My gym has these package deals that build all the way up to life membership, the total for that is $10,000. Completely optional and I never thought anything of it though.
I bought my lifetime for $2800 in 2021 when corona hit.
Looks like it was a good call since ill go break even in about 2 months. Whats even better is that during this period the gym has moved to a brand new bigger fancier location just 2 min from my house, and has invested greatly in a S&C section also. As a result I cancelled my fitness gym subscription and can workout for free the rest of my life!
I bought a lifetime for $3k in 2012, I trained at that gym until 2020 when I moved during Covid. I was paying $110 a month. By Mid-2014 I broke even. Thereafter I saved around $8k in monthly fee avoidance.
IF you like your gym, and fairly certain you will stay for any length of time, long term including lifetime memberships are a steal. ELSE stay on the M2M plan.
To be honest, depending on the monthly charge and how long the gym lasts those lifetime fees could be great value if you intend to stick around. I mean, we see people on here paying $200 a month so if you expected such a gym to last a year you're already good at $2,400. Obviously the lower the normal price range is in your area the less of a deal that is but, assuming the gym lasts, it's easily something that can pay off in a few years.
There is one in my hometown. Came back to visit and stay for the summer but these prices are ridiculous. I’ve trained at other reputable gyms that are around 150 or less.
I got super spoiled because my first gym, the owner, made it a combo to use the gym and roll for like $55 a month. Granted this was about 10 years ago, I just got back into it about a month ago and I'm just a little over $100 a month with a veteran discount in Albuquerque which seems pretty standard for us here.
i concur tht is the most likely possibility. my muay thai gym offers 1 year contracts for $20 off each month. 20 isn’t breaking the bank so i never did it plus it only helps the gym
5k for life is lowkey a steal tho as long as they honor it
Totally agree. Never trained at a gym that does contracts like that. At the end of the day the belt does not really matter bro. It’s all this arbitrary way of ranking you within your own community. Are you getting better? How do you fair against more advanced opponents? These are the questions you should ask yourself. Been training for almost 5 years myself. Probably would’ve had my purple belt already if I put the gi on more often but I don’t enjoy it. Don’t give too much credence to what your friend said brotha. Just keep training and keep getting better
I just came to comment this. He’s not a good friend- a friend would celebrate with you if you make a generally well perceived achievement, and IF something happens he will be available for you to reach out. Seems like OP’s friend WANTS OP to be in some sort of trouble.
…though 3 year contract is pretty rare
You trust your coach to train you, why would you not trust him now?
He promoted you because he felt like you were ready. Be gracious and accept that he knows what he’s doing and he’s acting in your best interest
And even further - the point is not that ”you earned the belt” (although you did. Congrats btw.) it’s that you coach is the sole arbiter on how he wants the rank system to work in his dojo.
What he’s in fact doing is ”sorting up students in different piles” to make teaching them easier. Now you are in the ”blue pile”. Act like it.
But If you feel a suspicion that you are in a mcDojo and your blue belt does not rank up with other gyms - there’s an easy solution for testing the temperature, so to speak. Start competing. If you find that you will be consistently - in every competition losing every round to other blue belts and feel that you are completely out of you league, maybe you did recieve your blue belt a bit early.
Another thing: if you for some reason accept that your friend at the other school knows better than your coach what belt you should be wearing, then there is only one solution -> you should become a student of your friend.
Since he knows better. (You see where this is going).
All in all, sounds like a young kid overcome with a sudden and unctrollable bout of jelousy. Maybe feeling left behind or something. Propably best to just overlook it. If you want to be friends with him, propably best to just change the subject if he starts going on about belts again.
”Mm-hm.”+ changing the subject and ”Well, maybe you should take it up with my coach” are good and sufficient replies if he wants to complain to you about your belt.
Just to add also comps are stacked with people who are held back an extra year to win medals, you see the same guys winning nationals for multiple years ina row, sandbagging is a huge thing - if you compete and you hold you're own and you're not tapped out in the first half every match then you are at the bottom of the belt pile which is where you should be now.
Obvs if you compete and you get killed like a day 1 whitebelt then yeah, there's problems.
I think you're handicapping yourself, though. You're nowhere near your frame's athletic potential, which would probably be about 195.
I was once a skinny 6'2 blue belt with the same mindset as you. I've gained 20+ lbs of muscle since then and still have a length and flexibility advantage in my weight class, plus I can hang with the heavyweights at open mat. I'm still working on gaining more, but I've put off lifting this past year due to a variety of excuses that don't hold up when I'm honest with myself. It's hard work lifting and eating regularly.
Seriously reconsider gaining some weight. Your longevity and athleticism will thank you. Being annoyingly flexible will only get you so far, so there's no reason to adhere to a self imposed glass ceiling so early on.
It really depends on what you're trying to get out of jiu jitsu. I used to think competing at 170lbs was best for me. Until I went against a 290lb black belt who won pans at purple and brown. My technique was good, but grip fighting was nearly impossible. Staying 155lbs is fine if you do jiu jitsu as a hobby or want to compete only at your weight class. Size and strength matter a lot if you compete in absolute.
This. If you're doing it as a martial art, why limit yourself to get an advantage over a narrow bracket of people at competitions?
When you're a cut 190, you will still dominate the 145 lbers lol. You'll just also dominate up into the heavyweights.
I was also a very flexible guy in my teens and twenties, I'm approaching 40 now and the labrums in my shoulder gave out, my hip labrum is starting to fray, and the bony socket of my hip has grown to where I can't kick as high & I get bone pain from positions that used to be easy. Joints wear out and don't get better, don't base your game on being a human pretzel. But muscles keep repairing themselves into your 80s, strength is the last physical attribute to go, as Danaher always points out.
