I must be missing something here -- that sentence suggests that he hasn't been training and/ or hasn't made any progress in 5 years.
He's been training and making progress. His "problem" with promotion is the same as mine. He got his purple belt and made it to 4 stripes in gi jiu-jitsu from Fabio Santos. Then he switched strictly to no-gi jiu-jitsu under Chris Brennan at Next Generation when he moved from San Diego to Irvine, which was kind of like starting over in terms of promotions and where I met him. When Chris moved to Texas a few years ago, Taiki went back to doing gi jiu-jitsu. The reason he hasn't been "officially" promoted to brown yet is BJJ politics. The only thing I'll say about it is the gym he trains/trained at offers boxing, kickboxing, judo, and sambo classes in addition to BJJ and apparently you're not allowed to do those at the same time and expect to be promoted in jiu-jitsu. When he told me the whole story, my reaction was, "What are we, 5 years old?" Hope that answers your question and I'm leaving it at that.
I started gi jiu-jitsu under Carlson Gracie Jr. in Chicago in late 1996 and got my blue belt from him in April of 1998. When I came to California, I started at Next Generation which only did no-gi jiu-jitsu. I never trained no-gi before that. Sure I was able to translate a lot of my gi training but a few things like, for example, passing the guard without having your opponent's gi to grab onto needed some adjusting and getting used to.
One of the wrestlers who trains with us coaches and competed as a Division 1 wrestler and has competed and won in jiu-jitsu tournaments and destroyed people in amateur MMA matches. He has only a blue belt level of knowledge in BJJ (blue belt under Javier Vasquez, I believe *EDIT*Now a purple belt ) yet because of his wrestling, he's actually tapped out legit black belts in training with a gi. Does that make him a black belt in BJJ? No. Can you learn some cool wrestling moves and get some benefit from training with him? I'd say so.
Don't worry about the belts, fellas. We're only offering some extra mat time on Sundays if you want it at what we believe to be a reasonable fee, not to replace your black belt instructors. We've actually been training together every week for a few years now. The reason for the training fee and why I'm mentioning this on the forum is many of the owner's Kendo students (it's a Karate/Kendo school during the week) left with one of his top instructors when said instructor left to open his own place and the owner's having trouble paying the rent.
We have plenty of mats and even boxing equipment if that's your thing. We do what we want when we want, that's why I like it. If you're a beginner, it's a great way to get started without any of the pressure (and expense and contracts) of a full-fledged, formal school. If you've been doing this awhile, I'm sure you can still learn something and maybe even show us some things while getting in some extra practice.
