Owned

[b0b]

Today I did some open mat with an Orange belt (Judo). It really opens up your eyes to how effective BJJ is with someone who has been using it for over 6 months. I am a beginner's beginner. I started about 3 weeks ago. He ran a clinic on me. Within 10 seconds, he had me tapping each time. The first time, I got his back(which I am sure he let me do), and he put me right back to guard pretty quickly.. He put me in 2 Kimuras, 1 Americana, 1 Triangle, and 1 weird armbar from side mount, where he just used his legs to put pressure on my elbow. This guy outweighed me by about 30 pounds and was pure muscle too. It was a good experience. It motivated me to get off my ass and go to more classes, that is for sure.

 

[Waxwingslain]

So he's an orange belt in Judo and a white belt in BJJ?

If you 're saying there's a big difference between a 6 month white belt and a 3 week white belt then I agree.

 

[SmashiusClay]

It's always good to fight someone bigger, heavier and more experienced than you, just because I find that getting taken apart helps motivate me to train harder than ever.

 

[b0b]

So he's an orange belt in Judo and a white belt in BJJ?

If you 're saying there's a big difference between a 6 month white belt and a 3 week white belt then I agree.

We do Judo, BJJ, Muay Thai, No-Gi grappling and MMA. We use a Judo belt progression, and on Gi days we do equal amounts of Judo and BJJ. In BJJ, he would probably be pretty close to Blue Belt.

 

[stephensharp]

We do Judo, BJJ, Muay Thai, No-Gi grappling and MMA. We use a Judo belt progression, and on Gi days we do equal amounts of Judo and BJJ. In BJJ, he would probably be pretty close to Blue Belt.

If he's been going 6 months, he's probably not blue belt level yet, but if you guys get enough mat time doing BJJ and Judo, I bet his posture and weight distribution is great, and compliments the number of sweeps and subs he knows well. Very dangerous combo.

In my school now, there's such a range of talent in each level, it's crazy. We've got a span of a couple of years in each belt, and whether it's white, blue, or purple, there's a huge, noticeable difference between the guys that have had it for varying times (and then there's the guys that have had the blue for a long time and will likely never get purple for whatever reason).

It's really interesting.

 

[kimurense]

6 months grappling does not equal blue belt... unless you have a pretty big judo/wrestling background from before..

 

[b0b]

I was just being general about the whole 6 months thing, don't get out of shape guys. I don't know how much experience this guy had. I was just pointing out that most of the guys that have been there 3-6 months or so can't run a clinic on me like this guy did.

 

[stephensharp]

I was just being general about the whole 6 months thing, don't get out of shape guys. I don't know how much experience this guy had. I was just pointing out that most of the guys that have been there 3-6 months or so can't run a clinic on me like this guy did.

We were just correcting you because you said he was an orange belt in Judo but "would probably be a blue belt". Orange is the third belt in most Judo schools, and is roughly equivalent to six months training, whereas a BJJ blue belt usually signifies about 2 years of experience, or a prior lengthy background in some other grappling art.

Just keeping you honest to yourself. I know that when I started at my mixed club, we were just using Judo ranks, and when I became a green belt, I figured I was equivalent to a purple because of the rank structure and comments like that one. I'm STILL not equivalent to a good purple, and it's been a couple years (albeit with a few injuries). You don't even have a month of mat time under your belt yet, most of the white belts at a decent school should be toying with you like you're a ball of yarn.

 

[muerteverde]

We were just correcting you because you said he was an orange belt in Judo but "would probably be a blue belt". Orange is the third belt in most Judo schools, and is roughly equivalent to six months training, whereas a BJJ blue belt usually signifies about 2 years of experience, or a prior lengthy background in some other grappling art.

Just keeping you honest to yourself. I know that when I started at my mixed club, we were just using Judo ranks, and when I became a green belt, I figured I was equivalent to a purple because of the rank structure and comments like that one. I'm STILL not equivalent to a good purple, and it's been a couple years (albeit with a few injuries). You don't even have a month of mat time under your belt yet, most of the white belts at a decent school should be toying with you like you're a ball of yarn.

Orange belt is equivalent to six months judo training? We must be slow here then, because the whites have normally gone to yellow in 6 months and I am still waiting on mine in my 8th month but expect my yellow soon. From yellow to orange here should be at least as long if not longer. So here, it takes AT LEAST 1 year to go from white to orange. Is this normal?

 

[VampireMonk]

hey Stephensharp, you said, each belt in BJJ has years in for each one,
and some of the guys are never gonna be promoted from blue to purple for
whatever reason, what do you mean by this? Bad atitude, became lazy,
doesn't progress anymore?
I mean what? I dont want to get stuck where I am.

 

[Gavin LeFever]

belts shouldnt be about time spent. it's about skill progression. you just typically see more time, more skill, but not in all cases.

 

[b0b]

I guess I didn't do a good job of explaining myself and what the post was supposed to mean...

It made me realize that garbage in = garbage out. You get what you put in, and it motivated me to start going to classes more, and put it in to perspective how much skill I can learn in a short amount of time if I have the right attitude.

 

[kimurense]

I know a very big hand full of judokas who earned there black belts in 3,5 years... maybe they have diferent way of handling belts in the US... but I guess this has nothing to do with bOb's thread ...