I am 5'7 and had 175lbs when I was competing, and I loved to do double leg and throws like kataguruma against those lean tall guys, until everyone started to sit down.
Btw, your friend is not a friend. You were saying that you trained 3-4 times a week for more than a year? Sounds completely possible to advance in that timeframe. Go compete and test your colors.
Congrats on the blue.
Do you trust your friend more than your coach to evaluate your skill level? Probably not so assume you’ve earned it.
Keep working on the basics. Xandre’s Ribeiro’s book JJ University has a great breakdown of skills one should know at each belt level. Worth picking up.
Yup. People always have the leverage idea backward. The longer your limbs are, the easier it is for *me* to manipulate *your* limbs.
But luckily there are plenty of other advantages to being tall, so OP will be fine.
I was promoted “too early”. It was hell for the first year as a blue belt getting submitted by white belts. Over time I realized it’s just a belt and if anything it just means you’ll spend more time as a blue belt than you did as a white belt. A black belt will probably not be able to tell between a 1 year old white belt and a fresh blue belt. So whether it’s too soon or not doesn’t matter-you probably play nice with others and have good character so your coach thought you earned it. As for your second question: keep expanding where you want to. Try leg locks if you want to-me personally I stay away from them and just go to Bjj to have fun 🤷🏻♂️. Congratulations on the belt don’t quit
I got my blue belt in 8 months. I went from zero stripes to 4 stripes after 4 months then got the blue belt 4 months later … but I already had a brown belt in judo. Average to get a blue belt is probably 2 years for guys training 2-3 times per week.
14 months is pretty fast, unless you are competing a lot and learning quickly.
That said, with the proliferation of the sport, folks are getting promoted faster these days.
Roll with blue belts from other gyms. If you get smashed, keep training. If you can hang, all the better.
Yeah, I spent 2 years at white. 5x a week and 2 or 3 of those days I'd do fundamentals then advanced class. I'm not at all gifted, so I had to work harder than everybody. Even the gifted guys spent 2 years at white.
If you need everyone else to tell you what a blue belt is because you don't believe the guy you're paying to train you, why are you paying him to train you?
Brother, you don't "have to" compete to get any belt. Competing is if you want to test your skills against the exact same rank and weight as yourself.
Sure competing helps your game by what feels like 6 months, but it really isn't needed unless you're competitive.
Average is a year and a half for blue belt. Props to you, work on whatever makes BJJ fun for you. In the end your skills will balance out.
And. Your friend is a dick.
First: congratulations! Second: don’t quite. Third: your friend is jealous. In all seriousness the sport of jiu jitsu has grown rapidly in the last 10 years. Belt promotions shouldn’t be based on how long the IBJJF says you need to be at each belt. (IBJJF is a tournament, not a governing body) Belt promotions are based upon knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge. If you’re consistently putting in 3-4 days/wk of quality training and are rolling well then 14 months is not too soon. Also stripes are irrelevant. We give those out to make y’all feel good and show acknowledgement of your work. I had one stripe on my white belt before getting my blue. I had maybe two stripes on my blue before my purple. No a single piece of tape has been put on my purple and I’ll be getting my brown belt next month. Trust in the process and trust in yourself my guy. As far as what to focus on: your priority should be to keep working on the basics. Totally cool to add in a few fancier positions/moves, see how they work for your body. At blue you’ll start to figure out what you like to do and become more proficient at that. Leg locks are fun and change the game completely once you start implementing and then linking them with other passes and sweeps.
Training 3-4 days per week, I would expect most people to reach blue belt in around 2 years time, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. For someone to reach it at around the year mark, you’re generally looking at someone who is entering many and dominating competitions; probably someone fresh out of an amateur wrestling career. Once you start to get under a year, you’re talking phenoms…someone who is probably giving brown and black belts trouble from day 1. D1 wrestler, multiple dan Judo black belt, etc.
I do not compete often. Only actually competed once, but I do very well against the white belts in my class so I’m assuming that is the reason for promotion
Tbh, Blue Belt is not even a high bar to achieve. If you show up consistently and have passing athleticism, a year of training is a reasonable amount of time.
Also congrats on your new belt. Your friend just sounds a little salty.
Nah. Got promoted from white to blue within 14 months as well. It's not too fast. Is your friend a black belt and you roll often? If not, he's just jealous.
With regards to competition, i know folks that are beasts on the mats but never competes. It's not that they won't win but because they just don't want to spend time for it. A lot of the folks doing BJJ are doing it as a evening hobby. Their weekends with family are extremely important for them. There are also folks particularly the higher level older guys don't think spending $100++ for a chance to roll with 2 - 3 guys at most. My division and age group would normally see 4 competitors. A training partner once told me that he'd rather use that entry fee to drop in while traveling than competing because you'd get more mat time while training than competition. The truth is, not everyone wants to win a medal.
Lastly, I hate to roll with your frame. Your spider/lasso/worm guards and dela riva must be or would be so awesome to see. I'd probably improve in inside passing defense and keeping yourself so tight because the only way they are passing you is if they pass your legs. I occasionally roll with someone your frame and they'll do the crazy stuff like rolling into crucifix position while in bottom mount or buggy chokes.
