royce gracie promotions

[Pierced7681]

I'm curious why I see a lot of sarcastic posts here on sherdog about Royce Gracie promotions.

Does he just give belts away easily at seminars or does it have to do with GJJ and not having to compete to get promoted?

 

[Ybot]

From my experience it seems he gives blues pretty easily and have heard (though never seen with my own eyes) that he has promoted other peoples students to blue at his semenars. On the other hand he seems to be pretty stengy with purple and up.

Keep in mind my first hand experience goes back to 10 years ago when I got my blue at a Royce semenar. Between then and now my info comes from the internet... so we all know it's 100% true.

 

[lechien]

I read in training report that it is normal to get a blue belt in 6 months in Brasil.

 

[Evan_The_Kid_1]

well ive never been to a royce seminar or watched one. but what i can tell you is that royce won't award you a blue based on how good you are at the sportive aspect of jiu jitsu, but on how well he thinks you can use it in real fight in a real self defense situation. at least that's my understanding and i could be wrong

 

[Ybot]

well ive never been to a royce seminar or watched one. but what i can tell you is that royce won't award you a blue based on how good you are at the sportive aspect of jiu jitsu, but on how well he thinks you can use it in real fight in a real self defense situation. at least that's my understanding and i could be wrong

Well he did nothing to see my street worthy bjj when he promoted me, but maybe things have changed.

 

[Calibur]

Also, Royce got this reputation when having a blue belt was like being an army ranger.

People didn't really see the blue belt as a beginner belt in the late 90's early 2000's so when word started spreading of Royce giving blue belts to people he only knew through seminars, Royce caught flack.

If he started the exact same thing today, no one would say anything, probably since it's just a blue belt.

 

[Ybot]

Also, Royce got this reputation when having a blue belt was like being an army ranger.

People didn't really see the blue belt as a beginner belt in the late 90's early 2000's so when word started spreading of Royce giving blue belts to people he only knew through seminars, Royce caught flack.

If he started the exact same thing today, no one would say anything, probably since it's just a blue belt.

True. When I got my blue belt, the highest ranked practitioner in my home town (of over 400,000 people) was a blue belt. It was a big deal. There were many 5 year + blue belts at the time. I know they still exist, but they are definitely fewer and farther between.

 

[lechien]

I listened to a bj penn podcast. Back in his days, white belts did not compete. You had to be blue belt. Of course, nowadays white belts participation makes so much money for the event maker. If we went to the old system, students would have to learn some good skills and it would help retention and student knowledge. Stupid idea?

 

[hustl3r]

I listened to a bj penn podcast. Back in his days, white belts did not compete. You had to be blue belt. Of course, nowadays white belts participation makes so much money for the event maker. If we went to the old system, students would have to learn some good skills and it would help retention and student knowledge. Stupid idea?

are you arguing against white belts competing? i think its a great idea for white belts to compete, just to get experience and learn what they need to work on. I think the white belt competion actually helps retention, if i were told i had to wait at least a year to compete i might be discouraged because it seems so far off. Plus it gives you more motivation to train more and learn as much as you can. sure it might be annoying for the higher belts to go to a competition and have to wait for 500 white belts to finish, but you are right they are bringing a lot of money to the sport. Is that a bad thing? the more money the promoters make, the better the prizes, the more often they can have the tournaments, the better quality they can make it. You make it sound like its a greedy money grab to allow white belts to compete, when its probably better for the sport for them to compete than not.

 

[jasoncyclops**]

I read in training report that it is normal to get a blue belt in 6 months in Brasil.

that's what i heard too, but it really depends on the academy.

A Nova Unaio black belt told me it can takes years to get a blue belt in NU, but a lot easier in other academies.

 

[thereal**]

kind of phony to be promoted by someone who doesn't even fucking know your name

 

[Einarr]

kind of phony to be promoted by someone who doesn't even fucking know your name

If a legitimate Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt watches you roll and says you're a blue belt then you're a blue belt. Nothing "phony" about it. Outside of Brazil and 'Murrica black belts are fairly rare; for some people seminars are the only way to get promoted.

