Should Competitor's Be Allowed To Compete Up A Belt Class?

Should Competitor's Be Allowed To Compete Up A Belt Class?


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BJJ NINJA

Turtle Power
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This is only in reference to adult divisions. Here's my situation. I run a BJJ Tournament series in South Texas.

Now currently I allow competitor's to compete up a belt class if they ask. Sometime's they do well, sometimes they dont. Whatever right. But I did recently get a couple of complaints from the higher belts having to face a lower belt. Mainly whenever they lose to the lower belt. But I'm trying to sympathize and decide whether I should still allow it.

Here are my pros and cons on the subject:

Pros:
- I know that lower belts like to test themselves against higher belts
- The higher the belt, the harder it can be to fill the divisions, so this can help ensure more matches for the higher belts

Cons:
- Higher belts can sometimes have their ego take a hit if they happen to lose to the lower belt
- This might discourage higher belts from competing if they know they might have to face a lower belt


Now I can see where they're coming from. I'm a black belt, and usually when I compete, black and brown belts get mixed. I've never really had a problem with this. But every now and then, I lose to a brown belt, and yeah, it kinda stings a little. But honestly, I have no one to blame but myself if I couldn't beat him. But I do understand the feeling of not wanting to fight a lower belt at all.

So what do you think? Should I still allow it, or get rid of it?
 
I think people will appreciate an open format that lets people test up. Right now, playing down your ability is common because people get exalted for winning at white and blue belt. If you let lower belts play at a higher rank, it will let them see how good they are, let advanced people occasionally get an easy round, humble people who aren't that good and increase the prestige of the black belt tournament.

If some purple belt who wrestled in college thinks he can smash his way through the black belt division, it's weak not to let him.
 
if the person is so good that he she needs to compete up a belt lvl, then the instructor should just promote the student.
 
if the person is so good that he she needs to compete up a belt lvl, then the instructor should just promote the student.

well yeah, but I can't control what coaches do with their students
 
Honestly, other than a small percentage I really don't see a need for guys to compete up.
 
That's a cool rule you have put in place. Imo complaining if you lose to a lower belt is really a pussy move
 
It's also a pussy move for the lower belt to compete a belt up and have nothing to lose. They win, they beat higher belts. They lose, meh, whatever, they were a belt up.

I've seen coward lower belts request to compete a belt up even when their own belt and weight division has 5+ guys. Purples requesting to go brown, blue to purples, etc when they have the option to go up. If they have their own stacked division, why would you go up?

I disagree with letting people compete a belt up. If they want to compete at purple but are blue belt, want to compete at brown but are purple belt, etc and so on, they need to earn the right by getting that belt.

This sounds like its coming from me as if I lost to a lower belt but I haven't yet. I've always competed and been very active in big and small tournaments at every belt color and I'm a black belt now and I've faced more than a handful of guys that came up to my belt from a lesser ranked division at tournaments the allow it. I have never lost to a lower belt in competition when they came up and when they do they haven't done well against me. I've hurt a few of them with fast and hard submissions and then have their coach come up to me after and yell at me that their guy was just "blue/purple" belt etc. I blame the coach for letting them compete up if they were upset. If their lower ranked student had beaten me, they would have been singing a different tune.
 
It's also a pussy move for the lower belt to compete a belt up and have nothing to lose. They win, they beat higher belts. They lose, meh, whatever, they were a belt up.

I've seen coward lower belts request to compete a belt up even when their own belt and weight division has 5+ guys. Purples requesting to go brown, blue to purples, etc when they have the option to go up. If they have their own stacked division, why would you go up?

I disagree with letting people compete a belt up. If they want to compete at purple but are blue belt, want to compete at brown but are purple belt, etc and so on, they need to earn the right by getting that belt.

This sounds like its coming from me as if I lost to a lower belt but I haven't yet. I've always competed and been very active in big and small tournaments at every belt color and I'm a black belt now and I've faced more than a handful of guys that came up to my belt from a lesser ranked division at tournaments the allow it. I have never lost to a lower belt in competition when they came up and when they do they haven't done well against me. I've hurt a few of them with fast and hard submissions and then have their coach come up to me after and yell at me that their guy was just "blue/purple" belt etc. I blame the coach for letting them compete up if they were upset. If their lower ranked student had beaten me, they would have been singing a different tune.


You sound like you're speaking with some animosity. I myself am trying to look at it from a more objective point of view.
 
The main problem is that you'll get too many people wanting to test themselves or crazies thinking they're much better than they actually are, which will result in diluted divisions. It will also potentially make things unfair - one real person in the division might get 3 easy fights against lower belts while someone else might fight only people that's should have been in that division.

In the UK one of the big organisers here always has one or two open divisions running during a comp where literally anyone can enter. That way you can test yourself if you want, but the main divisions are left how they should be.
 