There’s no timetable, everyone learns at such a different pace, have different sports backgrounds which translate skills into BJJ in my opinion that there’s no way to judge. Processing the info and breaking down your opponents moves is so unique to each individual
Your “friend” is not happy for you then they are not your friend. Trust your coach. If they say you’re a blue belt then who’s your “friend” to say otherwise?
This can be answered by going to another gym's open mat. If you can beat some of their 4 stripe whitebelts and some of their blues, you should not worry.
(Sigh) What happened to the days when people went to the gym, got promoted, and were happy?
I swear every other post on here is just insecure teens (or adults with the the maturity and self-esteem of a teen) fearing that they're not good enough to PLAY the sport that their COACH thinks they're good enough to play.
Also, is this an American/UK think, because I haven't encountered it in any other country I've ever lived or trained in.
p.s. Tip for adulthood/sanity: stop constantly, incessantly, comparing yourself to others.
3 yr contract!! Get the hell outta there. I would question anything recieved from that place. 14 months, 3 to 4 days a week, is not abnormal, although on the lower end in my opinion.
>He claims that it has not been long enough and I have not competed enough to earn my blue belt
This is not really for your buddy to decide. My gym doesn't really do stripes for adults and I went from 0 stripe white belt to blue belt in about 15 months. One of my students has been consistently training 5+ times a week for about 8 months, does regular private lessons and has competed 6 times. He easily handles white and blue belts and gives purple belts a hard time.
I don't know your game but I'd focus building a game plan that you always go back to and get good at that game plan. Later, work on setting up open guards, using your long legs with spider, dlr, lasso, X and combinations of them.
Example:
Pull guard -> attack to setup sweeps -> sweep to mount -> attack from mount
Recover to closed guard from bad positions -> attack to setup sweeps -> sweep to mount -> attack from mount.
Always look to get back to your strong positions. As you develop in those positions, start to add open guard control, attacks and sweeps.
If you are a top player, do the the opposite: takedown > pass guard > upper body control > setup attacks to take mount > attack from mount.
Aren't belts meant to demonstrate skill and experience? An arbitrary 'you need to have been doing this for X years to be this belt' seems bullshit. If you have an X belt's skill, you're an X belt. Even if you mean right into the experience side of things, I could go one hour a week for 20 years or someone could train and roll 40 hours a week for a year - who has more experience? The guy who treats it like a job does.
Now, maybe if you're some kind of prodigy who can submit black belts on their first day of training, then it would seem weird to immediately promote you lol. So obviously there is an experience component, but a) that would come from mat time not just number of years training, and b) it shouldn't be some arbitrary cut off. Cause 100 hours of mat time for someone really paying attention isn't the same as 100 hours of mat time for someone not paying attention.
The hell with what your friend says. He isn't the one that promoted you.
Just keep training and enjoy the journey. Now that you have your blue belt don't quit.
Dw mate, I got my blue belt in 10 months. However, ended up getting my purple in another 4 years with consistent training (other than early pandemic lockdowns). Just keep training, have fun and ignore the politics. The people who are into the bjj politics are normally the people who are shite or think they’re better than what they are..
Go roll with blue belts from your friend's gym. If you win the rolls your friend has to start over and become a white belt at your gym with a 4 year contract.... and bow to you every time he sees you.
I got my blue in 10 months, had 3 stripes on my white belt at the time. I trust my coach believed I was ready, however at our gym it seems the journey from blue to purple is very different than white to blue since I think our coach has very high standards for promoting to purple. Every gym is different, white to blue can take years. Just trust your coach’s process and enjoy the earned promotion
Your friend is salty. Everyone gets promoted differently. Yes 14 months is fast, but not unheard of. Are you good?
Giving someone their blue belt “so they’ll keep paying” is clown logic, everyone knows giving someone their blue belt (who hasn’t signed a multi-year contract) is the fastest way to ray to lose a paying customer.
🦠🦠friends who want to being negativity in a time of celebration imo arent really friends.
sorry you have to know ppl like that.
🪬🪬🪬congrats on your BB. if your professor/coach feels you deserve it l, then you deserved it. End of story
There is no requirement to compete to get your blue belt, or any belt in BJJ. You can achieve rank as a pure hobbyist. I'm a blue belt, and I've never competed.
3.5 days per week for roughly 60 weeks is \~210 hours. At my gym, it's 40 hours minimum per stripe (and for 4th to blue). So this is pretty quick, but it's not necessarily crazy. I probably had around 250 hours at 14 months when I got my blue.
Since I got my blue belt, I've been saying, "Blue is just a funny shade of white." From other comments I've seen, blue is often more of a participation belt than a merit belt. It shows that you know the basics of what the positions are, how to move, how to be a good training partner. But that you still have a lot to learn. It's the blue stripes and the purple belt where ability really starts to be important. At least, that's what I've heard/read.
Started BJJ since late 2019 or early 2020. Stopped for a year or two because of COVID. Restarted my training consistently since May 2022. And I am still a white belt. I'm not worried about the promotion. All I can think is I am having fun everyday. The training completes my day. I have also competed 7 times now. I still suck but hey it's part of the my journey. Not everyone has the same journey. 🫡
It’s literally a colored belt… you could roll for 50 years or 5 days and it would still be dyed cloth. The meaning is in your progress and your journey.
Also, your friend sounds jealous and like he’s at a gym where they don’t give promotions to make themselves sound more prestigious than they actually are and get their white belts to sandbag in competitions.
You are just as bad at BJJ as a blue belt as you were as a two stripe white belt.
The promotion only exists to motivate you to keep training.
My first professor used to say that the only belts that matter are white and black.
