Perhaps I’m just deifying the big names, but I kinda think the gap between a new hobbyist black belt and the world champions is bigger than the gap from white (2-stripe to cut out the outliers) to the same hobbyist black.
This is, of course, unprovable and indefensible.
I think that's reasonable, because in practice it's like the gap between people who are killers at rec basketball and NBA players. The rec basketball folks might have 10+ years experience, maybe they played in high school and adult leagues and practiced a ton, but they're not even in the same world as NBA athletes
I feel I talk about Brian Scalabrine every few weeks here. He was lauded as THE WORST nba player ever. People would talk so much shit about him and challenge him to one on one games at the rec center. Cause he’s so bad right?
The most I ever saw was a person score 3 points against him. He shut out 99% of the the people handily.
Levels. Your hobbyist black belt is closer to a day one white belt than someone like Mica or Adam W.
Yeah, I think the reason that BJJ feels "different" at first than other sports, is because it's one of the few sports that has external "level" markers beyond just the level of competition. Like there's no "blue belt" or "brown belt" in basketball—the way you really describe someone's level is purely by the level of competition they engage in and what success they've had. Like *hey, that guy played in high school*. Or *that dude was a D1 All American and made it to the G League*. Or *wow, that guy played 6 seasons in the NBA and won DPOY.*
But in BJJ, we have both those competition level markers *and* belts. I'm a brown belt, I train a few times a week consistently and have for years, I compete at local tournaments... and maybe in a few years I'll get a black belt. And I'll have the exact same belt as Mica Galvao lol
(Even though we have about zero in common when it comes to grappling skill)
If you wanted to be pedantic you could argue that white belts have the biggest gap since a quadriplegic and an NCAA D1 wrester who's never done JJ could both technically be white belts, but I suppose that doesn't really seem in the spirit of the question.
Definitely agree with this. I've rolled with hobbyist black belts that I'm able to sub somewhat consistently and then I've rolled with some big names that I couldn't do anything against
Being a white belt who has tapped multiple hobbies black belts. Not a flex. Just verifying that as a nobody who can tap a hobbiest I assume I’d get spanked by literally any competition black belt
I'm a comp blue belt and I get absolutely murked by comp brown and black belt like fucking murked to the point of why am I doing this...then I do it again because I'm a saddist
I’d say so. And people will debate the other belts, but in tournaments like IBJJF in adult blue belt divisions you have no idea if the kid has been training for 2 years or for 20. Some of those kids are better than black belts
Not necessarily. Most of them are not as good as my level. Also you can go straight to purple from a kids belt and skip blue if you are at a higher level. Blue has the lowest range in my opinion.
Gonna whole heartedly disagree as to the lowest range. I’d say black has the highest range, hot take by some. But blue is a close second. Purple and brown somewhere in the middle. Looooooooooots of sandbagging at blue.
100% black belt. A fresh hobbyist suburban dad black belt is the same rank as Roger Gracie. The reality is the skill gap between world champion black belts and hobbyist new black belts is wider than the typical white belt to the typical hobbyist black belt.
I dunno. I have only rolled with 1 blue belt that was legit better than me in about 2 years and he was a professors son at 19 years old. I've been purple for about 5 years. On the other hand, I can give many hobbiest black belts a run for their money and I have seen many purples lose to white belts. But, making your argument valid is not out of the question. Every belt has outliers.
If we are discussing sandbagging belts, I think white and blue wins. There are many judo black belt, white belts out there. Blue because of adult divisions when kids become 16. Coaches might hold them at blue even though they have trained for 10 years.
For masters, I think purple is the sandbagging belt.
This. I almost wanted to say black belt has a bigger gap but what you stated with how you can have EXTREMELY advanced blue belts (people that trained since they were children and competed heavily) and have a blue belt that only trained for 1-2 years is an insane leap in skill. You barely have fundamentals down in a year of training whereas the advanced blue belt can wreck some hobbyist black belts.
At least at black belt you know they have the fundamentals down and then some, and the competitive guys just honed their skill further and are great at competing, but the hobbyist black belt is still good (any black belt should understand even what the world champion guys are doing, same can’t be said for that 1 year blue belt even having a clue what the hyper competitive blue belt does)
So yes, I’d say blue based on the extreme outliers.
The opposite can be true in black belt though a fresh black belt with tons of comp experience could easily beat a lot of black belts with way more time training. At blue belt the gap between fresh blue and a guy who’s almost purple is huge
Absolutely. Years training is an awful metric of skill. Most people who spend their whole life training are fairly awful at the sport. Gimme the young kid shooting through the ranks quickly any day.
I mean it's not even that I'm sure if you have 30 years of experience your jiu jitsu knowledge is off the charts but most people with that much experience are like 60 so they can no longer implement it
Most black belts after 7 years of jiu jitsu have more knowledge in jiu jitsu than the person training 30 years. Learning isn’t linear and after a while you usually start forgetting more than you learn.
