What can BJJ to stop and reverse this trend?

[JohnPJones]

Unfortunately , I train at exactly a place like Firas describes: you get stripes and belts at a predetermined date (you can even see the mark on your card for when you are supposed to get it ). This is for everyone , regardless of skill or actual knowledge. As long as you show up even remotely consistently, you will get promoted.

I've spoken up about it. Got shot down by most of.my teammates except maybe a couple who agreed with me. I personally hate it. I've felt I was a disgrace to my purple belt . I made a topic here about it a couple of months ago, and people suggested I compete again or drop in on other gyms .

Since then I've done the latter . I live in San Diego so no shortage of world class BJJ gyms .

What I've learned is this : at the very LEAST, the fundamentals you learn ANYWHERE In BJJ are going to be the same . If you ROLL consistently amd against people on your level at least IT DOESNT matter where you do it , YOU WILL get better .

In the 3 famous gyms I've dropped in on ,paid the $25-40 mat fee, and rolled with about 13 different blues, purples , browns and blacks, I never felt out of my element . Never felt blown out of the water or that I was a white belt masquerading as a mcdojo purple . With the exception of a relatively well known purple world champ ( who smashed me worse than I've ever been smashed), everyone else I rolled with didnt feel better or worse than my teammates at my McDojo.

I was going to make a topic about my experiences with this or even just bump my old thread and update it, but never got around to it

I guess if it ever comes to the point where I'm smashing everyone at my gym regardless of their ranked then yeah its time to move on, but I'm no where near there at all and never will be , so everytime I go into my mcdojo and roll hard with my teammates , I'm getting better.

Anyways my two cents for what its worth

i think it you'll notice a drop in the skill level of blue and purples if you stay there for the next 5-10 years. these things don't really happen overnight. unfortunately with karate the mcdojo attitude actually started in okinawa/japan as the japanese and okinawans were giving out blackbelts to GIs in a year or so of training to keep them coming for that year to keep getting money from the US military.

i think there will be 100% actual BJJ mcdojos by 2025 that are about as common as the real deal BJJ schools...maybe not quite as common, but getting there. by 2035 i'd bet BJJ mcdojos will outnumber the legit schools.
just my opinion at this point, but only time will tell

 

[NSchoke]

If counting classes goes in line with IBJJF guidelines- training 4-5 times a week for the time frame, it seems like it'd solve as many problems as it might make.

Right now there's tons of sandbagger talk, it should do away with that.

People have to wear the belt as the video describes so they can put work in and wear it with pride or just show up and get their ass kicked by lower belts. They know what's coming regardless.

Edit- without looking up specific guidelines
52week times 4 times per week times 10 years is over 2000 hours of training.
You know a BJJ black belt had that investment.

After all "a belt only covers 2" of your ass, you're responsible for the rest"

 

[NSchoke]

i think it you'll notice a drop in the skill level of blue and purples if you stay there for the next 5-10 years. these things don't really happen overnight. unfortunately with karate the mcdojo attitude actually started in okinawa/japan as the japanese and okinawans were giving out blackbelts to GIs in a year or so of training to keep them coming for that year to keep getting money from the US military.

i think there will be 100% actual BJJ mcdojos by 2025 that are about as common as the real deal BJJ schools...maybe not quite as common, but getting there. by 2035 i'd bet BJJ mcdojos will outnumber the legit schools.
just my opinion at this point, but only time will tell

It could happen but the mat is honest. If you visit places or have visitors that are smashing everyone, people will question.

That's the difference between striking sparring and grappling sparring, it's alot of what this video is about.

Our world is becoming more open and connected. People would have ban visitors and ban their students from cross training, I don't think it'll happen. The best will rise.

 

[JohnPJones]

It could happen but the mat is honest. If you visit places or have visitors that are smashing everyone, people will question.

That's the difference between striking sparring and grappling sparring, it's alot of what this video is about.

Our world is becoming more open and connected. People would have ban visitors and ban their students from cross training, I don't think it'll happen. The best will rise.

the fakes won't allow people from other gyms to challenge them. just like the frauds in striking won't ever accept a challenge.

 

[yetanother]

What I've learned is this : at the very LEAST, the fundamentals you learn ANYWHERE In BJJ are going to be the same . If you ROLL consistently amd against people on your level at least IT DOESNT matter where you do it , YOU WILL get better .

If the techniques are legit I wouldn't be concerned that you belts are given on a time based schedule. In a lot of the bad gyms I know people do pretty stupid stuff.