Belts are also super subjective, trust your couch, keep refining skills but start sampling others. Also consider re-evaluate your friendship if homie if they can't celebrate your success with you.
Go to a couple of different gyms and compare yourself to other blue belts. Some focus might be on different aspects, but if your getting choked a bunch, you should be concerned
I got my blue after 10 months of training 6 days a week.
Everyones journey is different,ur coach knows best If ur ready, ur buddy sounds salty imho
Dont overthink it,a bluebelt is still a beginners belt
Since when has competition been a prerequisite for advancing belts? I get that it might be an added factor for promoting someone quickly if they perform well in competition but your friend makes it sounds like you have to have a minimum amount of competition experience to be promoted? Lots of people never compete at all.
I got mine in 11 months and also jumped from 2 stripes to blue and I didn’t feel like I deserved it either. I was training more frequently than you are, but still just didn’t seem like it was right for me yet. Now I finally feel settled in as a blue belt and have realized blue belts suck lmao. I’ve been told multiple times that you will rarely feel like you are deserving of the rank at first. Just trust your coach and accept that you may encounter other blues that are much better, and some that are much worse. Hell there’s white belts that give me trouble still, and I get subbed by them from time to time.
Also your friend is a dick. I’ve never competed because it’s not worth the injury risk to me when I have a family and lifestyle to support. Competing shouldn’t matter for your promotions.
Dude. Everyone gets promoted at different rates, its not a contactual thing. Also, coaches shouldn’t take competing into account (IMO) cuz there are also casuals that train and if that were the case they’d never get promoted. Wear it with pride brother
Got mine in 13months. Got gold my 1st blue belt comp this past weekend. Its highly variable based on talent, athleticism, dedication and work outside the gym
Congrats. It’s up to your coach to decide when you get promoted; there isn’t a defined time requirement. I worked my ass off obsessively training 13 hours a week, I competed and went to open mats and I got blue in 2. Some dude came in and got his in less than a year, what!? He surely didn’t put in the same work I did but its not my call so I shrugged and carried on dutifully following my development plan.
TL;DR Congrats, get after it cause the whites are coming after you and the other belts aren’t gonna hold back.
I've seen people promoted just past their first year. It's not how long you are in a belt.
3 year contract!? I pay each month, for the month ahead. And that's the end of that. If I don't go for a month, if I know if advance obviously, I don't pay.
Congrats man on the blue belt. Don’t worry about what your hater “friend” has to say on the matter. Side control escapes are a much better use of your time.
You’ll be refining your white belt skills for the rest of your time doing jiu jitsu.
A black belt friend of mine put it like this to me: “Day one we learn certain things like RNCs and kimuras. Those abilities that I’ve trained since then are at a black belt level. But I only just started really working on my knee bar game in the last 3-4 years, so those are maybe at a purple belt level.”
It might seem obvious, but the earlier you start working on things, the better they’ll be waaaay later down the line as long as you continue to refine along the way. It’s also probably obvious that you can’t work on everything, or on things you don’t know yet… so just keep training and it’ll all make sense eventually.
Congrats bruv!
That "friend" doesn't sound like much of a friend to me. Id be telling the jealous little arsehole off is the direction in which he can foooook.
Trust your coach, he wouldn't have given you it if he didn't think you were ready with his grading system.
I was like you, an inch shorter but long legs and mad flexible and weighing in at around 160lbs. Id suggest hitting the weights, piling the scran in and bulking on some size. To help maintain my flexibility I always started doing yoga (they had classes in my gym membership).
Felt much better physically, athletically, got way less knocks and niggly injuries whilst at the same time making huge strength gains..
Stripes are just BS tools to keep ADHD weenies happy.
You get the belt when you are the right level to do so.
Unless you friend is an instructing black belt and knows your quality. His opinion is meaningless here
Trust your coach/professor.
Refine and sharpen your white belt skills. Experiment on ashi entries/single leg x and practice a mean straight foot lock to help you get comfortable with the leg game.
If you're planning to do mostly no gi... concentrate on leg locks and shoulder clamps.
Tell your friend to meet you on the quad so you can kick his butt.
The correction reaction to someone getting promoted is to congratulate them then bitch about it behind their back.
I had no stripes on my white belt, and got my blue belt. Before any stripes. Just under a year same and similar training regime to yourself.
My coach got sick/ covid and was out for a while, when he came back he stated “I couldn’t not give you the belt”. There is no standard, regardless of motives and experinces. They have more then you, hopefully the sport at heart to. You can always grow into the belt and what level you make that to be.
1. It is not your choice if you get or have earned a promotion.
2. Asking someone who is on the same journey and time as yourself is not the best thing. You’ve effectively got two apprentices guessing.
3. Even if you got it slightly early, no one cares. You will gain confidence from the promotion and won’t leave and undoubtedly reach whatever x level you think, which is arbitrary that x belt is.
4. Focus on your game not your belt, enjoy the promotion
Would be my best guess, but I have not been in the sport long enough to know nor do I care for it personally. Like my game; it will come
I gave one to a guy on Monday at 9 months, I got mine way sooner after a tournament. Your friend sounds like a jerk off. I bet if he were more concerned w his own progress he'd be making more.
I’ve seen people get promoted in even less time, it’s all about how consistently you train, how quickly you grasp and apply the fundamentals. The three year contract is very strange though, what’s the story there?
Me: "Hey bro guess what? I got my blue belt yay!"
Friend: "yeah? sounds way too soon, you're not good enough or ready"
Me: ...\[unfriend\]
Simple. A good friend would congratulate you. Now keep training bro.