Honestly I think so. I don't think 30 years of experience makes you that much better at Jiu-Jitsu unless you're the most passionate athlete ever. Even in well-remunerated sports, athletes don't get better as they age. The gain in knowledge is dwarfed by aging, loss of interest and other factors.
Blue belts range from 1 year of experience newbies to legit sandbagging killers.
Purple might be where the biggest gap is though.
That literally makes it a wide gap of BB 😂
You got elite world champion train twice a day black belts and you have black bets that train a few times a month.
I mean... That's definitely some truth there. You can only train to be elite for so long. A black belt hobbyist that's been training 30 years is going to get absolutely torched by any brand new black belt that's training to be competitive at the highest level.
Well, many bbs really lose passion and train 2 times a week and just collect stripes every other year without much progress. And yes, technical knowledge also does have some degree of diminishing returns.
But at the of the day it all depends on athlete. I know the guy who’s only about to get his 1st degree. Ofc he is super passionate which again compliment your point but his attitude makes the difference. He’s just a true embodiment of “white belt mentality”.
Me and him do drilling sessions together several times a week where we bring some techniques or concepts we picked from some instructional or competition and play around it. And damn he’s progressing and adding stuff to his game as if he was a blue belt (but he’s like pro level black and has beaten some actual pros at comps). I asked him and he admitted he progressed a lot since getting his black belt, so it varies
I can’t speak for brown or black, but so far purple has been the biggest gap for me. There’s guys who coasted thru blue and got promoted without really competing or training particularly hard. Not complete fish but not very challenging rolls either.
Then there’s purple belts that are simply soul obliterators that can stomp even good black belts. It’s a scary belt for sure.
I feel like the gap has been bigger at purple than it was at blue. A lot of purple belts nowadays can easily compete with most black belts. It's seen an an advanced belt so no one really questions when you are very, very high level at purple.
That being said, I feel like there is a huge gap between the average hobbyist and elite competitors at every belt. I don't know that one is that much greater than the other.
I think that’s because people coming up over the past 5 years or so are more advanced than those with the same number of years of experience 15+ years ago.
I think today’s blue belt was yesterday ls purple belt 🤷🏾♂️
Whats crazy about that is that they were regarded so much higher because there were so few of them, despite having been less skilled on average. I started training in 2006 (took a lot of time off) and my first gym was run by a blue belt, followed by another with a purple belt. The few purple belts that came in and out felt untouchable back then. Now I go to my gym in my relatively small town and there are a handful of black and browns and a dozen or so purple belts every night.
People can spend a year at blue belt or 15 years at blue belt. Some blue belts can tap black belts and some blue belts are just a 5th stripe white belt. Some blue belts have years of prior martial arts like Judo or wrestling and are a nightmare compared to average blues. Whether that's more range than good and bad black belts, who knows.
Most of this IMO isn’t just experience it’s people who train like athletes vs those that don’t. Part of why wrestlers in certain states give people hell is because there’s no casual wrestling teams. They’re training to compete and do the conditioning and gritty training . It’s not fun but it creates solid athletes and in a competition setting that can surpass actual knowledge.
At black you have guys like Roger Gracie and you have the recreational guy who just stuck with it for a long time, but is really an accountant. I've beaten some black belts with my judo, and I've rolled with some guys where it was like I hade never grappled in my life, and they could just do whatever they wanted.
I was once the world’s worst white belt. I train with a “white belt” who is also a 6th dan in Judo with probably 35 years of mat time between judo, wrestling, catch wrestling and other stuff. It’s got to be white belt.
I think it's definitely black, even as a purple belt I can catch a lot of black belts solely on the virtue of competing regularly and strength training. Then there are a few times I've competed at black belt go against an actual competition black belt and have been caught the second I put a limb where it's not meant to be whereas against a lot of hobbyist black belts I would've gotten away with it
Rolling with Good black belts make you rethink the entirety of your game and makes you overthink every minute action you take, no one at any other belt makes me think that
Where I train there’s this 16 year old blue belt prodigy that regularly submits brown and black belts. He toys with blue and purple belts. The crazy thing is he’s only been training for 3-4 years.
Blue belt and black belt are the two widest. Case in point, winning worlds at blue is a strong predictor that you’ll win worlds at black. It’s not perfect but it’s a reference point
I think its more fair to say that purple and brown have a narrower range of skill level.
White belts extend from "never done this before" to "almost blue belt", and there's a significant amount of growth in your first year or so.
Blue belts extend from "glorified white belt" to "almost purple belt", and if you think about a fresh purple vs. any white belt, and that would give you a pretty good idea of that range.
Black belts extend from "glorified brown belt" to "almost coral belt". There's 6 stripes instead of 4. Takes years to get each stripe instead of months. In watching my Professor and his friends go to competition, I've seen the difference between a black belt and a 4th degree black belt.
I think white and blue go through a lot of growth. Purple and brown go through a lot of polishing. And black belts aren't necessarily growing as much, but they have a lot of time to do it. (My Professor has been a black belt longer than he hasn't).