 

[thereal**]

If a legitimate Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt watches you roll and says you're a blue belt then you're a blue belt. Nothing "phony" about it. Outside of Brazil and 'Murrica black belts are fairly rare; for some people seminars are the only way to get promoted.

nah. still kinda phony. the setting is not a natural habitat when a black belt, who never seen 90% of the students before in his entire life, travels and does a promotion. it would take months upon months for the traveling black belt to observe a student and not 20 seconds of rolling to make a good judgement. phony shit if you ask me. i hate it. i hate affiliations.

 

[Rjay]

So someone that doesn't train under a black belt will never get promoted. Sounds fair.

 

[faixabranca]

So someone that doesn't train under a black belt will never get promoted. Sounds fair.

Remember, Holden Caulfield up there represents 'real' jiu jitsu.

 

[FirstScratch]

I'm sure Royce has seen enough jiu jitsu to accurately gauge someone's ability in a short period of time. Apparently some people believe he gives out blue belts like candy, I don't know, never been to one of his seminars. However, I don't really find it to be any more detestable than an instructor whom holds white belts back so he can claim his white belts are better than the other guys blue belts. IMO, that's not high standards, it's just a means of inflating one's ego. I know a guy that has absolutely crushed his division in every competition he's entered for the last 2 years. Guy has probably two dozen medals at white belt and beginner nogi. If his instructor wants to sandbag him to collect team points or meaningless medals, whatever, but unfortunately many of the people he's beaten may be judged by using an unfair standard. Ideally, people should be graded somewhere between the two extremes. Honestly, between blue and purple, I think things kinda get sorted out anyway, so even with various standards, high purples and browns are usually fairly even between schools and instructors. Atleast that's been my observation.

As far as not having a black belt around to give promotions......Well, sometimes you're just shit out of luck. There's a lot of blackbelts out there that wouldn't be blackbelts had they not sacrificed a great deal of time and money to travel.

 

[Einarr]

nah. still kinda phony. the setting is not a natural habitat when a black belt, who never seen 90% of the students before in his entire life, travels and does a promotion. it would take months upon months for the traveling black belt to observe a student and not 20 seconds of rolling to make a good judgement. phony shit if you ask me. i hate it. i hate affiliations.

Appropriate belt level can be observed in the movement, timing, and general "flow" of the practitioner. If after watching someone roll for five minutes a black belt cannot determine where they stand in terms of appropriate rank then he probably shouldn't be grading anyone.

 

[drmckool]

Remember, Holden Caulfield up there represents 'real' jiu jitsu.

that was a good one

 

[KGB256]

nah. still kinda phony. the setting is not a natural habitat when a black belt, who never seen 90% of the students before in his entire life, travels and does a promotion. it would take months upon months for the traveling black belt to observe a student and not 20 seconds of rolling to make a good judgement. phony shit if you ask me. i hate it. i hate affiliations.

Observing a student for months? For a blue belt? That's nonsense. You don't have to be along for the entire journey to recognize that someone has passed a significant milestone along the way. Especially if you've already made that trip yourself.

 

[Silas1222]

In Karate, past brown belt (1st kyu) you can ONLY take an exam at a seminar with an instructor who is 1)certified as a world instructor from the organization and 2) at least 5 degree. This makes it very difficult to breeze through ranks because these few people who hold such standings dont want to see the organization diminish due to an influx of incompetent bbs.

Grading for us starts when we walk into the door for the first class of the seminar. He may not know our names, but he learns our faces (our instructor points us out). We must take EVERY applicable class in order to grade (4-6 hours of training Friday, Saturday), and another 3 on Sunday. Grading is held immediately after the 3 hours of training.

Personally i see this is as being better and more genuine. If you need a relationship with a student to grade them, then you could say "Eh, he is tired because ive seen him do better" or just simply play favorites. Sometimes these gradings can have upwards of 200 people. Technique is the only real way to see if someone should be promoted.