The main problem is that you'll get too many people wanting to test themselves or crazies thinking they're much better than they actually are, which will result in diluted divisions. It will also potentially make things unfair - one real person in the division might get 3 easy fights against lower belts while someone else might fight only people that's should have been in that division.

In the UK one of the big organizers here always has one or two open divisions running during a comp where literally anyone can enter. That way you can test yourself if you want, but the main divisions are left how they should be.

Pretty much this. I helped run a few local tournaments for years and what I saw when people were allowed to compete "up" was mostly a lot of squash matches with the occasional blue belt beating the occasional purple. It never really ended well. One place made a rule that you could compete up (by one level) but you also had to compete in your own division. That ended with accusations of sandbagging all over the place.

Plus, there's also a lot of coaches who don't actually like for their people to compete up. Now, the only times it happens locally are when attendance is shallow and divisions have to be combined, or when a tournament has a division where anyone can enter (like what 1trpz1 mentioned).
 
Nah, to me it should either become the norm to have an "advanced" division in which anybody purple and above could compete, or just making students compete where they actually belong. I mean, speaking pragmatically, if you have a guy winning his division and maybe absolute easily one, and then two times, do you really need to make him compete a notch above to prove a point? Just promote him. And if he can't dominate his actual division, does it make any sense to prove himself against somebody higher?
 
You sound like you're speaking with some animosity. I myself am trying to look at it from a more objective point of view.

This is a non-statement. His points were obvious and valid. Answer them or admit that the practice is silly.
 
It's also a pussy move for the lower belt to compete a belt up and have nothing to lose. They win, they beat higher belts. They lose, meh, whatever, they were a belt up.

I've seen coward lower belts request to compete a belt up even when their own belt and weight division has 5+ guys. Purples requesting to go brown, blue to purples, etc when they have the option to go up. If they have their own stacked division, why would you go up?

I disagree with letting people compete a belt up. If they want to compete at purple but are blue belt, want to compete at brown but are purple belt, etc and so on, they need to earn the right by getting that belt.

This sounds like its coming from me as if I lost to a lower belt but I haven't yet. I've always competed and been very active in big and small tournaments at every belt color and I'm a black belt now and I've faced more than a handful of guys that came up to my belt from a lesser ranked division at tournaments the allow it. I have never lost to a lower belt in competition when they came up and when they do they haven't done well against me. I've hurt a few of them with fast and hard submissions and then have their coach come up to me after and yell at me that their guy was just "blue/purple" belt etc. I blame the coach for letting them compete up if they were upset. If their lower ranked student had beaten me, they would have been singing a different tune.

Hurting people over a game of BJJ is a bitch move.

If you can't even get through a match with a blue belt without hurting them, maybe you're the one that shouldn't be a black belt.

"All I do is flail. I'm so chaotic even I don't know what's going to happen next. I can't be held responsible for their safety."
 
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My take would be- this is what the absolute divisions are for. Open them up to everyone, and if you're that good, enter it.

The point about unfair brackets is valid. If a blue doesn't belong with purple belts, and I fight a tough purple belt for 7 minutes, and my next round opponent squashed a blue in 1 minute- I'd be pissed.

Back when I'd do karate tournaments, this would also be a problem. When I was in college, there would occasionally be these parents of hot shot teenagers who felt they "needed a challenge" and would put them in the adult division. While I'm not proud of it now, I would go after these kids pretty hard. I dropped one with a liver kick bas rutten style, and almost got in a fight with the dad after. My point was clear- if they are in this division, I'm treating them like I would anyone else.

Bottom line- add an absolute division, and keep everyone else where their age, rank and experience dictates.

(with the caveat- if you have 1 purple belt and 3 brown belts in similar weight class, you should be able to combine those divisions. I think most competitors understand that at the higher levels).
 
In my experience, what people are looking for mostly in a local tournament is a consistent experience with no surprises. Something that is run smoothly, on time, and has consistent reffing.

For something that is similar to IBJJF rules, "consistency" will invariably be graded as conformity to that rule set. This seems true no matter what you announce, and it sort of makes sense. Ultimately no local tournament brand has that much power, so people won't pay that much attention to your differences no matter what you announce at the rules meeting. Most people will expect things to just be the same and get surprised when they aren't.

Letting people compete up a belt division is one of those surprises. At a fundamental level it isn't necessarily wrong, but it is certainly different than what is generally expected. And that will cause complaints and chaos that you as a tournament promoter don't need.

I have helped run tournaments, and I always encourage the promoters to never be "IBJJF with a couple of differences." Either do something completely different or model IBJJF format as closely as possible. That way people don't get confused.

There was one regional grappling promotion that was really well run but used to drive me crazy with some of their "IBJJF with tiny differences" ideas. One was that the rules were essentially identical to IBJJF, with the exception that double score moves would run the 3 second timers in parallel rather than in series.

What that means is that in IBJJF, if you pass directly to mount, you establish for 3 seconds to get pass points, and then another 3 seconds for mount points. So it's 3 seconds and 3 points, and then another 3 seconds for 4 more points.