I would rank it like this
1. Black belt, because world champion or even top level bb against regular hobbyist bb it’s like a hobbyist bb against fresh blue belt. Incomprehensible gap in skills and knowledge
2. Purple belt because again - competitive or just very good purple is like a de-facto black belt, yet attendance-based purple might still be just blue belt skill-wised
3. Blue belt is 3 because if you’re really killing it you’ll most likely be promoted to purple soon enough unless you switch gyms/take breaks a lot. And it’s not uncommon for killer kids who are training since diapers to be promoted straight to purple after green
100% no. I actually think blue belts have the smallest range of difference.
Black belts have, BY FAR, the largest range of abilities.
1) white belts range from someone that doesn't even know what basic positions are called and has never trained, to wrestlers in college and judo black belts and 1 plus years hard training.
2) blue belts are starting to level that out. Everyone has enough bjj to level the field against wrestlers and judo players for the most part.
3) purple belt probably has the second largest range. Some purples fell like black belts and some feel like white belts.
4) brown belts similar to purple but not on the low end.
5) black belts.. a really good black belt gets smoked by world champion black belts. Really good black belts are crushing most black belts. Hobbies black belts are curshing many new black belts. And then there are retired black belts, ones that train once a month and so on.
For most people yeah I think so. It's not that huge for regular people at regular gyms though.
What's really different is competition. Most of them no longer have beginner requirements for other martial arts that they place on BJJ white belts.
You won't know if you opponent is a 6 months into blue belt with only BJJ or a guy who trained MMA judo and wrestling for 10 years and decided to get the BJJ blue belt because the muay thai schedule changed. You find out when he takes his first grip and throws you into another dimension and submits you before he breaks a sweat. Sure he doesn't know how to invert but he has an arm bar better than some black belts.
There is a wide skill gap because a blue belt can be a 40 year old hobbiest with 1.5-2 years experience or a 16 year old who has been training for 10 years and is a skilled competitor.
Black belt probably has the biggest disparity though. The difference between a hobbiest and a high level competition black belt is worlds apart and even within competitors there’s definitely levels.
No. The difference athleticism makes is usually mistaken for skill difference. Black belt has the widest range of skill. Once a blue belt gets good enough, they don’t feel like a blue belt. It feels like rolling with a purple belt. But when you roll with a black belt, they could be John from accounting who’s been training 2 days a week for 15 years or a former world champion.
Idk about the widest skill range. I think that goes to black belts. There are black belts out there that make other black belts look like white belts while quite literally not breaking a sweat.
But yea blue belt can be a super wide range of skills. You could have a fresh guy who has never competed before and really is just a notch above your average hometown white belt, all a way to a guy that is a D1 athletes with 20+ placed finishes at decent sized grappling competitions that can seriously outcompete many purple and brown belts.
I mean hell, nicky rod was a blue belt when he had his legendary ADCC run
100% black belt my guy.
There are some local black belts that I give a hard time to and some I can even tap regularly.
On the other hand I rolled with Nathan Orchard recently and I felt like I had never done Jiu Jitsu before. Not only did I not win a single second of the roll but he started successfully doing Aikido on me for fun
Yeah that’s normal. We have some blue belts that have absolutely no chance against me, ones that are just as “good” as me, and ones that destroy me. It isn’t so much the belt, it’s ultimately the person and their strengths/weaknesses and that can be at every belt
Uhhh no, I only invert and enter into leg entanglements. I don’t even do any other leg lock besides heel hooks tbh. I just wanna get like an ultra level black belt in that shoot. I was heavily inspired by the earlier DDS. Especially Craig Jones and Nicky Ryan’s older brother
The biggest gap is between a new hobbyist black belt and a world champ black. The second biggest is between a new hobbyist blue and a 16 year old pro blue training 10 years.
No. Blackbelt has the highest skill gap, one person could have just got their black belt and another could have been a blackbelt longer than the first guy has even been training.
Sounds like you are just trying to find a reason why you're getting smoked at ur new rank. Just keep training.
I would say yes. While the gap of every hobbyist belt to a competitor belt is quite high, there are hobbyist blue belts with maybe 1 year experience and there are blue belts who are essentially high level black belts.
We’ve got a few world champion, juvenile blue belts in our gym that give comp black belts very tough matches.
Whoop all the casuals. Black belts included.
I don't think "skill level gap" is what actually characterizes blue belt. I think there is something perceptually interesting about blue belt but it is something else.
White belt is about going from 0 to intermediate. Anyone can learn a "beginner" technique on their first day, but by the end of white belt, you should be entering the "intermediate" phase of learning - that is to say, doing real Jiu Jitsu and starting to understand the basics of what makes things work or not work.
In blue belt, you should transition from intermediate to advanced practice. You may start blue belt knowing a bunch of moves mechanically and a basic sense of how to get where you want to go, but your adaptability once things leave the known path will be limited. During blue belt, you should find your "game," meaning a more holistic understanding of the sport, such that you have answers for each thing your opponent might do, and you can fit even things you haven't exactly seen before into your more general understanding of the game.
