Should a White belt 4 stripes tap out a purple belt??

[KGB256]

I encounter this as a stereotype online with fair frequency. It is probably just because of my personal experience, but I really question it. No one in my gym starts on the knees, and when I was a whitey, starting on my butt seemed awkward, I didn't know what to do, and it made me feel more vulnerable...so I started standing. My gym being full of accommodating people (and pro'lly 'cause I was a girl), the other person would just start down. As such, my top game developed before my bottom game.

Didn't you get swept much? I ask because I generally start from guard against newbies, including female newbies. From there, I'm working on guard retention and sweeps. If I get a sweep, that's when I start working on new submissions, or ones I'm just not very good at.

The guys tend to find ways to improve position after a few sessions, often by just being explosive. Since I'm a big guy, that doesn't usually work for the females. As such, they've always wound up getting better at tucking elbows, protecting their neck, building a frame, etc. This is where the guys might appear to be getting better results (because they're getting out), but the females are actually improving more in terms of technique.

That's just been my experience with every female I've trained with, especially the newcomers since I've been training. They've learned a strong survival game out of necessity, often more technically than their male counterparts. Interesting though to hear how different your experience was.

 

[Big Nasty Edison]

TS, I go to the gym and lift like every day and there was a Ford F350 coming at me and I couldn't push against it to stop it and I got ran over. Is that supposed to happen?

 

[KGB256]

Ego. We all fall victim to it from time to time, but you have to be aware of it. I get caught by lower belts from time to time even being a big purple, and I have to fight a surge of annoyance and the impulse to smash them. The other side of the coin is not smashing people constantly just because you can...it doesn't really help either of you in the long run. If I see a higher belt just steamroll lower belts all the time, I lose a lot of respect for them. In BJJ we create our own training partners by teaching and helping them improve, and if you neglect this process for the very fleeting satisfaction of dominating a beginner or physically inferior teammate then you're doing a disservice to yourself and the art. Only white belts and assholes talk about gym wins or keep mental tallies of who they've tapped and how often. Of course we all feel good when we catch a higher belt, but hopefully it's because it shows we're getting better and not because we now get to brag about tapping the black belt.

Good post.

I agree that it's pointless just to smash newbies for the sake of smashing. If your A-game is worth anything at all, you need to work it on people who can actually make it a challenge. That's the only way it's going to get better. For me, that's what guys right around my level are for.

The new guys, OTOH, are for working things I'm terrible with. For example, my guard retention sucks. If I use open guard against most of our blue belts, they pass in like 20 seconds, and then God only knows when I'll be able to get back to guard. That's not a smart way of getting better. Instead, I work open guard against the white belts, especially the 0-2 stripe ones. They get to work passes and defense, I get to work rentention, sweeps, and subs. Sometimes I get them, sometimes they pass..in which case they can work some control and try some subs, while I calmly work my defensive game to recover my guard and it all starts over again.

It's win-win if you ask me. When I started, I was the new guy for a very long time, and even today a lot of newer guys don't stick around after instruction for mat time. My defensive game is sharp. But lately I've had more opportunities to work with lower belts, and I'm loving it. It has helped my game tremendously working with them, and I've always been a favorite among new guys because I try to make sure I'm helping them develop good fundamentals that will help them improve quickly.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Good post.

I agree that it's pointless just to smash newbies for the sake of smashing. If your A-game is worth anything at all, you need to work it on people who can actually make it a challenge. That's the only way it's going to get better. For me, that's what guys right around my level are for.

The new guys, OTOH, are for working things I'm terrible with. For example, my guard retention sucks. If I use open guard against most of our blue belts, they pass in like 20 seconds, and then God only knows when I'll be able to get back to guard. That's not a smart way of getting better. Instead, I work open guard against the white belts, especially the 0-2 stripe ones. They get to work passes and defense, I get to work rentention, sweeps, and subs. Sometimes I get them, sometimes they pass..in which case they can work some control and try some subs, while I calmly work my defensive game to recover my guard and it all starts over again.

It's win-win if you ask me. When I started, I was the new guy for a very long time, and even today a lot of newer guys don't stick around after instruction for mat time. My defensive game is sharp. But lately I've had more opportunities to work with lower belts, and I'm loving it. It has helped my game tremendously working with them, and I've always been a favorite among new guys because I try to make sure I'm helping them develop good fundamentals that will help them improve quickly.

I typically will just play with totally new guys (let them pass and work, prevent them from passing with just my feet, giving up my back, etc), with guys with some experience but who aren't a challenge I'll typically pick a few moves that I'm not good at and just work them over and over. For instance, I've been trying to work on berimbolos and inverting from RDLR, so I'll just pull one of those two guards, do the move, and then let them get back to guard and just do it again. It works well. I save my A game for people who force me into it.

 

[Livenlearn]

I've learned from many an "instructor" and been to more gyms than I can name. The sample size is insanely low and there is an apparent bias to boot. This isn't personal opinion, it's relatively fact of matter at this point. But whatev, it doesn't keep me up at night and I'll never own a gym, so in the end it's moot.