At this tournament, it was specifically designed to be that you would get all 7 points after 3 seconds because both counters ran concurrently.

This always struck me as a horrible decision. 99%+ of the time it didn't even matter and no one even noticed. This quirk of the rules gave their tournaments zero additional appeal. Most people didn't even know about it.

The tiny <1% of the time that it actually came up, it always caused a controversy. People were not widely aware of this quirk of this particular tournament series, and could you even really expect them to be? It was always considered to be the wrong call initially and caused trouble. Even when the quirky rules were explained, it was still widely considered wrong because nobody really knew about it ahead of time.

Better to just follow what is expected wherever possible to minimize surprises. It keeps complaints down and gives competitors a consistent experience.

People love IBJJF tournaments not because of the rules (almost everyone has a few changes they'd like to make) but because it's a relatively consistent experience. The rules aren't perfect, but at least we agree on the actual rulebook itself. At most local tournaments there isn't even a real rulebook to use. Local tournaments tend to establish how many points positions are worth, which subs are illegal, and then just sort of make up the rest on the spot. That's not good for the competitors who are competing across 10+ different local/regional tournaments weekend to weekend and trying to keep track in their head.

So following that principle, I wouldn't allow people to compete up. It is normally expected to combine classes when necessary, but letting say a blue belt jump over a full blue belt division to compete in a black belt division is always going to surprise people. Your day as tournament director is going to go better the fewer surprises you are dealing with. And your competitors will be happier too.
 
This is a non-statement. His points were obvious and valid. Answer them or admit that the practice is silly.

When I was competing in Judo there was no belt division and nobody ever complained.
I however understand your point as its silly in most cases for a white/blue/purple to compete with black belts..
 
Hurting people over a game of BJJ is a bitch move.

If you can't even get through a match with a blue belt without hurting them, maybe you're the one that shouldn't be a black belt.

"All I do is flail. I'm so chaotic even I don't know what's going to happen next. I can't be held responsible for their safety."

I agree with you that hurting somebody on purpose is not cool. But slapping in fast and hard submissions in a competition isn't equal to that.

Point is, you want to compete against a black belt to post your cool video on reddit afterwards if you win, and shrug it off as "W/E, black belt" if you lose? Fine, but that comes with it's own downsides, which is that if you can't deal with that kind of competition/pressure, you might get hurt.

I mean this isn't training. This other guy literally wants to compete with you. It could be a recreational nobody that wants his big moment or an experienced wrestler/judoka ready to pull you apart if you give him an inch. Why you should even bother with not going 110%?
 
Fine, but that comes with it's own downsides, which is that if you can't deal with that kind of competition/pressure, you might get hurt.

This is my view too.

A few months ago I competed in a no gi tournament against a blue belt put in my division. Our divisions got combined so he was actually a weight class above me, had a lot of wrestling experience, fought MMA, etc. I definitely did not want to make the mistake of underestimating this guy.

The result ended up being a pretty bad mismatch with me hurting him a bit at the end with an armbar. For those who say I should be able to control that better, I'm not sure how else to explain it. If I did that move against a higher level competitor, it would not have caused injury. That is because higher level competitors automatically defend stuff properly which takes some of the edge off. This guy just wasn't there yet and actually did the wrong thing, causing it to crank his elbow more than I had intended.

End result was he seemed embarrassed, and I felt bad too. Truth is if I saw that division again, I'd rather not enter at all than do it. It just didn't really fulfill any of what I'm looking for out of competition. If anything, it made me feel a little worse off because of the injury.
 
So I've had to compete against lower belts who were allowed to compete up, and I didn't like it, and here's why: you enter a division to be tested. You want to be able to meet those tests to the best of your ability. The people who are most likely to test you are those of your own rank. You only have so much energy. If I end up in a bracket where I have to beat two purple belts before I fight another brown belt, even if I beat those purple belts relatively easily, it's still going to make it harder to bring my A game against the browns when I do match up against them. Basically, I know I can beat purple belts, I don't need to pay money and spend a Saturday proving so. I proved it to myself and everyone else when I was a purple belt. When I sign up in the brown/black division, I want to fight guys my own skill level. I have beaten and lost to both lower and higher ranks in tournaments, sometimes it happens because of how divisions end up being put together and it's not a huge deal, but if I knew that I was going to go to a tournament and probably have to fight one or more lower ranks before getting to the guys my own level I would be much less likely to compete.
 
Meh.....actual texts of me with our coach (not attending the tourny) from a tournament.

Me: Ben just won the blue belt division
Coach: White belt?
Me: Nope. Blue belt. He already beat all the guys in the white belt division so he played up
Coach: I guess Ben gets a Blue belt Monday
Me: Looks like it

Ben was/is a judo Brown belt with years of competition experience. He gets no nerves. No jitters. Had zero guard but a beast from the top. Was Ben ready for a purple belt? He just won the blue belt division.

Ben wants to compete let him. Your ego will be fine....
 
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