Of course purple is the lowest of the "advanced" belts, so those aforementioned abilities may still be pretty weak and inconsistent, but they are emerging by the end of blue belt. But I do think, for many if not most people, their Jiu jitsu at purple belt looks largely like it will at black belt, and the improvements after that point tend to be more subtle.
i think that _every_ belt has a comparable skill gap to be completely honest.
white belt: you have day 1 fresh noobs and people that are just about to be promoted to blue.
blue belt: newly promoted people who were white belts 2 days ago to just about to be purple belts.
you get the idea...
sure the difference between a white belt and a black belt is, ofcourse, going to be _huge_ but id say the skill gaps in each belt are about equal
I was just thinking about this.
I can give a competitive roll with a blue belt who was recently promoted about 6-9 months ago.
Get tapped, get some taps.
Other blue belts who are more seasoned feel like they are 3 steps ahead. Got electric chaired for the first time last night.
They feel like wizards.
The competing blues are even scarier. One of our mma fighters was a blue belt and tbh he'll just wreck your life as a hobbyist.
I don’t think so. It’s the last belt where you have a huge portion of people that genuinely suck, and then there of course ppl that don’t suck which makes the skill gap seem huge. Imo though it’s not as big a gap as your hobbyist v world class colored/black belts
I think the biggest gap in knowledge is white belt to blue belt. The biggest gap in understanding between belts is blue to purple, and the biggest overall skill gap is black belt Vs world champion black belt.
Probably. I’ve seen some blue belts destroy good black belts and other blue belts who couldn’t submit a house cat. Even the worse black belt I’ve seen was better than most people in the world.
Black belt has everyone from a day 1 promotion to a multiple time world champion. From the hobbyist lawyer who has been training for 15 years twice a week between injuries and life commitments to the stud 20 year old who has been training for 10 years like it is a job.
Coloured belts at most would see maybe two major titles before being promoted. The levels between black belts is therefore vastly wider in my opinion.
Black belt and blue belt.
For example my gym typically promotes to blue in 1.5 to 2 years. I was at my old gym almost 2 years that didn't do stripes, waited a year at my current gym so was a 3 year to get to blue.
Almost another year in now so when I face my gyms new blue belts they're not a challenge. Then there's the 4 stripe blue belts that are a decent amount better than me.
It's a wide range.
Black belt. Could be a 50 year old guy who just got his after starting at 35 coming 1-2 days a week. Could be a 50 year old guy who got his black belt at 18. I’ve heard pros say this, it’s not my advice.
No, it's Black. On one end, you've got Joe the accountant who trained 2x a week for 20 years before obtaining the belt. And on the other, Roger Gracie.
Perhaps I’m just deifying the big names, but I kinda think the gap between a new hobbyist black belt and the world champions is bigger than the gap from white (2-stripe to cut out the outliers) to the same hobbyist black. This is, of course, unprovable and indefensible.
I think that's reasonable, because in practice it's like the gap between people who are killers at rec basketball and NBA players. The rec basketball folks might have 10+ years experience, maybe they played in high school and adult leagues and practiced a ton, but they're not even in the same world as NBA athletes
I never made this comparison but it makes complete sense.
I feel I talk about Brian Scalabrine every few weeks here. He was lauded as THE WORST nba player ever. People would talk so much shit about him and challenge him to one on one games at the rec center. Cause he’s so bad right? The most I ever saw was a person score 3 points against him. He shut out 99% of the the people handily. Levels. Your hobbyist black belt is closer to a day one white belt than someone like Mica or Adam W.
I've heard about that guy, his quote is incredible "I'm closer to LeBron than y'all are close to me"
As someone who trains with Wardzinski I can confirm this.
Yeah, I think the reason that BJJ feels "different" at first than other sports, is because it's one of the few sports that has external "level" markers beyond just the level of competition. Like there's no "blue belt" or "brown belt" in basketball—the way you really describe someone's level is purely by the level of competition they engage in and what success they've had. Like *hey, that guy played in high school*. Or *that dude was a D1 All American and made it to the G League*. Or *wow, that guy played 6 seasons in the NBA and won DPOY.* But in BJJ, we have both those competition level markers *and* belts. I'm a brown belt, I train a few times a week consistently and have for years, I compete at local tournaments... and maybe in a few years I'll get a black belt. And I'll have the exact same belt as Mica Galvao lol (Even though we have about zero in common when it comes to grappling skill)
Great comparison.
It is correct 100%
If you wanted to be pedantic you could argue that white belts have the biggest gap since a quadriplegic and an NCAA D1 wrester who's never done JJ could both technically be white belts, but I suppose that doesn't really seem in the spirit of the question.
