Can someone explain Cesar Gracie's promotion philosophy/standards?

[Cash Bill 52]

ttt.. anyone?

I am really curious. I've heard of almost everyone's skills on the mat, and it occurred to me that I have never heard of Cesar's. Does he roll with his students?

I have rolled with Cesar. He is very good. Yes, he rolls with his students.

 

[ichimonji]

As a referee and a coach I often see the opposite of this.

At a local tourney you cant even place third but you get promoted to blue so you can loose to new and better guys? Its not making sense in my mind.

I don't think you need to bring home gold in the nationals to get promoted but, You need to be beating others who are at the top of their white, blue, purple, brown game to get promoted.

I feel that at a gym like this .. you never have a student who feels they are unworthy of a promotion.

IF we as a community don't enforce high standards we will go the way of TMA and Tae Kwan Do.

 

[curb1850]

I have rolled with Cesar. He is very good. Yes, he rolls with his students.

Thats really cool.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

That's why I'm all for more consistent promotion standards. If you've trained for 5 years but just didn't have enough luck (and no, I don't mean skill) to submit 20 people in competition for a blue belt, are you really a white belt?

What if I'm a white belt, face 20 guys who happened to be training for only 3 months and submit them easily (because I've been training for 6 months)? Yet my classmate doesn't get promoted even though he hands me my ass constantly because 14 of the 20 guys he's faced were ex-wrestlers and have been grappling their whole lives? Once again, it's all about consistent promotion standards.

you have a serius problem with wrestlers hu...

 

[12thJJ]

I just thought of something else. Cesar opened one of the first schools in the country and has only four BBs.

Is that close to an average number for instructors of BJJ?

How many students does he have? Is is school big?

And, shouldn't the instructors job be to get the student to BB?

No disrespect to anyone. Just asking..

 

[iheartthemount]

I just thought of something else. Cesar opened on of the first schools in the country and has only four BBs.

Is that close to an average number for instructors of BJJ?

How many students does he have? Is is school big?

And, shouldn't the instructors job be to get the student to BB?

No disrespect to anyone. Just asking..

i think this may come across poorly. instructors do not have much control of who gets to bb. you have to put in the work and dedication. if they worked as hard as needed to help each and individual person to get to that level, you would be asking a lot. there job goes very little beyond showing technique and simply recognizing that you are ready for the next step.

 

[12thJJ]

i think this may come across poorly. instructors do not have much control of who gets to bb. you have to put in the work and dedication. if they worked as hard as needed to help each and individual person to get to that level, you would be asking a lot. there job goes very little beyond showing technique and simply recognizing that you are ready for the next step.

But, don't some instructors produce a higher ratio of very high level guys (in a shorter period of time)? Carlson Gracie, Drysdale, Alliance, Paragon, even Loyd Irving, for example (instructors whose students do very well at prominent tournaments).

And don't people choose a high level instructor because of the superior learning, which should e a marriage between yourself and your instructor's teaching methods?

Why don't they just learn from an average BB then, rather than an elite instructor, if, like you suggest, he has little to do with your progress?

And then, look at all the BBs Renzo has pushed out - well over 20. And he hasn't been teaching on the states as long as Cesar. Is it that his students learn faster, while Cesar's are much slower. Is Renzo just lucky to get a better batch of interested learners?

Again, I am not trying to be disrespectful. But these are question that pop up in my head.

 

[Mongoose32]

I think its a Brazilian conspiracy to keep young athletic Americans, in their physical prime, out of the black belt division of the Worlds!

They just wait till we get old and slow. Really its brilliant! It will take my two year old son at least 30 years to get his black belt!

 

[12thJJ]

.....

 

[12thJJ]

ttt..

 

[Sloth]

I have rolled with Cesar. He is very good. Yes, he rolls with his students.

If you don't mind sharing, what is his style of rolling like? I'm always curious about how the different members of the family roll.

 

[elbigsam]

We americans are a little too obsessed with getting to the next belt in my opinion. Consider that there is really no standard that makes any sense to qualify one person or another for a particular belt grading.

Even regularly rolling with individuals it is hard to say that such and such person is ready for the next belt level. You can get an idea of where their skills development is at, but there is more to a martial art than just physical skills repetition. As a case study, there were four bluebelts at our gym, all with four stripes. 3 from the ground up with our coach, one who came in with 3 stripes from elsewhere. He started his stripes over per coaches request when he came to us. All four guys are good, but have differant games. Two are 185 two are 160. All four are very successfull in tournaments, multiple naga golds and smaller local comps as well. One of them made purple this week, the guy from another gym.

Now there is low grade grumbling and speculation from the other 3, but it really is simple. Coach thinks they need a little more time. Two of them started bjj at the same time I did locally, we were whitebelts together. However I had several years of wrestling judo and lower quality bjj under my belt already. I made purple 8 months ago. There is no set standard, people learn and develop and differant speeds. At the end of the day it makes very little differance, we are all training, making each other better.

Just train.

 

[Rod1]

Sounds like sandbagging measure but meh.

 

[Vhagar]

I like it, I see people from gracie barra with blue belts after a year and I just think...WTF?! You can't be a blue belt in a year, and you can't be a black belt in 5.

 

[Vhagar]

And don't say Bj!

 

[Mongoose32]

You can be a black belt in 4 years.
Train one year, get a blue belt. Train two years, get a purple. Train three years, get a brown. Train four years, get a black. There you have it.

How good will you be? Who knows, you will probably just lose more matches as a black belt before you start to get better. Then some day you will turn into an average black belt. Some will be better than you and others will be worse.

Just ask Loyd Irvin!

 

[Sloth]

And don't say Bj!

If I recall correctly, saulo ribeiro, caio terra and mike fowler all got theirs in under 4 years.

 

[sandmann]

I thought this thread was a great read and it made me realize that my instructor promotes everyone based on thier potential. It never made sense to me before but it does now, so thanks to all those who posted.

 

[SpunK238]

You can be a black belt in 4 years.
Train one year, get a blue belt. Train two years, get a purple. Train three years, get a brown. Train four years, get a black. There you have it.

How good will you be? Who knows, you will probably just lose more matches as a black belt before you start to get better. Then some day you will turn into an average black belt. Some will be better than you and others will be worse.

Just ask Loyd Irvin!

There's a guy in Toronto who just got his brown belt after 2 years and 9 months of training. No doubt he'll be a black belt soon enough. Won mundials at Blue and got 2nd place at Purple belt. Can't wait to see how he does this year.

I don't necessarily agree with Cesars tactics though. There's no way someone who's been training consistently for 7+ years should be competing with the rest of the blue belts. Plain and simple. At what point does it become sandbagging? Saying things like "you'll get it when you're ready" is just a lame excuse, why do these guys need an extra 3+ years to be "ready"?. It's just a purple belt, not a PhD. I enjoy high standards as much as the next guy, the last thing I want is for BJJ to get watered down, but that's a little excessive to me.

 

[12thJJ]

The only way to combat watering down, is if the competition became who could be the better at sandbagging!

I keed, Ikeed!