Presenting the average BJJ man: a 30 year old blue belt

Haha.

I'm 29, a 4 stripe purple, training at GB 6 hours a week and I compete 2-3 times per year. Pretty close.
 
Two things that would be interesting to know:

- most brown and black belts are also assistant instructors or school owners. Is all mat time counted as training time, such that the 11.2 hours is in addition to teaching duties? Because if it included teaching time it's easier to believe.

-average is often not the best measure of central tendency, because it's subject to movement by big outliers. I'd be curious what the median training time is at all belt levels.
Hello there,

I'm the guy that ran the survey so to answer:

1. The question was, in hindsight, a little ambiguous I asked 'On average how many hours per week do you train in BJJ?' so I guess some instructors will have interpreted their teaching as part of that.

2. The stats presented for the average profile are actually based on the median values for the reason you mention (hence 'median man' title). That said, surprisingly, even using the means there was very little difference in the average profile- I think the size of the sample help smooth the outliers. In general, I am controlling for outliers when reporting the results (I'm not including error bars and the like as it makes the graphs a bit messy but am happy to provide more detail for anyone interested).

EDIT: Ah wait, I see you mean for the training hours, my bad, here you go:

White Belt-6
Blue Belt-6
Purple Belt-7
Brown Belt-7.5
Black Belt-9

Also I should say I also come pretty close to that profile- 29, Blue Belt- 3 stripes, training 4 years but not at a Gracie Affiliate.
 
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Lately I am not training enough and I am too old.

Oh well, one I can fix.
 
The title should be "presenting the average internet BJJ survey questionarre respondent". A cursory glance at any class can see people who train BJJ skew younger and are predominantly white belts. An interesting survey all the same, and nice job with the graphics. How did you do the BJJ affiliation pie chart?
 
I feel very below average after read this. However, I think I will keep practicing.
 
I'd say this sounds accurate. Most of the guys at my gym are middle aged and a lot of blue belts. Young guys like me have fun beatin up on them :D
 
I'm on track to be average :)

28 4-stripe white belt
Train 6 hours on average in BJJ+ an open mat
Been formally training BJJ for a bit under 2 years.
Train judo as well
Have compete twice this year possibly one more before the years out.
Only category I don't really fit is that I train at a rickson affiliate not GB :)
 
Yikes, the AVERAGE blackbelt trains 11.2 hours per week??? I hope I can reach blackbelt someday training less than that!

Interesting that the more experience you have, the more you seem to train.

That's not very much time. If you trained four days a week from 6-9pm you'd have that and nearly an hour more.
 
24 years old in a week
blue with two
rolling since 2010
training between 4.5 - 6 hours a week ( I am a lawyer, starting my bar training, worrying my ass off about not being able to train as much as I would like to)
never competed
training under a Braulio Estima blackbelt, yet not an official GB affiliate
 
That's not very much time. If you trained four days a week from 6-9pm you'd have that and nearly an hour more.

6-9 four days a week is a lot if you do anything else. A full time job in the US is supposedly 40 hours per week. 12 hours per week is a solid part time job. If I did that I would never see my kids. They go to bed before I would be home. I am at about 6 hours a week on the mat plus drive time. If I am doing S & C that is in addition to the mat time.
 
No, though it sounds like it lol. I'm in law enforcement and currently teach defensive tactics full time. This allows me to train on and off duty. I've got some tough guys to train with at work; DIII All-American (who outweighs me by 50 lbs.), a BJJ brown belt, a couple of blues (one who should be a purple), and some tough white belts who grew up wrestling. So I usually train at work 3x a week on top of my off-duty training.

You don't have any purple belts at your school?
 
I am younger and more advanced so will celebrate this news with a beer tonight.
 

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