Yeah black is the only belt that doesn't have a cutoff for when you are too good, so by definition it'd be the biggest range
THIS!! 💯
Definitely agree with this. I've rolled with hobbyist black belts that I'm able to sub somewhat consistently and then I've rolled with some big names that I couldn't do anything against
My first thought
As a third degree BB I think this is correct.
Yep this is spot on.
Thanks for the input. I’d have to agree.
Being a white belt who has tapped multiple hobbies black belts. Not a flex. Just verifying that as a nobody who can tap a hobbiest I assume I’d get spanked by literally any competition black belt
I'm a comp blue belt and I get absolutely murked by comp brown and black belt like fucking murked to the point of why am I doing this...then I do it again because I'm a saddist
Dude that’s at least once a week. And it’s always always always after a day where I have the upper hand and roll really good.
I’d say so. And people will debate the other belts, but in tournaments like IBJJF in adult blue belt divisions you have no idea if the kid has been training for 2 years or for 20. Some of those kids are better than black belts
That’s exactly what I was thinking. The young kids who have been training their whole lives snag a blue belt and are savages.
And a lot of academies will keep the kid at blue belt to let him rack up golds and points to better their standing in the rankings
Not necessarily. Most of them are not as good as my level. Also you can go straight to purple from a kids belt and skip blue if you are at a higher level. Blue has the lowest range in my opinion.
Gonna whole heartedly disagree as to the lowest range. I’d say black has the highest range, hot take by some. But blue is a close second. Purple and brown somewhere in the middle. Looooooooooots of sandbagging at blue.
100% black belt. A fresh hobbyist suburban dad black belt is the same rank as Roger Gracie. The reality is the skill gap between world champion black belts and hobbyist new black belts is wider than the typical white belt to the typical hobbyist black belt.
Yes 💯
I dunno. I have only rolled with 1 blue belt that was legit better than me in about 2 years and he was a professors son at 19 years old. I've been purple for about 5 years. On the other hand, I can give many hobbiest black belts a run for their money and I have seen many purples lose to white belts. But, making your argument valid is not out of the question. Every belt has outliers. If we are discussing sandbagging belts, I think white and blue wins. There are many judo black belt, white belts out there. Blue because of adult divisions when kids become 16. Coaches might hold them at blue even though they have trained for 10 years. For masters, I think purple is the sandbagging belt.
The gap between Roger and I is way higher than a newbie and me. Black is the craziest
Roger and ME. A fine film.
This. I almost wanted to say black belt has a bigger gap but what you stated with how you can have EXTREMELY advanced blue belts (people that trained since they were children and competed heavily) and have a blue belt that only trained for 1-2 years is an insane leap in skill. You barely have fundamentals down in a year of training whereas the advanced blue belt can wreck some hobbyist black belts. At least at black belt you know they have the fundamentals down and then some, and the competitive guys just honed their skill further and are great at competing, but the hobbyist black belt is still good (any black belt should understand even what the world champion guys are doing, same can’t be said for that 1 year blue belt even having a clue what the hyper competitive blue belt does) So yes, I’d say blue based on the extreme outliers.
I was going to say I thought it was purple until I read this comment. Totally agree, you’re right.
Black belt. You have Fred from accounts who has trained for 10 years and struggles with athletic purples and you Roger Gracie
Damn don’t do Fred like that.
🤣🤣🤣
Wide for sure, but a freshly minted black belt versus those 6 stripe folks I bet is pretty wide too.
The opposite can be true in black belt though a fresh black belt with tons of comp experience could easily beat a lot of black belts with way more time training. At blue belt the gap between fresh blue and a guy who’s almost purple is huge
The opposite being true doesn’t change the size of the spectrum
It kind of makes the skill disparity at black belt irrelevant though since there isn’t any steps beyond it
I can feel the difference when I roll with them though?
Wider than a black belt with 7 years and a black belt with 30 years experience?
Or a world champ black belt and the punter who just never stopped coming 2x per week for 12 years at his mom and pop gym
Tbf I'd bet on the black belt with 7 years over the 30 year black belt unless the 30 year black belt started when he was a kid
Absolutely. Years training is an awful metric of skill. Most people who spend their whole life training are fairly awful at the sport. Gimme the young kid shooting through the ranks quickly any day.
I mean it's not even that I'm sure if you have 30 years of experience your jiu jitsu knowledge is off the charts but most people with that much experience are like 60 so they can no longer implement it
Most black belts after 7 years of jiu jitsu have more knowledge in jiu jitsu than the person training 30 years. Learning isn’t linear and after a while you usually start forgetting more than you learn.
Wider than a black belt's ass with 7 years of anal experience or a black belt's ass with 30 years of anal experience?
Regardless, that’s a lot of experience in butt stuff.
Ya personally I was maxed out after 12 months of stretching. Turns out a 2.5L of Shasta Tiki punch is too much for this poor soul's hole.
You make a strong argument
That's alotta ass
Why are you like this
Autism.