 

[Evenflow80]

i think it you'll notice a drop in the skill level of blue and purples if you stay there for the next 5-10 years. these things don't really happen overnight. unfortunately with karate the mcdojo attitude actually started in okinawa/japan as the japanese and okinawans were giving out blackbelts to GIs in a year or so of training to keep them coming for that year to keep getting money from the US military.

i think there will be 100% actual BJJ mcdojos by 2025 that are about as common as the real deal BJJ schools...maybe not quite as common, but getting there. by 2035 i'd bet BJJ mcdojos will outnumber the legit schools.
just my opinion at this point, but only time will tell

Who knows man.... maybe your right . I honestly just got tired of worrying about it. At the end of the day like everyone here told me just worry about myself and give it 100%. I train 4-6 times a week consistently despite being married with 2 kids and a demanding job etc

That's honestly all I can do and just hope for the best

 

[RightToBareKnuckles]

There's a significant discrepancy between how smart he thinks he is and how smart he actually is.

he does come off a bit smug. but anyway one of the funniest parts of the interview is where Firas and/or Joe are talking about martial arts and how it helps you be calm and avoid fights, then like a minute later Firas says some guy had road rage towards him, so he gets out of the car to yell at him

 

[NSchoke]

the fakes won't allow people from other gyms to challenge them. just like the frauds in striking won't ever accept a challenge.

If they don't allow visitors and tell their students not to train elsewhere they won't grow. We live in a connected world, that isn't going backward.

This stuff is covered in the video you posted- the mat is honest

Edit- it's much easier for fakes to say moves are to dangerous or whatever in a striking situation-. Grappling can be done near 100% safely-

 

[Bluesbreaker]

They can't do anything to stop it. It's popular, there is money to be made, there will be plenty of McDojos.

 

[NSchoke]

Who knows man.... maybe your right . I honestly just got tired of worrying about it. At the end of the day like everyone here told me just worry about myself and give it 100%. I train 4-6 times a week consistently despite being married with 2 kids and a demanding job etc

That's honestly all I can do and just hope for the best

He's not right, you experienced the truth. If you go to class and do your best you'll be fine.

It's completely normal not to feel ready for a belt, I don't think I felt ready for any of mine. I get the better of most black belts I roll with now. I really didn't think I'd see the day I could say that.

Just keep training and BJJ takes care of most of the rest.

 

[Evenflow80]

He's not right, you experienced the truth. If you go to class and do your best you'll be fine.

It's completely normal not to feel ready for a belt, I don't think I felt ready for any of mine. I get the better of most black belts I roll with now. I really didn't think I'd see the day I could say that.

Just keep training and BJJ takes care of most of the rest.

Man I love positive , motivating posts like this. So rare on here. Cheers man.

 

[mattemate]

Guys the trend has been reversed.

Ashton Kutcher is the most legit brown belt I've ever seen.

 

[No Skill Gap]

I've already said my opinion but I want to reiterate and add a bit.

There's always going to be "simps" (simpletons, suckers) in the world. There's still people out there doing much less effective to actually fake martial arts out there. There's people doing suspect self defense based arts or fake karate or aikido. It's just inevitable.

Like many have said the trend has gone in the opposite direction if anything. It isn't 1982 or 1995 where the internet did not exist (basically), it's an information age. People can research things, people already know what's effective or not. The average person or below average or lower isn't going to get duped or con'd like they would have prior to this era.

There's still going to be "cult" like gyms for obscure arts, all that. So that's what I would tie in with the BJJ thing. Yeah maybe there will be a handful of gyms out there doing some questionable stuff, but again I just can't see BJJ becoming "fake karate" with a bunch of little kids doing some choreography and getting black belts at age 10-12.

Here are some big points:

1. There was already a big issue in BJJ during the "online" days. Gracie University was handing out blue belts without any rolling/sparring, not sure the time on it but around 2006-2013 or something? Still do? Not sure. 10th Planet tried to follow suit too around 2008-2013. Again I wasn't involved in BJJ for a stretch so I don't know the exact dates, but this seems much worse and BJJ is still fine 5-10 years after this happened.

2. Rolling. Again, I just can't envision a world where people in 2020-2025+ are going into gyms and training where people don't spar/roll. It just isn't going to happen in BJJ, it's just such a huge staple, it's fun to do, it's very important to do, and there's no excuse to not do it. There's no excuse for instructors to not roll (most of the time), there's no excuse to not flow-roll or roll 50-70% or go 80-100% at least on occasion.