I've only ever been to 3 gyms. My own, and two that I've visited. People were generally surprised that I had been training for as short a time as I had, given my skill level and rank.

When I go to competitions, watching purple belt women and white belt men is a world of difference. I'm competing in the blue women's, so I can't really compare. For my part, I find watching the white belt divisions pretty painful. I don't think I would find it painful if I didn't know things that they didn't.

I'm very familiar with the sample size issue; it directly impacts my life and competition. The idea that there are blue belt gals running around that aren't really ready because their instructor overcompensated when taking into account strength differences...sucks, but sounds reasonable. I just don't buy the idea that this is so prevalent that you could describe it as the normative situation ( not a 'personal opinion...fact') and the cryptic references to bias doesn't really help your case.

I mean, do you only go to schools where the instructor is an idiot, and/or wants to curry favor with female students? Where he doesn't care about his reputation or the resentment of other students? The school is these guys bread and butter-and your alleging that they would risk food on their table and a roof over their head...not even for very special poon, but any poon that comes their way? Enough that there is systemic bias in multiple schools? Apologies if I'm concentrating on the wrong thing here. I couldn't fathom what you meant, and that was the explanation my brother came up with, so I ran with it. Be less cryptic.

I don't think that was the case, one of them got pretty mad after the second choke and we stopped rolling. The other genuinely congratulated me for doing so well

To reference Uchi Mata's ego post, a higher belt will still give you something they think they can get out of, and then can't. Genuine congrats doesn't mean other people weren't going easy on you. Just that you did much better than expected, and that you've improved since the last time they rolled with you.

Didn't you get swept much? I ask because I generally start from guard against newbies, including female newbies. From there, I'm working on guard retention and sweeps. If I get a sweep, that's when I start working on new submissions, or ones I'm just not very good at.

The guys tend to find ways to improve position after a few sessions, often by just being explosive. Since I'm a big guy, that doesn't usually work for the females. As such, they've always wound up getting better at tucking elbows, protecting their neck, building a frame, etc. This is where the guys might appear to be getting better results (because they're getting out), but the females are actually improving more in terms of technique.

That's just been my experience with every female I've trained with, especially the newcomers since I've been training. They've learned a strong survival game out of necessity, often more technically than their male counterparts. Interesting though to hear how different your experience was.

I guess I didn't end up in guard much? I imagine there were a lot of sweeps, but I'm quite athletic, with good balance and speed. It was a long time before I understood that a sweep followed by a scramble was something to avoid rather than a situation to create. I loved (and to a lesser extent still do) scrambles for all the opportunities they represent. Very exciting. I avoided getting into someone's guard like the plague because I could never get out. I did get very good at following an arm bar with my shoulders and getting out of guard and the sub that way though. But I wouldn't stay on bottom from there if there was any possible way to avoid it. It just wasn't comfortable for me the way the online stereotype always describes it.

 

[codemonkey76]

No doubt. But read the stats of the hypothetical guy I used as an example. I think that would be too much size and strength for essentially any woman, even one as strong and technical as Ronda, to beat. He'd need to know enough to avoid the basic subs, but how exactly would you finish someone who can bench more than you can squat? I've watched very, very good small BBs positionally dominate very large, strong, lower belts and not be able to finish because the bigger guy would literally just tear their arms away from their neck. It takes an enormous size/strength differential, but at some point it comes into play.

Let's take a more extreme example, from the realm of idiocy, to illustrate the point. Could Ronda Rousey (or any woman, or man for that matter) armbar or RNC a full grown male lowland gorilla? Physiology is roughly similar, and the gorilla (presumably) has no training. My guess would be it's pretty unlikely, since gorillas are around 2.5x as strong as people of the same size IIRC. Now, how much less strong than a gorilla does a man have to be for the same relation to hold? I'm about 6'2" and 210-220, and when I was a white belt I used to beat the shit out of purple belt women who were much better technically than me, just because I could prevent them from doing anything by size alone (and I was too young and dumb to know what an asshole move it was to do so). I'd had some Judo and was in really good shape, but that was about it. I recall rolling once with a woman who'd been doing BJJ for 3-4 years, but was about 100 lbs soaking wet, and even when I was being nice she couldn't get anything going unless I totally gave it to her, just because the size difference was so great. It matters a lot.

I dunno about untrained, they wrestle from birth every day, don't have to go and work a 9-5 or anything.

 

[fiftysvn]

First post in maybe a year . . . the shitty threads never die!

 

[Uchi Mata]

I dunno about untrained, they wrestle from birth every day, don't have to go and work a 9-5 or anything.

Chimps arm drag and re-arm drag each other. It's actually pretty funny to watch.

But these days they don't have time to wrestle, fleeing from poachers and Jane Goodall and whatnot.

