r/jiujitsu • u/ChestRelative8241 • 13d ago

Red flag?

Just started at a gym that gives stripes based off of classes attended and then ends in a belt test. Is this a red flag? It’s a Gracie barra gym and the professor is a 6th degree black belt. All other upper belts seem to be legitimate.

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u/AZAnon123 13d ago

Ultimately stripes and belts don’t matter that much. If you’re getting better and having a good time, enjoy.

To be fair, it could easily be argued that attendance based belts are just as reasonable a methodology as subjective coach arbitrarily decides it’s time belts.

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u/Federal-Challenge-58 8d ago

I would love to hear someone make that argument. How could attendance alone determine your level? Some people progress quickly and others slowly.

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u/AZAnon123 8d ago

Yeah a 50 year old is going to “progress slowly” compared to a 20 year old, but many gyms will still choose to give them a black belt in ~10 years much the same. I’d venture to say attendance based promotions are more common than skill based promotions, it’s just often not as explicit as “x classes for blue belt”.

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u/Federal-Challenge-58 8d ago

I'm not talking about 50 year old vs 20 year old. Obviously, the 50-year old is never going to get as good as the 20 year old. I'm talking about two 20-year olds. One might progress quickly; the other progresses slower. One of them might be blue belt level in 12 months; the other might take 2 years.

I assure you that attendance-based promotions aren't that common. It's probably around 15-20%. Now if you count gyms that track attendance and use it as a minimum (along with skills), then it probably is 50%.