Purple is the new blue.

I think it is all in the mindset. When I was at the Pan Ams competing I said to myself that I have a long way to go for brown, but I have been told differently by my instructor. But to me, there was definate division in levels between purples and browns at the Pan Ams. I also thought this way when I was a white about blues.
 
lol, i've been thinking the exact same thing recently. it certainly is amazing how the sport has evolved so rapidly once reaching the us. the teaching mentality here is just so much different.
 
davejitsu said:
I think it is all in the mindset. When I was at the Pan Ams competing I said to myself that I have a long way to go for brown, but I have been told differently by my instructor. But to me, there was definate division in levels between purples and browns at the Pan Ams. I also thought this way when I was a white about blues.
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I'm right there with you, brother. I feel like there is such a disparity between myself (a purple for 4 years) and the browns. But then my coach tells me that my skill level and teaching skills are that of a brown...I am just getting older and my cardio stinks....and that the browns I compare myself to are really blacks who haven't gotten their belts yet.

But like you said about when you were a white....and I felt the same way. When I got my blue, I had put in 2 years of hard work and was actually out with torn cartilage in my knee when I came into the studio to watch one day and Roger called me up to give me my belt. I felt extremely undeserving of it.
Oddly, I am partially sidelined with a knee injury right now (other knee). I swear....if my coach chooses now to give me that brown....I will hobble away as fast as I can!!!
 
Lets not forget, plastic surgeon Dr. Rey just got his blue belt fron Whorian Gracie....
 
bjj is alot more popular now, its natural that alot more students = alot more of every belt i would think, but maybe im not grasping this whole thing in the right way.
 
I read somewhere on this forum that even in Brazil, blue belts are not considered to be anything, barely better than a whitebelt. In the grand scheme of the belt system, I think it makes sense. As a whitebelt, you're an absolute beginner. As a blue belt, you know all the basics, but maybe not enough to have a 'game'.
 
at renzo's the big jump is still blue to purple. I train MINIMUM twice a week, usually 3 or 4 and I have had my blue for 2 years and 4 months and only have 2 stripes.
 
Calibur said:
I think Wendy's has the best hamburgers, but Ive never been a fan of the square patties. Burgers are meant to be circular!
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I agree 100%. We should meet up and discuss this further over ROUND hamburgers...the way Jesus meant them to be!
 
hmmm...I trained about 2 years when got my blue belt (I started training around time when registering here on Sherdog, so around 2003), and now its past 2 year as a blue and I still did not get purple. Take in consideration that I train 5 times a week, last week 6 times. But we dont have instructor on regular basis, just visiting instructor.
 
Agree purple is the new blue, so many more dojos and higher belts now. It is a matter of time before Blacks become common as alot of the guys that started in the mid 90s are getting promoted. Use to be great to have a blue belt teacher, now in the Chicago area there are a ton of black belts teaching.
 
As long as the quality of the ranks is upheld, who cares how many black belts there are? I hope everyone becomes a black belt, because then BJJ has succeeded.
 
Theres a huge difference between blue and purple as you all know. I see white as learning the basics. I see blue as working on those basics plus lots of positions, guards, submissions etc. I have learned alot since i got my blue. i cant say anything about purple because i havent made it that far yet. I like that article on onthemat.com that talks about belt progression.
 
It could be just percentages. My instructor told me 10% make it to blue. 10% of those make it to purple. More students = more colored belts.

You are still 1 out of 100 if you make it to purple. There is no way a purple is 1 out of 10. (at my school)
 
Cash Bill 52 said:
It could be just percentages. My instructor told me 10% make it to blue. 10% of those make it to purple. More students = more colored belts.

You are still 1 out of 100 if you make it to purple. There is no way a purple is 1 out of 10. (at my school)
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Based on self-reported information from this forum, there are about a third to a half as many purple belts as blue belts, half as many browns than purples, and half as many blacks than browns. So I would expect that 50% make it through each level, on average.
 
No idea. We only have a few purples at my school, but a ton of blues.
 
The more examples you see of a rank the more likely you will see a poor example. Enough poor examples and your opinion of the rank gets skewed. Add in the different promotional criteria used by various instructors and things get pretty messed up.

We've had quite a few guys making their marks as purples:
Nick Diaz - fighting in UFC as purple, winning tournaments left and right
Nate Diaz - submitting his way through The Ultimate Fighter as purple
Gilbert Melendez - top 5 LW fighter
Jake Shields - 3rd place ADCC (either as purple or a month after getting brown)

Not to mention several other purples I've trained with. I have not encountered too many purples that didn't represent their instructor well (in terms of skill).
 
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