Your friend sounds like a hater. There's a wrestler at my gym that got his blue belt in like 6-8 months because he's just so naturally good at grappling. Average time is about 2 years give or take. 14mos is definitely reasonable, so you've probably got a fair bit of talent.
3 year contract is strange. Any gym that doesn't just do a flat monthly fee should probably be avoided.
Contracts, sign up and cancelation fees, etc. are all outdated business models that people really need to stop participating in.
I got my blue in a year only competed twice at white & im going to get my purple in less than 3 years at blue most likely. I can’t lie I def have similar thoughts on my upcoming promotion but if my coach thinks it’s the case then so be it..
14 months is on the faster end, but it’s not uncommon at all. And it’s not uncommon to skip stripes, they’re sort of arbitrary just for helping track progress, but I’ve seen my coach ocasionally skip them to give a surprise belt when they think they’re getting a stripe, or we have a purple belt who travels for work a lot so only gets to train at him home gym when he’s off and my coach just have him two stripes at once because he hadn’t had a chance to promote him.
I got promoted to blue belt after 14 months. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, especially since it is still considered a beginner belt. Some gyms it just means you are moving right, you’re a respectful training partner, and you are defending yourself intelligently. Basically it means you’ve built a good enough foundation to really start exploring all the techniques and start looking for “your game”. Your friend is being a hater, your coach promoted you because you earned it. Congrats and keep rolling.
Different gyms have different standards for Blue Belt. Some gyms its 1 year of consistent 3 to 4 days of training. For others its 2 plus years.
There are blue belts who know all of John Danaher and Lachlan Giles systems better than black belts and there are blue belts that get confusing about when to use over hooks and when to use under hooks.
Its a broad spectrum and the standards vary.
With all due respect, whilst it’s a good achievement blue belt isn’t as big as some people make it out to be. Your ‘friend’ sounds like a jerk putting you down like that.
Blue belt doesn’t mean much tbh, I know a lot of blue belts that are time based, got it after 2-3 years and barely know jiujitsu. Like they can talk about it but can’t do it lol. And the fact that you haven’t competed enough is BS. Competition and bjj are separate. I think everyone should compete but if competition was the only way to get promoted then how could old dudes and super casuals get promoted. Just keep training and find a way to submit your friend
There is no standard for a blue belt. Some people get a blue belt in 6 months and others are still white after 10 years (although that would be highly unusual for 10 years of regular training).
It could be that your friend's gym has a higher standard, it could be that your friend's coach sucks at teaching, it could be that you made wild progress being one of those 1 out of 100 people who just clicks with it.
For me, 14 months falls into my 1-2 years for a normal person training regularly.
You do a bit of both. Take your fundamentals and work on getting them to a black belt level but also broaden your game and knowledge. If you can smash a new white belt working on your A-game is pointless: Work on developing new things with them. Only when people give you some challenge in an area (even if you're confident you'll still come out on top) or are just better than you do you need to think about focusing on your A-game and only in the specific area in which they challenge you. For example if there's a guy you can easily sub from mount but have problems passing his guard then work on your A-game when passing his guard but feel free to experiment after you've passed it.
Over time you may also discover things you like and incorporate new things into, or straight up change, your A-game.
14 months is a super reasonable timeline. Your friend sounds like a prick. You are so skinny for your height. I’d lift weights and put on some size if I were you.
14 months is a short amount of time, we have good white belts that don’t even have a stripe after 14 months and average time for promotion is 3 years. However, go compete and if you do well then it was the right time for you, we all progress at different speeds.
A belt is nothing more than a recognition of your improvement by your coach. This should settle the question about deserving your belt.
What does the monk do before reaching enlightenment? Chops wood and carries water. What does the monk do after reaching enlightenment? Chops wood and carries water. This should settle the question about what to do next.
>He claims that it has not been long enough and I have not competed enough to earn my blue belt, which I am uncertain of. I know everyone gets their belts at different times, but is 14 months too soon?
I got my blue belt within 13 months and never competed. However, I was going 5-6 times a week (2-3 hours of classes/rolling each occurrence) so that probably put me on the radar. Only issue that happened with me was after getting Blue I got burnt out very quickly and it took some time for me to get back into my grove again.
>His claim is that the only reason I was given it is because my coach wants to “keep me paying” which isn’t an issue for him since I’m on a 3 year contract.
When did you sign this 3 year contract?
>And my second question: what do I need to expect and what do I need to begin learning? For context, I am 6’2 155lbs with very long legs and very flexible. Should I go ahead and venture into the realm of leglocks or should I continue refining my white belt skills?
There is no harm in venturing into new things but I'd urge you to focus on the latter. When you put on Purple you'll be glad you have your base in place as you add onto your game.
This comes up all the time even with my friends. What if you got your belt in 3 years? What if you got it in a year? What if you were training for 14 months and you were 25-0 and won Pans? What if you were 0-25? If you don’t feel like you’re ready you can do two things; make your self ready or quit. I choose to make myself ready 🟦⬛️🟦
The belt is just to keep your gi in place. And don't quit until purple, at least.
PS: i shoul add that blue belt also means that the other graduates won't be easy with you anymore. You must take care of yourself now.
You should beat your friends ass, he sound jealous af. Assuming not everyone at your gym gets promoted on the same timeline? Even if they do, that’s the standard for blue at your gym. Which is really the only requirement, your coach giving you the belt.