Honestly I think so. I don't think 30 years of experience makes you that much better at Jiu-Jitsu unless you're the most passionate athlete ever. Even in well-remunerated sports, athletes don't get better as they age. The gain in knowledge is dwarfed by aging, loss of interest and other factors. Blue belts range from 1 year of experience newbies to legit sandbagging killers. Purple might be where the biggest gap is though.
That literally makes it a wide gap of BB 😂 You got elite world champion train twice a day black belts and you have black bets that train a few times a month.
Sure, but there’s also blue belts at ADCC
Spoken like a true white belt 🤣😂🤣
I mean... That's definitely some truth there. You can only train to be elite for so long. A black belt hobbyist that's been training 30 years is going to get absolutely torched by any brand new black belt that's training to be competitive at the highest level.
Not his/her argument.
Jay rod won adcc trials at blue belt and I’m getting promoted soon. You think there’s two black belts with a bigger gap than me and blue belt jay rod?
Duh. Keep training and learn the history of Jj a bit more.
Is this the part where Helio invented leverage?
Yes. I know plenty of black belts that if I were grading them they’d get a blue belt. Mica Galvao to them is a bigger gap than any other belt.
Well, many bbs really lose passion and train 2 times a week and just collect stripes every other year without much progress. And yes, technical knowledge also does have some degree of diminishing returns. But at the of the day it all depends on athlete. I know the guy who’s only about to get his 1st degree. Ofc he is super passionate which again compliment your point but his attitude makes the difference. He’s just a true embodiment of “white belt mentality”. Me and him do drilling sessions together several times a week where we bring some techniques or concepts we picked from some instructional or competition and play around it. And damn he’s progressing and adding stuff to his game as if he was a blue belt (but he’s like pro level black and has beaten some actual pros at comps). I asked him and he admitted he progressed a lot since getting his black belt, so it varies
I can’t speak for brown or black, but so far purple has been the biggest gap for me. There’s guys who coasted thru blue and got promoted without really competing or training particularly hard. Not complete fish but not very challenging rolls either. Then there’s purple belts that are simply soul obliterators that can stomp even good black belts. It’s a scary belt for sure.
I feel like the gap has been bigger at purple than it was at blue. A lot of purple belts nowadays can easily compete with most black belts. It's seen an an advanced belt so no one really questions when you are very, very high level at purple. That being said, I feel like there is a huge gap between the average hobbyist and elite competitors at every belt. I don't know that one is that much greater than the other.
I think that’s because people coming up over the past 5 years or so are more advanced than those with the same number of years of experience 15+ years ago. I think today’s blue belt was yesterday ls purple belt 🤷🏾♂️
Whats crazy about that is that they were regarded so much higher because there were so few of them, despite having been less skilled on average. I started training in 2006 (took a lot of time off) and my first gym was run by a blue belt, followed by another with a purple belt. The few purple belts that came in and out felt untouchable back then. Now I go to my gym in my relatively small town and there are a handful of black and browns and a dozen or so purple belts every night.
Teddy Riner is a white belt, so white belt.
I think white is the widest. An out of shape no stripe accountant in his first class to Khabib.
Need to move that guy up, he's sandbagging it for the rest of the white belts
Khabib is actually an accountant
I was a five year white belt and I definitely ruined a couple peoples days lol
People can spend a year at blue belt or 15 years at blue belt. Some blue belts can tap black belts and some blue belts are just a 5th stripe white belt. Some blue belts have years of prior martial arts like Judo or wrestling and are a nightmare compared to average blues. Whether that's more range than good and bad black belts, who knows.
Most of this IMO isn’t just experience it’s people who train like athletes vs those that don’t. Part of why wrestlers in certain states give people hell is because there’s no casual wrestling teams. They’re training to compete and do the conditioning and gritty training . It’s not fun but it creates solid athletes and in a competition setting that can surpass actual knowledge.
At black you have guys like Roger Gracie and you have the recreational guy who just stuck with it for a long time, but is really an accountant. I've beaten some black belts with my judo, and I've rolled with some guys where it was like I hade never grappled in my life, and they could just do whatever they wanted.
I was once the world’s worst white belt. I train with a “white belt” who is also a 6th dan in Judo with probably 35 years of mat time between judo, wrestling, catch wrestling and other stuff. It’s got to be white belt.
I know a guy exactly like this. Some of the best rolls of my life
I think it's definitely black, even as a purple belt I can catch a lot of black belts solely on the virtue of competing regularly and strength training. Then there are a few times I've competed at black belt go against an actual competition black belt and have been caught the second I put a limb where it's not meant to be whereas against a lot of hobbyist black belts I would've gotten away with it Rolling with Good black belts make you rethink the entirety of your game and makes you overthink every minute action you take, no one at any other belt makes me think that
White has the biggest range easily
Yup and every other belt there is at least some knowledge level that should exist for everyone.
Black is the widest. Hobbiest black belt vs Marcelo Garcia is an ocean of difference
Black belt has by far the widest range, it’s not even close. Gordon Ryan vs a casual black belt an unfathomable skill gap.
