”
Oddly enough, the big Renzo school didn’t have as many brown/black belts as my new school, so I didn’t. It was fine to ask to train with an upper belt, but I’ve been turned down a few times for various reasons. I mostly stuck to white thru purple though. I wasn’t good enough to get much out of a roll with even a good purple unless they decided to walk me through some stuff.
If you’re a big guy training at a relatively small school, you’re in danger of over fitting your style to the same small group of partners/opponents. Especially since based on my experience big guys like myself consciously or unconsciously rely on strength for escapes or reversals when rolling with smaller opponents. If you outweigh your opponent by 50 pounds for example you can get away with sloppier technique in many moves such as reversals.
I don’t know if you compete or not, but a finding large number of people to roll with is absolutely essential - that point is not lost in another competitive grappling sport - judo where most of the top guys are constantly on the road from camp to camp looking for sparring partners.
Also, constantly rolling with more skilled guys is not always the answer - sure, you’re probably getting more adept at avoiding getting subbed with practice, but you’re focusing on immediate survival and not fighting according to a specific game plan.
Less skilled opponents have to approached with a specific approach - many guys let the ego get the better of them and then look for targets of opportunity while rolling with beginners - a loose arm here or there, applying techniques which they wouldn’t be able to use with more skilled opponents.
In other words, you need an opponent of roughly the same size and same skill level against whom you can execute a specific game plan, John Danaher-style. Take down, pass guard, establish a dominant position and then apply a favorite submission or a choke.
@theBird All of my black eyes have been from white belts! Of course, I’m a white belt too, but I feel like I’m past the erratic movement stage and I don’t think I’ve given anyone a shiner yet. My movements might not be the most elegant or fluid, but I’m pretty conscious of what I’m doing with my limbs and body at this stage. I’m really enjoying the new guys who are young, strong and a little spazzy. They don’t follow the jiu jitsu script!
@burien_top_team Yes I’m pleased to have so many great responses to think over.
@Steel_Nation Interesting. Was the Renzo school relatively new? My brown belt instructor’s school is the oldest in my state and he’s got five black belts now I think, with another 7 or 8 browns. The instructor’s instructor was Renzo’s first American black belt. 100-120 students total. I wish I could make the trip to train, but it’s about an hour away. I do get to roll with a fair number of people from here who come to open training, and they’re a good group for sure.
@loppar I agree on the importance of training pool. Our classes are getting bigger lately, which is great. I also train with a few students from another school pretty regularly and we have open mats that sometimes draw people from a few different schools in the area. I seek out whoever I can, but living in a small town means limited training opportunities.
You’re also correct on rolling with skilled guys. The four-stripe brown belt I train with was destroying me in seconds the first time I rolled with him. He can sometimes do that now if he hits me with something I haven’t seen before, but it will usually be several minutes before he taps me out, even if he’s going reasonably hard. If we’re running 5 minute timers I’m usually surviving against blues and some purples. So yes, my defenses I think are decent for a year in.
I’m really digging being the hunter now, and it is a completely different sort of experience when you can actually walk the path to improve position and submit. We’ve got a few big and athletic guys over 200 pounds, but I’m still the biggest and strongest by a fair margin. There are a few other big dudes playing the game in my area, but they’re all like an hour or further away. Who knows who will walk through the doors tomorrow though?
I think they’ve been around for 8-10 years. Some of the upper belts have moved away to pursue BJJ full time, but the head instructor is also very slow to promote IMO. There are some 4 stripe blue belts there that are absolute killers who could be brown belts at other schools.
I’m beginning to notice different standards among area schools too! The Renzo lineage school of my brown belt instructor is definitely the strictest. I’ve actually got specific instructions to smash any colored belt from that school as hard as I can, which no other school has told me to do. Still, my regular school seems to line up pretty well with those standards, and our colored belts seem to match up well with theirs when we roll.
Two other schools I’ve been exposed to, including the closest school to me, seem to have much different standards. They’ve definitely got good guys training there, but the promotion standards are clearly not the same.
I think it depends a lot on the student too. Guys that compete tend to go harder in training and are generally “better” than recreational guys of the same rank.