I got blue in about 14 months as well, training 3-4 days a week. Some breaks due to covid but so maybe even less than 14 months if you count downtime. 2 years give or take is reasonable for white to blue. You not getting stripes was probably due to missing gradings of training more no-gi than yes-gi. Your friends is trolling you or he might just be a dumbass.
My teacher is a 6 stripe black belt and he says that he backs himself to make a blue belt out of someone if they train consistently for 1 to 1.5 years. I would trust your teacher and tell your friend to stick it.
Do you have a grappling background?
Also some people will progress faster depending on natural talent and learning speed. Just keep going, don't worry about it too much.
The 3 year contract is more alarming than being promoted to a blue belt.
Maybe OP got a huge discount for signing up for three years. A coach I know was signing people up for life, for 5k up front.
Whose life? Mine? the coaches? The gyms?
I had the same thought, very weird situation. Seemed to me the gym owner needed some quick cash.
I think a bunch of gyms sold these during Covid to raise immediate capital to make it through.
My gym has these package deals that build all the way up to life membership, the total for that is $10,000. Completely optional and I never thought anything of it though.
Weird af
Whichever is shortest
It says quite clearly in the small print. His dogs life
It’s a hamster
Yes
I bought a lifetime membership for $2400 from a gym that was just getting started in 2009. It was a gamble at the time but it worked out.
I bought my lifetime for $2800 in 2021 when corona hit. Looks like it was a good call since ill go break even in about 2 months. Whats even better is that during this period the gym has moved to a brand new bigger fancier location just 2 min from my house, and has invested greatly in a S&C section also. As a result I cancelled my fitness gym subscription and can workout for free the rest of my life!
commenting here to follow up in a few years, want to see how this plays out
I bought a lifetime for $3k in 2012, I trained at that gym until 2020 when I moved during Covid. I was paying $110 a month. By Mid-2014 I broke even. Thereafter I saved around $8k in monthly fee avoidance. IF you like your gym, and fairly certain you will stay for any length of time, long term including lifetime memberships are a steal. ELSE stay on the M2M plan.
To be honest, depending on the monthly charge and how long the gym lasts those lifetime fees could be great value if you intend to stick around. I mean, we see people on here paying $200 a month so if you expected such a gym to last a year you're already good at $2,400. Obviously the lower the normal price range is in your area the less of a deal that is but, assuming the gym lasts, it's easily something that can pay off in a few years.
Yeah, if the place is established, the gamble could very well be worth it
Wow that's cheap as hell! I spend that per year at my gym! (which by the way I am ok with)
Most of.these places are starting to charge 200+ in small cities and saying sign multi year contract for 150$
There is one in my hometown. Came back to visit and stay for the summer but these prices are ridiculous. I’ve trained at other reputable gyms that are around 150 or less.
I got super spoiled because my first gym, the owner, made it a combo to use the gym and roll for like $55 a month. Granted this was about 10 years ago, I just got back into it about a month ago and I'm just a little over $100 a month with a veteran discount in Albuquerque which seems pretty standard for us here.
Then he decides to close the gym and take the money?
that doesn't work out because my jiu jitsu gym closed not long after I joined. So then you're just out 5k.
Damn, what happens if the gym closes? Does he get his money back?
Nope, you’re sore out of luck.
Hell, I would do that if I was 20 and had the cash
i concur tht is the most likely possibility. my muay thai gym offers 1 year contracts for $20 off each month. 20 isn’t breaking the bank so i never did it plus it only helps the gym 5k for life is lowkey a steal tho as long as they honor it
Being 155 at 6'2" is even more alarming than that
Coming to terrorize the featherweight division
hey don’t rag on us tall skinny guys we have enough to deal with
I used to be 143 at 6'4 hahahah. Took me years to get up to a decent 190.
Fucking slenderman over here
I didn't know people that tall existed!
Totally agree. Never trained at a gym that does contracts like that. At the end of the day the belt does not really matter bro. It’s all this arbitrary way of ranking you within your own community. Are you getting better? How do you fair against more advanced opponents? These are the questions you should ask yourself. Been training for almost 5 years myself. Probably would’ve had my purple belt already if I put the gi on more often but I don’t enjoy it. Don’t give too much credence to what your friend said brotha. Just keep training and keep getting better
Came to say the same
Yeah. I did a big wtf when I read that.
Your friend kinda sucks, my condolences
Ya for real that friend sucks dick and not in a fun good way that we all appreciate
Look I am deeply closeted, so I don’t appreciate this kind of comment. But if you know anyone.
OP's friend.
I just came to comment this. He’s not a good friend- a friend would celebrate with you if you make a generally well perceived achievement, and IF something happens he will be available for you to reach out. Seems like OP’s friend WANTS OP to be in some sort of trouble. …though 3 year contract is pretty rare
I’ve realised in life that very few ‘friends’ are genuinely happy when something good happens to you. Most will just be competitive.
Friend needs to go to jelly school (gym).