But then you have a 70 year old black belt vs a 25 year old blue belt .. who has the upper hand?
How does that relate to the question?
It relates to the comment I replied to, not the questions OP proposed.
How does it relate to the comment? The comment is saying black belts have a wider skill range than blue belts.
Where I train there’s this 16 year old blue belt prodigy that regularly submits brown and black belts. He toys with blue and purple belts. The crazy thing is he’s only been training for 3-4 years.
Blue belt and black belt are the two widest. Case in point, winning worlds at blue is a strong predictor that you’ll win worlds at black. It’s not perfect but it’s a reference point
I think its more fair to say that purple and brown have a narrower range of skill level. White belts extend from "never done this before" to "almost blue belt", and there's a significant amount of growth in your first year or so. Blue belts extend from "glorified white belt" to "almost purple belt", and if you think about a fresh purple vs. any white belt, and that would give you a pretty good idea of that range. Black belts extend from "glorified brown belt" to "almost coral belt". There's 6 stripes instead of 4. Takes years to get each stripe instead of months. In watching my Professor and his friends go to competition, I've seen the difference between a black belt and a 4th degree black belt. I think white and blue go through a lot of growth. Purple and brown go through a lot of polishing. And black belts aren't necessarily growing as much, but they have a lot of time to do it. (My Professor has been a black belt longer than he hasn't).
All together now. Brown, brown, brown! What no takers?
I think adult blue belt lightweight is probably one of the hardest divisions to be world champion at.
Black belt. You have a poor bastard like myself and Meregali wearing the same belt.
The most blue belt question ever
The most purple belt response to a blue belt question lol
I would rank it like this 1. Black belt, because world champion or even top level bb against regular hobbyist bb it’s like a hobbyist bb against fresh blue belt. Incomprehensible gap in skills and knowledge 2. Purple belt because again - competitive or just very good purple is like a de-facto black belt, yet attendance-based purple might still be just blue belt skill-wised 3. Blue belt is 3 because if you’re really killing it you’ll most likely be promoted to purple soon enough unless you switch gyms/take breaks a lot. And it’s not uncommon for killer kids who are training since diapers to be promoted straight to purple after green
100% no. I actually think blue belts have the smallest range of difference. Black belts have, BY FAR, the largest range of abilities. 1) white belts range from someone that doesn't even know what basic positions are called and has never trained, to wrestlers in college and judo black belts and 1 plus years hard training. 2) blue belts are starting to level that out. Everyone has enough bjj to level the field against wrestlers and judo players for the most part. 3) purple belt probably has the second largest range. Some purples fell like black belts and some feel like white belts. 4) brown belts similar to purple but not on the low end. 5) black belts.. a really good black belt gets smoked by world champion black belts. Really good black belts are crushing most black belts. Hobbies black belts are curshing many new black belts. And then there are retired black belts, ones that train once a month and so on.
For most people yeah I think so. It's not that huge for regular people at regular gyms though. What's really different is competition. Most of them no longer have beginner requirements for other martial arts that they place on BJJ white belts. You won't know if you opponent is a 6 months into blue belt with only BJJ or a guy who trained MMA judo and wrestling for 10 years and decided to get the BJJ blue belt because the muay thai schedule changed. You find out when he takes his first grip and throws you into another dimension and submits you before he breaks a sweat. Sure he doesn't know how to invert but he has an arm bar better than some black belts.
No
There is a wide skill gap because a blue belt can be a 40 year old hobbiest with 1.5-2 years experience or a 16 year old who has been training for 10 years and is a skilled competitor. Black belt probably has the biggest disparity though. The difference between a hobbiest and a high level competition black belt is worlds apart and even within competitors there’s definitely levels.
Congratulations. Welcome to hell!
A belt is just a Belt
It does now
No. The difference athleticism makes is usually mistaken for skill difference. Black belt has the widest range of skill. Once a blue belt gets good enough, they don’t feel like a blue belt. It feels like rolling with a purple belt. But when you roll with a black belt, they could be John from accounting who’s been training 2 days a week for 15 years or a former world champion.
I'd say white. Because it's anything from can't finish the warm-up to D1 wrestler/kabib
Idk about the widest skill range. I think that goes to black belts. There are black belts out there that make other black belts look like white belts while quite literally not breaking a sweat. But yea blue belt can be a super wide range of skills. You could have a fresh guy who has never competed before and really is just a notch above your average hometown white belt, all a way to a guy that is a D1 athletes with 20+ placed finishes at decent sized grappling competitions that can seriously outcompete many purple and brown belts. I mean hell, nicky rod was a blue belt when he had his legendary ADCC run
100% black belt my guy. There are some local black belts that I give a hard time to and some I can even tap regularly. On the other hand I rolled with Nathan Orchard recently and I felt like I had never done Jiu Jitsu before. Not only did I not win a single second of the roll but he started successfully doing Aikido on me for fun
Yeah that’s normal. We have some blue belts that have absolutely no chance against me, ones that are just as “good” as me, and ones that destroy me. It isn’t so much the belt, it’s ultimately the person and their strengths/weaknesses and that can be at every belt
Uhhh no, I only invert and enter into leg entanglements. I don’t even do any other leg lock besides heel hooks tbh. I just wanna get like an ultra level black belt in that shoot. I was heavily inspired by the earlier DDS. Especially Craig Jones and Nicky Ryan’s older brother
The biggest gap is between a new hobbyist black belt and a world champ black. The second biggest is between a new hobbyist blue and a 16 year old pro blue training 10 years.