 

[Jumpy]

10 inches of height, and 140 pounds of weight, and a man vs a woman. dumb question imo. the guy LITERALLY outweighs her by OVER double her size. what is a belt supposed to make you a jedi?

theres only so much you can make up for in technique.

This.

Even a white belt tapping a purple isn't that odd. Purples will mess around working in bad positions purposely or trying for one pass/sub/whatever against the white and get caught.

 

[CrazyN8]

Im a one stripe white and I can tap a yellow belt. I think he is eleven and I'm 31, I must be a prodigy.

 

[CrazyN8]

This.

Even a white belt tapping a purple isn't that odd. Purples will mess around working in bad positions purposely or trying for one pass/sub/whatever against the white and get caught.

Your AV just made me smile, it was wierd. Thanks?

 

[SUPERGRAPPLER]

Im a one stripe white and I can tap a yellow belt. I think he is eleven and I'm 31, I must be a prodigy.

Hahahaha! I like this post.

 

[madgrappler]

Troll, for sure. But, I'll bite.

Off the top of my head, four reasons a lower belt taps someone higher. Luck, higher belt not legitimately earned by someone knowledgeable enough to judge, big difference in physical skill/ability, or sandbagger.

I'm sure there are more.

PS. There are plenty of sandbaggers out there who don't have a belt and would start as white but have a lot of wrestling/judo/informal training experience.

 

[Ice 9 Cobra]

Mad, sometimes guys just get caught. Having a higher belt doesn't make you infallible

 

[madgrappler]

Mad, sometimes guys just get caught. Having a higher belt doesn't make you infallible

True enough. Everybody has off days. That'd be five. I'm sure there are many more. "Keeping it playful" maybe a little too playful would be another....

 

[rms13]

The whole technique over size argument that some BJJ practioners like to hold onto is b.s.

I'm a no stripe white belt (male 5'10" 180-185lb) and I regularly tapped out purple belts when training. And I have never been finished by a female when rolling and I have rolled with females up to brown belts. I'm in good shape, fairly lean/muscled and athletic and I never had a problem with someone that I outweighed by 40-50 lbs no matter how good they were. The only person that was much smaller that really dominated me was my instructor who was 140lb male brown belt. He definitely would always put me in bad positions but even then it took him some real effort to get me to tap due to the size difference.

 

[Uchi Mata]

The whole technique over size argument that some BJJ practioners like to hold onto is b.s.

I'm a no stripe white belt (male 5'10" 180-185lb) and I regularly tapped out purple belts when training. And I have never been finished by a female when rolling and I have rolled with females up to brown belts. I'm in good shape, fairly lean/muscled and athletic and I never had a problem with someone that I outweighed by 40-50 lbs no matter how good they were. The only person that was much smaller that really dominated me was my instructor who was 140lb male brown belt. He definitely would always put me in bad positions but even then it took him some real effort to get me to tap due to the size difference.

As a fairly new purple belt, I haven't been legitimately tapped by a white belt (as in, I didn't give them the sub) in probably 2 years. If you're really doing that, either you have prior training, are a prodigy of BJ Penn proportions, or the purple belts you're rolling with aren't legit.

 

[KGB256]

As a fairly new purple belt, I haven't been legitimately tapped by a white belt (as in, I didn't give them the sub) in probably 2 years. If you're really doing that, either you have prior training, are a prodigy of BJ Penn proportions, or the purple belts you're rolling with aren't legit.

Nonsense. I'm 7lbs 4oz, just started training today, and I tapped Marcelo and Roger at will all morning long. I said it on the internet so it must be true. :icon_lol:

I also like how he says nobody 40lbs lighter than him has ever given him problems, and then immediately proceeds to tell us how his instructor (who is exactly 40lbs lighter) dominates him on a regular basis.

 

[rms13]

Nonsense. I'm 7lbs 4oz, just started training today, and I tapped Marcelo and Roger at will all morning long. I said it on the internet so it must be true. :icon_lol:

I also like how he says nobody 40lbs lighter than him has ever given him problems, and then immediately proceeds to tell us how his instructor (who is exactly 40lbs lighter) dominates him on a regular basis.

Right. My trainer is the exception not the rule is my point. I am not currently training BJJ, only trained for about 6 months and that was my experience at a pretty big school with lots of members. I am not a huge guy by any stretch of the imagination but I was probably in the top 10% at the school as far as size goes. Most of the males who were my height were walking around between 150-160 i.e. skinny dudes. If you have size, athleticism and flexibility I think it's easy to keep pace with anyone with 2 years or less of training. I had no grappling or wrestling experience previous to BJJ but grappling certainly came more naturally to me than Muay Thai or Karate which I did in the past. But I also think that most schools hand out purple belts to anyone that shows up at class regularly for 2 years and that doesn't mean they are any good. There are purples who probably never did an athletic thing in their lives until their first day of BJJ so me being an athlete my whole life growing up and staying in relative good shape throughout my adult life has an advantage over those guys who may know some technique but not much beyond that.

 

[thewhiteSRR]

^sorry man but those are some bad purple belts.