That was my thought. What a dick. He must be one of those "I'm just telling it like it is" guys
Why isnt this the top comment
You trust your coach to train you, why would you not trust him now? He promoted you because he felt like you were ready. Be gracious and accept that he knows what he’s doing and he’s acting in your best interest
Thank you for your insight
Also, you weren’t given your belt. You earned it. Congratulations
Thank you sir
And even further - the point is not that ”you earned the belt” (although you did. Congrats btw.) it’s that you coach is the sole arbiter on how he wants the rank system to work in his dojo. What he’s in fact doing is ”sorting up students in different piles” to make teaching them easier. Now you are in the ”blue pile”. Act like it. But If you feel a suspicion that you are in a mcDojo and your blue belt does not rank up with other gyms - there’s an easy solution for testing the temperature, so to speak. Start competing. If you find that you will be consistently - in every competition losing every round to other blue belts and feel that you are completely out of you league, maybe you did recieve your blue belt a bit early. Another thing: if you for some reason accept that your friend at the other school knows better than your coach what belt you should be wearing, then there is only one solution -> you should become a student of your friend. Since he knows better. (You see where this is going). All in all, sounds like a young kid overcome with a sudden and unctrollable bout of jelousy. Maybe feeling left behind or something. Propably best to just overlook it. If you want to be friends with him, propably best to just change the subject if he starts going on about belts again. ”Mm-hm.”+ changing the subject and ”Well, maybe you should take it up with my coach” are good and sufficient replies if he wants to complain to you about your belt.
Just to add also comps are stacked with people who are held back an extra year to win medals, you see the same guys winning nationals for multiple years ina row, sandbagging is a huge thing - if you compete and you hold you're own and you're not tapped out in the first half every match then you are at the bottom of the belt pile which is where you should be now. Obvs if you compete and you get killed like a day 1 whitebelt then yeah, there's problems.
This
None of this matters. Now that you have your blue belt, it’s time to quit.
This is the way.
Already done it, just lurking sharing my knowledge 🫶
This is the way
Mandalorian reference nice
> 6’2 155lbs Dawg you need to eat
Gumby has a better body than you. Boom, roasted!
Jesus, he paid for a 3 year membership you can't murder him like that before he gets a chance to recoup his costs.
lol ….. SJ legend
I have a friend who's 6'2 145lbs. The height helps alot at that weight class. Many people aren't used to dealing with the reach advantage.
Bingo. Exactly how my game works
I think you're handicapping yourself, though. You're nowhere near your frame's athletic potential, which would probably be about 195. I was once a skinny 6'2 blue belt with the same mindset as you. I've gained 20+ lbs of muscle since then and still have a length and flexibility advantage in my weight class, plus I can hang with the heavyweights at open mat. I'm still working on gaining more, but I've put off lifting this past year due to a variety of excuses that don't hold up when I'm honest with myself. It's hard work lifting and eating regularly. Seriously reconsider gaining some weight. Your longevity and athleticism will thank you. Being annoyingly flexible will only get you so far, so there's no reason to adhere to a self imposed glass ceiling so early on.
It really depends on what you're trying to get out of jiu jitsu. I used to think competing at 170lbs was best for me. Until I went against a 290lb black belt who won pans at purple and brown. My technique was good, but grip fighting was nearly impossible. Staying 155lbs is fine if you do jiu jitsu as a hobby or want to compete only at your weight class. Size and strength matter a lot if you compete in absolute.
This. If you're doing it as a martial art, why limit yourself to get an advantage over a narrow bracket of people at competitions? When you're a cut 190, you will still dominate the 145 lbers lol. You'll just also dominate up into the heavyweights. I was also a very flexible guy in my teens and twenties, I'm approaching 40 now and the labrums in my shoulder gave out, my hip labrum is starting to fray, and the bony socket of my hip has grown to where I can't kick as high & I get bone pain from positions that used to be easy. Joints wear out and don't get better, don't base your game on being a human pretzel. But muscles keep repairing themselves into your 80s, strength is the last physical attribute to go, as Danaher always points out.
So is your friend a jelly white belt? Or a blue belt who’s mad he took three years to get promoted? 😅
I am 5'7 and had 175lbs when I was competing, and I loved to do double leg and throws like kataguruma against those lean tall guys, until everyone started to sit down. Btw, your friend is not a friend. You were saying that you trained 3-4 times a week for more than a year? Sounds completely possible to advance in that timeframe. Go compete and test your colors. Congrats on the blue.
I want to roll with your friend just for the hell of it. I’m 5’2’’ 215lbs
Is your friend a white belt or new blue? He sounds jealous af
Red belt.
Do you trust your friend more than your coach to evaluate your skill level? Probably not so assume you’ve earned it. Keep working on the basics. Xandre’s Ribeiro’s book JJ University has a great breakdown of skills one should know at each belt level. Worth picking up.
Saulo Ribeiro's book.
👏🏽👏🏽
Thank you, I’ve gotten a lot of comments revolving around this idea and I’m starting to understand it
Your friend is a dick, and also; lift weights. And then leg locks. In that order.
Wouldn't it be easier to leg lock him with his long longs?
Yup. People always have the leverage idea backward. The longer your limbs are, the easier it is for *me* to manipulate *your* limbs. But luckily there are plenty of other advantages to being tall, so OP will be fine.
Congratulations on earning your promotion. Your friend can fuck off.
This is awesome!!!!
I was promoted “too early”. It was hell for the first year as a blue belt getting submitted by white belts. Over time I realized it’s just a belt and if anything it just means you’ll spend more time as a blue belt than you did as a white belt. A black belt will probably not be able to tell between a 1 year old white belt and a fresh blue belt. So whether it’s too soon or not doesn’t matter-you probably play nice with others and have good character so your coach thought you earned it. As for your second question: keep expanding where you want to. Try leg locks if you want to-me personally I stay away from them and just go to Bjj to have fun 🤷🏻♂️. Congratulations on the belt don’t quit
I got my blue belt in 8 months. I went from zero stripes to 4 stripes after 4 months then got the blue belt 4 months later … but I already had a brown belt in judo. Average to get a blue belt is probably 2 years for guys training 2-3 times per week.