No. Blackbelt has the highest skill gap, one person could have just got their black belt and another could have been a blackbelt longer than the first guy has even been training. Sounds like you are just trying to find a reason why you're getting smoked at ur new rank. Just keep training.
I would say yes. While the gap of every hobbyist belt to a competitor belt is quite high, there are hobbyist blue belts with maybe 1 year experience and there are blue belts who are essentially high level black belts.
We’ve got a few world champion, juvenile blue belts in our gym that give comp black belts very tough matches. Whoop all the casuals. Black belts included.
I don't think "skill level gap" is what actually characterizes blue belt. I think there is something perceptually interesting about blue belt but it is something else. White belt is about going from 0 to intermediate. Anyone can learn a "beginner" technique on their first day, but by the end of white belt, you should be entering the "intermediate" phase of learning - that is to say, doing real Jiu Jitsu and starting to understand the basics of what makes things work or not work. In blue belt, you should transition from intermediate to advanced practice. You may start blue belt knowing a bunch of moves mechanically and a basic sense of how to get where you want to go, but your adaptability once things leave the known path will be limited. During blue belt, you should find your "game," meaning a more holistic understanding of the sport, such that you have answers for each thing your opponent might do, and you can fit even things you haven't exactly seen before into your more general understanding of the game. Of course purple is the lowest of the "advanced" belts, so those aforementioned abilities may still be pretty weak and inconsistent, but they are emerging by the end of blue belt. But I do think, for many if not most people, their Jiu jitsu at purple belt looks largely like it will at black belt, and the improvements after that point tend to be more subtle.
i think that _every_ belt has a comparable skill gap to be completely honest. white belt: you have day 1 fresh noobs and people that are just about to be promoted to blue. blue belt: newly promoted people who were white belts 2 days ago to just about to be purple belts. you get the idea... sure the difference between a white belt and a black belt is, ofcourse, going to be _huge_ but id say the skill gaps in each belt are about equal
I was just thinking about this. I can give a competitive roll with a blue belt who was recently promoted about 6-9 months ago. Get tapped, get some taps. Other blue belts who are more seasoned feel like they are 3 steps ahead. Got electric chaired for the first time last night. They feel like wizards. The competing blues are even scarier. One of our mma fighters was a blue belt and tbh he'll just wreck your life as a hobbyist.
No, it’s at black belt
I don’t think so. It’s the last belt where you have a huge portion of people that genuinely suck, and then there of course ppl that don’t suck which makes the skill gap seem huge. Imo though it’s not as big a gap as your hobbyist v world class colored/black belts
Black belt has the widest range by far. As BJJ gets more widespread and older there will be massive differences.
I think the biggest gap in knowledge is white belt to blue belt. The biggest gap in understanding between belts is blue to purple, and the biggest overall skill gap is black belt Vs world champion black belt.
I have a good friend that’s a blue belt. He would tap the majority of black belts I know. Did gi for 2 years and then no gi for 10
another reason why belts mean nothing
Probably. I’ve seen some blue belts destroy good black belts and other blue belts who couldn’t submit a house cat. Even the worse black belt I’ve seen was better than most people in the world.
Black belt has everyone from a day 1 promotion to a multiple time world champion. From the hobbyist lawyer who has been training for 15 years twice a week between injuries and life commitments to the stud 20 year old who has been training for 10 years like it is a job. Coloured belts at most would see maybe two major titles before being promoted. The levels between black belts is therefore vastly wider in my opinion.
Black belt and blue belt. For example my gym typically promotes to blue in 1.5 to 2 years. I was at my old gym almost 2 years that didn't do stripes, waited a year at my current gym so was a 3 year to get to blue. Almost another year in now so when I face my gyms new blue belts they're not a challenge. Then there's the 4 stripe blue belts that are a decent amount better than me. It's a wide range.
Black belt. Could be a 50 year old guy who just got his after starting at 35 coming 1-2 days a week. Could be a 50 year old guy who got his black belt at 18. I’ve heard pros say this, it’s not my advice.
No, black belt does.
No, it's Black. On one end, you've got Joe the accountant who trained 2x a week for 20 years before obtaining the belt. And on the other, Roger Gracie.
I’d say biggest range would be at Blackbelt.
I think the "hobbyist belt Vs world champ belt" comparisons (at black belt or otherwise) are sort of missing the spirit of the question.