Morality question for competition

[An end for]

Question: what is your belt? If you answered "none", go to the white belt division and see what happens. If you pass the car in everyone, go for the blue next time. If you pass the car in the blues, go for the purple. You are worrying about the morality of it, which is a good sign. It means you're not a jerk, and that you want to improve everyday, not be the biggest fish in the smallest pond. So I think there would be no harm in going for the whitebelt division to start.

 

[206warrior]

LOL. I thought this "moral decision" was about sabotaging your opponents food or something.

Listen, if you are in a tournament with belt categories, you do the white belt division until someone gives you another belt to wear. You might not even clean out the division. There is a lot more room for error in nogi. Beating someone two belts ahead of you is not uncommon at all, even without some big physical advantage.

In gi, it's super rare. Unless you train gi all the time, the chances you are going to beat someone who trains gi regularly aren't as high as you would think.

Hope you enjoy the tournament.

Totally agree. The gi is a different animal.

 

[redaxe]

A lot of the white belt competitors are compete noobs. If I were you I think I would call/email the promoter or host of the competition and ask their opinion. I think you should probably do the blue belt division though. If you just go tear through half a dozen white belts you aren't going to learn anything and they might label you a sandbagger.

 

[Jamsandwich]

ya i emailed them and they said they would have a purple for me to roll with before the comp and decide then what to do. They said no purple belt will be happy getting beat by a white belt so its best we see how i do with a Gi on.

 

[brianX]

That sounds like a good solution. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if you could hang with the purple in gi. There's a difference, no doubt, but it's not as great, IMO, as many here have suggested, especially if you have a few months' experience in the gi. You might run into a spider guard master where you're totally unprepared, but you might also find your own no-gi strengths enhanced by the lack of slippage in the gi.

 

[Calibur]

I don't see why so much work is going into this.

This is a gi bjj competition.
They are divided by belt categories.
The TS is a white belt.
He is supposed to fight in the white belt division.

Think how bad a precedent it would be to have people just going up and down in belt divisions until they find one they like.

Yeah, the experienced white belt might beat up a bunch of scrubs (and that's not even guaraneed) but that's part of the game. Beat them up until someone gives you a blue belt.

If you do a submission grappling event than you can do whatever division you want because it's dependent on years, and not belts.

 

[Jamsandwich]

ah now to buy a gi! a2 says up to 6'1 when i am 6 on the nose 200 lbs or go a3 which is 6'1-6'3 they shrink up right?

 

[mtruitt76]

I don't see why so much work is going into this.

This is a gi bjj competition.
They are divided by belt categories.
The TS is a white belt.
He is supposed to fight in the white belt division.

Think how bad a precedent it would be to have people just going up and down in belt divisions until they find one they like.

You will never be allowed to go down in belt division. As for going up in belt division some tournaments allow this and some do not. As a blue belt I fought the purple belt division in 6 or 7 tournaments.

Yes the guy is technically a white belt in BJJ, but it really benefits no one to have him fight in the white belt division. A lot of people in the BJJ community have a problem with people fighting up a belt rank which frankly I don't get. In judo it is very common for people to fight up a belt rank and no one thinks twice about it.

 

[Doctor Venture]

ah now to buy a gi! a2 says up to 6'1 when i am 6 on the nose 200 lbs or go a3 which is 6'1-6'3 they shrink up right?

Im 6'-1" 170 and I wear an A4. I don't know if an A3 will be long enough for you, ask around in the gear forum if nobody here answers you.

 

[Doctor Venture]

Also, go in blue. Just because you don't have a rank doesn't mean you are at white belt level. I'm sure you would be given a blue belt if you went and trained somewhere under a BJJ instructor pretty quickly.

My Judo instructor, who is a black belt, will compete at BJJ tournaments since his knee doesnt always want to do Judo. He was technically a BJJ white. I'm a white belt, he crushes me. Bluebelts can survive a minute or two, and purple belts have their hands way full. Its a little different cause he is use to the gi, but same point. You're going to kill white belts. Do blue, next time purple if it was easy.

 

[Jamsandwich]

ya i was looking at that now and i bet after a wash it could shrink up too much so maybe a A4 would be best i would have 3 inches of wiggle room for shrinking. Nice Name do you know when the new season starts up? The promoter did say that purple belts wont feel to happy getting beat by a guy in a white belt so he will put someone against me and test me out kinda deal. I imagine ill end up in blue. The guy i am rolling with now is a blue under Cardinal out of alberta who is a black under Munduruca.

 

[keynote]

I'm 5'11", 235 lbs and I wear A4's, so yeah, you're likely better off with an A3. Hell, I need to shrink my A4 SYR even more because it's starting to get too big for me.