I’m kind of a tweener; I’ve competed and plan to again in the future, but I’m not out there doing tournaments every weekend like some guys are.
Not an upper belt, but when I trained (which wasn’t for that long and was a while ago) almost all of the more experienced guys would do what you did. Offer advice of some kind, point out dumb things (I once crossed my feet when I had back control, yikes), but they’d usual submit me pretty quickly and then we’d go again. It’s a humbling experience I always thought was a part of the learning curve.
I’ve experienced what you’re talking about too. I can remember one particular incident with an HS wrestler, probably 17, who came in on his first day all hyped to be there. I put him in a triangle within about 20 seconds. It’s a weird feeling knowing you have more skill than the other person and there isn’t shit they can do about it.
I’ve rolled with plenty of people way more skilled then me who where totally neutralized by good posture and mental toughness. As in I might not have had a great repertoire of submissions but I knew how to move and hustle so they would not have the advantage. I’ve certainly gotten outclassed though all the time actually. BJJ is one of those sports where a lot people do it and some of them do not really have a competitive spirit. I think it is a disservice to people who train in that sort of gym. They think they are decent at BJJ and then roll with someone who is scrappy and willing to throw down and all of a sudden they are wondering “Oh gee why isn’t my sweep working”. “Oh when I pull on the arm like this it usually goes that way and then I can get him to tap”
Also I cross my feet all the time. Like for just a split second as I am adjusting my hips or body position and sometimes if I almost have the choke and they are barely holding on but I need that little bit of extra tightness Ill cross my feet to suck myself into them even deeper.
I suspect some “higher belts” are in the practice of putting themselves in compromised positions because they are afraid of actually rolling and getting schooled or tapping to a lower belt. This way if they do get subbed they have a sort of excuse. Now before I get a bunch of crap yeah there are plenty of people who actually do do this for the purpose of just trying to get a challenge out of the roll with someone who they clearly outclass. But I have seen soo many people do this with people who they really are not that much better then them and sometimes I think its a little rude. Like come on bro did you just win Abu Dhabi or ADCC. I don’t think so.
But yeah BJJ its good fun. Its a little psychotic. Like what adult would be inclined to sign up to choke the shit outta people and to be choked on a daily basis. And pay for this privilege. Not to mention constantly fucked up knuckles. I have not been able to make a fist pain free with my left hand in a very long time. No one really mentions the hand pain when you sign up. You get to find out about that one on your own.
I hate the politics of BJJ ranking. In wrestling there was none of that garbage. Lets say John was the in the line up for 149 lbs. Johns wrestled his whole life. Brad comes and is also 149 lbs. They have wrestle off Brad wins and Brad only wrestled for 3 years. The coach doesn’t say listen Brad you gotta treat John with respect he’s been wrestling his whole life.
I never even learned to tie my belt at the school I was going to. I didn’t even wear it for the GI class. Just the top and pants and it was a Judo gi too. I didn’t have to buy his schools gi and patches. They actually didnt even have their own. The instructor was cool with it. In hindsight I probably should have learned to tie it and wear it but I only took it to supplement my no gi. Point being was the instructor was not about that culture in his gym. The only respect thing was if rolling and you were a lower belt you gave way to higher belts and stopped your roll to move. Which I could respect.
This is common practice for competition oriented schools. It’s kind of a form of “sandbagging” as often these students are held back on purpose to give them as much skill/experience advantages as possible when they enter competitions. It’s so common practice though that it usually doesn’t result in much of a competitive advantage unless that competitor happens to face off against a student from a school that chooses not to do this (and they are some).
As a result, like you said, you might get some high Blue Belts who would be multi-stripe Purple Belts if not possibly even low Brown Belts at a non competition oriented school.
When I made that comment I was really thinking of two guys in particular. Both were 4-stripe blue belts when I started training there in 2016; one has since been promoted to purple. Not sure on the status of the other guy.
I was told by other students at the school that the head instructor had “character” standards when promoting past blue belt. Self-control, being respectful of training partners (even white belts LOL), leadership, etc.
I think one of the guys that was held back was (in the coach’s eyes) lacking in some of those areas.