If you want to be fooled, you will be fooled. It's that simple...anyone can google something in 10 seconds. The basic expectations and rubric of BJJ is very simple also, it ain't too hard to know if it's a joke or not. On top of all of this, yes obviously there is going to be individual cases of belt rank ups that aren't fully justified based on skill, merit, etc. That's always going to happen, and it's just not a huge deal anyway considering it's a colored cloth. If someone got a purple and sucks well you should be able to wax them on the mat anyway right?

 

[Espurgote]

If they take too long to promote they are sandbaging, if they promote too quick they are mcdojos. Ok then...

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

personally i think this is inevitable in the US in regards to martial arts, and it sounds like it's already hitting BJJ.

so how can the BJJ community stop this and reverse it? just more dojo/school challenges by legit BJJ blackbelts and brown belts?

Maybe simply get rid of belt ranks? MMA, wrestling, boxing, Muy Thai, and sambo all do fine without them. So do most sports and physical abilities. How do you tell if someone is a good boxer or wrestler without a belt? You watch them, or look at their competition record. Just like you would with a basketball player, or baseball player, or any other kind of athlete. How do you tell if a school or club is good? Same way, you look at the quality of their students in competition. If they don't compete you safely assume they're not good, for the same reason you'd assume a basketball club that never competed weren't very good.

 

[ens189]

I personally don't have a problem with people getting to blue belt with a punch card system. My gym does something like this up to blue and then after that stripes/belts are handed out on a merit based system. Now of course this system is different for everyone. The 40 year old cop isn't going to be expected to keep up with the 19 year old who trains 10x a week and the cop might very well get promoted before the youngster, again I don't have a problem with any of that.

It's all a scale anyway. I think I'm a pretty average brown belt and a bigger/stronger guy and I've felt like an absolute child with top of the food chain black belts. Should I never be promoted to that belt one day despite the fact that I train 4-6x a week?

 

[JohnPJones]

Maybe simply get rid of belt ranks? MMA, wrestling, boxing, Muy Thai, and sambo all do fine without them. So do most sports and physical abilities. How do you tell if someone is a good boxer or wrestler without a belt? You watch them, or look at their competition record. Just like you would with a basketball player, or baseball player, or any other kind of athlete. How do you tell if a school or club is good? Same way, you look at the quality of their students in competition. If they don't compete you safely assume they're not good, for the same reason you'd assume a basketball club that never competed weren't very good.

some MMA places do use belts, i remember when i was coaching an MMA class this dude who fancied himself a coach wanted to do belts for the MMA class...i told him to fuck off lol

in the stand up forums i remember someone mentioning that some MT places were also doing belts, or shorts color coded by rank, or arm bands or something.

 

[SBC]

After years of being someone who defended militant training, it has come to my realization that I was misled and that softer approaches to training absolutely can work and do. Even making the claim that BJJ is becoming like TMA and trying to paint this picture that TMA has somehow been rendered useless in the US is nonsense. There are plenty of fighters who have become highly successful in MMA with notable TMA backgrounds. TMA provides some good building blocks for a striking athlete that should not be overlooked. Your typical TMA stylist is more fluid, has better footwork, defense, hand speed, and timing than those of Muay Thai. Trying to say those skills that were gained in American dogos aren’t I port at is silly. America is doing a fine job of producing top grapples as well.

 

[SandisLL]

Plenty of KB (K-1 ) guys come in this world from…. let's call it TMAs. At least for europe.
At least for Golden era.

---
Challenge might be more inteseting if challenger agree to sign contracts for pro bout.
For example, pro boxing bout.
Or pro K-1 bout.
Or MMA bout.

Otherwise callouts come in for smoker with me in my club looks just playgame with pre descripted scenario.

 

[AnotherOldGuy]

some MMA places do use belts, i remember when i was coaching an MMA class this dude who fancied himself a coach wanted to do belts for the MMA class...i told him to fuck off lol

in the stand up forums i remember someone mentioning that some MT places were also doing belts, or shorts color coded by rank, or arm bands or something.

Never knew that, thanks. I suspect its about trying to keep students (ie give them belts to symbolize their progress and give them something to aim for). I started with wrestling and judo, and always preferred the wrestling system -- you know someone's good by either working with them, or looking at their competition record. Judo is like that for the most part too -- a black belt just means you're ready to be a student in judo, after that its not about rank but how well you've done in competition. For instance, what rank is Teddy Riner (multiple time Olympic gold medalist in judo)? Almost no one knows or cares, because its what he's done in competition that matters.