 

[stephensharp]

hey Stephensharp, you said, each belt in BJJ has years in for each one,
and some of the guys are never gonna be promoted from blue to purple for
whatever reason, what do you mean by this? Bad atitude, became lazy,
doesn't progress anymore?
I mean what? I dont want to get stuck where I am.

On average, it's generally accepted that each belt in BJJ takes about two years to get to, barring lots of prior experience (there are wrestlers and judoka and samboists that get their blue in six months and that type of thing, but then it's two years before their purple, sometimes more if they can't give up "bad habits" from old stuff). However, of course, just as there's guys like BJ Penn that can go from nothing to black belt in 5-6 years, there's guys that plateau, get injured, move around too much or whatever, and they just wind up spending a long time in each belt.

Some schools will promote these guys for their dedication years down the line, but they might take ten years to get to purple, and still just not have the crispness that the other guys have. I have a decent Judo background and trained BJJ under a Judo black/BJJ purple, and have just started at a new MMA/BJJ club this summer. I'm back in the swing of things, and I fall solidly in the middle of the blues I've rolled with. We've got one purple and the instructor is a brown, and they can just come up with things out of nowhere, and have a seemingly limitless arsenal. There are a few blues that have those qualities, maybe with a couple less moves, there's me who is dominant in certain aspects and has the bare minimum in other aspects, then there's some guys that have been at it forever, and they still meathead some moves and have the same gameplan when they roll, and have a big whole in one aspect (maybe their guard game or something). I'll be the first to admit I'm fairly weak off my back, but I have a few sweeps and plenty of subs from there, but it's probably the BARE MINIMUM someone would be looking for for a blue, and likely not enough if my top game, transitions, and takedowns weren't up to snuff.

You'll see on occasion people mention the talent gap between the top end and low end of the black belt scale... It's the same in each belt. There can be guys wearing white belts that are having their first class, and ones that have been at it for 18 months, and there's a HUGE difference. Just take that difference and turn it up through the belt scale, to where you've got a blue that knows three sweeps, four guard passes, two takedowns, and a few subs from each position, and a blue that's proficient in all of that, plue has variations and fluidity in all of his movements. Then, between, you have the guys that have gotten great at takedowns, but they still can't pass the guard, they can't sweep, they can't sub from certain positions, or at least not against the other blues. These guys are gonna stay at blue for much longer than the guys that develop evenly across the board.

It's somethign rare in BJJ that you just can't fake your way to the next level, because your weaknesses are gonna get exposed, and some people are just never gonna be good at takedowns, sweeps, passes, or whatever.

 

[Waxwingslain]

It made me realize that garbage in = garbage out. You get what you put in, and it motivated me to start going to classes more, and put it in to perspective how much skill I can learn in a short amount of time if I have the right attitude.

Enjoy training, have a goal and don't worry about belts - just look at who you can tap. You'll make progress if you go to class and put the effort in.

Good post SS. You raised some great points regarding the difference between blue and purple. You really have to be able to string all the elements of the game together to be worthy of the purple.

If only people would stop asking dumb sh*t like, "how long b4 I get teh blue? LOL" and start asking what they actually need to DO to get the blue/purple/whatever.

 

[Gsoares2***]

6 months grappling does not equal blue belt... unless you have a pretty big judo/wrestling background from before..

Dunno ive been training 6 montsh solid 4-6 days a week bjj and all the guys are telling me i should be a blue.

Ive tapped a couple of the bottom blues and get all the other white belts every time.

 

[Ghostrider]

Mat time does count. If you dedicate 4-6 days a week and have good physical conditioning, you will most likely be at a level that you can tap more experienced/ higher belts. I have tapped a couple of higher belts at one gym and during a recent trip to another state, I looked up a gym and rolled with BJJ whitebelts to blue.
I got tapped out left and right although I held my own for a while due to physical fitness and prior wrestling. The difference was that they knew/practiced more submissions and actively compete. Other than this experience, I usually roll with people I know at the same gym so you get to know the other guys style and counter it.

The trip to the other gym was a good experience because I was getting used to tapping out the other guy and realized that I needed to become more technical and rely less on strengh if that makes sense.

 

[SamboKing]

What kind of McDojos do you guys train at?

6 months for an Orange Belt in Judo?

Sorry, unless you're at the greatest McDojo ever, how can you compete and even earn enough points to get your belt?

Orange Belt in Judo is roughly blue belt level as it should take at least 1.5 years to get orange belt. Anything faster than that and you're probably at a McDojo, or you are BJ Penn's younger brother.

People handing out belts is watering down the sport. People should be less concenred about belts and more concerned about actual grappling ability.

 

[Gsoares2***]

im taking a trip at the end of this month to another gym for a week so we will see.

The smaller guys tell me they like to roll with me because I dont just power trhough them even though i could. I try to be as technical as possible because that is what i admire... raw strength is its own skill..

 

[stephensharp]

Dunno ive been training 6 montsh solid 4-6 days a week bjj and all the guys are telling me i should be a blue.

Ive tapped a couple of the bottom blues and get all the other white belts every time.

People telling you it does not = having it, though. Still, that's well over a hundred classes, whereas some folks only have somewhere around 70 in that time.

BJ Penn got his black in six years because he had the cash to make BJJ his life, and trained something like 7 days a week, multiple times a day. If you've got the time to attend class nearly every day, you are gonna progress quicker, and I wouldn't be surprised ot hear you get your blue by the end of your first year.