The other guy that I was thinking of just doesn’t show up at promotion time from what I can tell. The school is pretty large so promotions are usually only done twice a year at special events (IE not during regular classes). This guy also doesn’t compete very often (if at all).
I’m aware that some schools sandbag, and that this would be an obvious case of it, but it’s not really a common thing at that school. They promoted a 16 yr old green/black belt to purple* right after he was eligible, so it’s not like they’re stacking up the ranks at blue belt to win medals.
I just wanted to provide some context around my earlier comment to clarify things a little.
*That 16 yr old kid is a goddamned MONSTER. There are few things more humbling than getting thrown and submitted by a CHILD (literally - he’s not some physical freak, just a typical doughy teenager) that you outweigh by 50 lbs over and over again. He’s been training in judo and bjj since he was 6.
EDIT: Said 16 yo kid now teaches the school’s judo class. Learned that on fb a few weeks ago.
When I first started doing BJJ I was already a BB in judo with international competitive experience, and very proficient in ne waza - at my first class I wore a white belt and during first roll I caught a purple belt in a submission - I think he rolled for a first time with a judoka and wasn’t accustomed to judo throws-into-pins transitions.
Anyway, he threw a tantrum, accused me of sandbagging and there was a big brouhaha where the head coach interrogated me about my supposed hidden “lineage”.
I’ve seen several higher belts who aren’t comfortable rolling with or losing to opponents deemed unworthy, whether in terms of belts/stripes or schools.
I like BJJ, but like with all hobbies there are susceptible people who get into it too much, obsessing over minutae or trying to live the Eddie Bravo lifestyle of daily training and weed.
@loppar The first white belt to tap me out this year was a no-stripe guy who switched to Judo and shows up to open mats sometimes. Last week he put me on my ass and hit me with an armbar from the crucifix or something really close to that. Good for him!
I’m also beginning to think I’m getting dodged by a few colored belts. That might be another thread but we’ll see how things play out!
@Sentoguy Perhaps my frame of reference is off, but the schools I was talking about just had blue and purple belts who were not particularly impressive in live rolling. Maybe I’m at a school that sandbags you, but I always felt like the belt standards at my school and my instructor’s school were pretty standard for BJJ. 2-3 years to blue training 3-5x per week with a normal rate of progress.
Could that be seen as sandbagging in the competition-oriented world?
I love rolling with judokas. I feel like judokas have more in common with wrestlers then with people who came up through BJJ.
They just go hard as hell and don’t complain. Wrestlers and Judokas that is. But in some BJJ circles you have this pervasive disease. I heard it referred to as BJJ bitchassness haha.
Last time I rolled with a judoka it was no gi and I was struggling to get in on a single or a double so I decide to tie up and next thing I know I am freaking flying through the air and land straight on my back from like 3 or 4 feet up. He hit the slickest Kata Gurama (I call it a firemans carry) on me. I honestly had no clue what happened. But since we werent in a gi I slipped right through his grip. Turned out he had won worlds the year before ( in the masters but he was a national champ in regular adult).
I ended up rolling with him frequently. I could usually hang with him in scrambles and on the feet provided I was carefull in the tie up but if he got me in a kase katame there was like a 90 % chance I wasn’t getting out. I out weighed him by like 20 lbs too.
But yeah its ridiculous that these higher belts act like that. If you have that mindset and your insecure in your skill set then odds are you really probably are not that good and are rightfully insecure. All the legit BJJ people I have had the pleasure to roll with never acted like that.
That’s a bit long IME but it depends on your starting point. I’d say 2 yrs average to blue belt with some people getting it in a year and others taking a bit longer. I do know some guys that were white belts for quite a while but they were pretty inconsistent with their training from what I can remember.
You didn’t tell the coach you were a judo black belt? I don’t see how you can sandbag in a class, but I’ve been subbed (recently even) by brand-new white belts with a lot of prior grappling experience and it is quite surprising. I prefer to know what to expect when I slap hands before a roll, but it’s a good lesson to never assume anything about your opponent that has definite carryover to the real world.
How long did it take you to get promoted up the ranks?