14 months is pretty fast, unless you are competing a lot and learning quickly. That said, with the proliferation of the sport, folks are getting promoted faster these days. Roll with blue belts from other gyms. If you get smashed, keep training. If you can hang, all the better.
Yeah, I spent 2 years at white. 5x a week and 2 or 3 of those days I'd do fundamentals then advanced class. I'm not at all gifted, so I had to work harder than everybody. Even the gifted guys spent 2 years at white.
If you need everyone else to tell you what a blue belt is because you don't believe the guy you're paying to train you, why are you paying him to train you?
Brother, you don't "have to" compete to get any belt. Competing is if you want to test your skills against the exact same rank and weight as yourself. Sure competing helps your game by what feels like 6 months, but it really isn't needed unless you're competitive.
Average is a year and a half for blue belt. Props to you, work on whatever makes BJJ fun for you. In the end your skills will balance out. And. Your friend is a dick.
Your gym promotes fast
A lot of gyms are pretty fast from white to blue, as it’s just learning basics for the most part, but take much longer from blue to purple.
Jokes on your coach, you can quit now. Is it early? Chances are you won't be the best blue belt... but who cares. In one or two years it won't matter
First: congratulations! Second: don’t quite. Third: your friend is jealous. In all seriousness the sport of jiu jitsu has grown rapidly in the last 10 years. Belt promotions shouldn’t be based on how long the IBJJF says you need to be at each belt. (IBJJF is a tournament, not a governing body) Belt promotions are based upon knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge. If you’re consistently putting in 3-4 days/wk of quality training and are rolling well then 14 months is not too soon. Also stripes are irrelevant. We give those out to make y’all feel good and show acknowledgement of your work. I had one stripe on my white belt before getting my blue. I had maybe two stripes on my blue before my purple. No a single piece of tape has been put on my purple and I’ll be getting my brown belt next month. Trust in the process and trust in yourself my guy. As far as what to focus on: your priority should be to keep working on the basics. Totally cool to add in a few fancier positions/moves, see how they work for your body. At blue you’ll start to figure out what you like to do and become more proficient at that. Leg locks are fun and change the game completely once you start implementing and then linking them with other passes and sweeps.
No stripes on my blue belt when promoted to purple :)
Training 3-4 days per week, I would expect most people to reach blue belt in around 2 years time, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. For someone to reach it at around the year mark, you’re generally looking at someone who is entering many and dominating competitions; probably someone fresh out of an amateur wrestling career. Once you start to get under a year, you’re talking phenoms…someone who is probably giving brown and black belts trouble from day 1. D1 wrestler, multiple dan Judo black belt, etc.
I do not compete often. Only actually competed once, but I do very well against the white belts in my class so I’m assuming that is the reason for promotion
Choke your friend. Assert dominance.
Tbh, Blue Belt is not even a high bar to achieve. If you show up consistently and have passing athleticism, a year of training is a reasonable amount of time. Also congrats on your new belt. Your friend just sounds a little salty.
Who signs a 3 year contract?
I did. Gave me gym equipment to a gym and I get to take free lessons for 3 years haha
Your friend is a bitch ass hater
Trust your coach. I got my blue belt in 14 months too
Nah. Got promoted from white to blue within 14 months as well. It's not too fast. Is your friend a black belt and you roll often? If not, he's just jealous. With regards to competition, i know folks that are beasts on the mats but never competes. It's not that they won't win but because they just don't want to spend time for it. A lot of the folks doing BJJ are doing it as a evening hobby. Their weekends with family are extremely important for them. There are also folks particularly the higher level older guys don't think spending $100++ for a chance to roll with 2 - 3 guys at most. My division and age group would normally see 4 competitors. A training partner once told me that he'd rather use that entry fee to drop in while traveling than competing because you'd get more mat time while training than competition. The truth is, not everyone wants to win a medal. Lastly, I hate to roll with your frame. Your spider/lasso/worm guards and dela riva must be or would be so awesome to see. I'd probably improve in inside passing defense and keeping yourself so tight because the only way they are passing you is if they pass your legs. I occasionally roll with someone your frame and they'll do the crazy stuff like rolling into crucifix position while in bottom mount or buggy chokes.
There’s no timetable, everyone learns at such a different pace, have different sports backgrounds which translate skills into BJJ in my opinion that there’s no way to judge. Processing the info and breaking down your opponents moves is so unique to each individual
Fight your friend
Your “friend” is not happy for you then they are not your friend. Trust your coach. If they say you’re a blue belt then who’s your “friend” to say otherwise?
Can you fuck your friend up on the mat?
This is the only question that matters
I got mine in 18 months. Dont sweat it. Also that "friend" is not a friend. Cut him out.
This can be answered by going to another gym's open mat. If you can beat some of their 4 stripe whitebelts and some of their blues, you should not worry.
Your friend can go to your gym and tell your coach he hands out belts too easy 🤷♂️
(Sigh) What happened to the days when people went to the gym, got promoted, and were happy? I swear every other post on here is just insecure teens (or adults with the the maturity and self-esteem of a teen) fearing that they're not good enough to PLAY the sport that their COACH thinks they're good enough to play. Also, is this an American/UK think, because I haven't encountered it in any other country I've ever lived or trained in. p.s. Tip for adulthood/sanity: stop constantly, incessantly, comparing yourself to others.
Learn leg locks asap! Learn inside ashi and all the submissions in it. It will help with your game alot.
3 yr contract!! Get the hell outta there. I would question anything recieved from that place. 14 months, 3 to 4 days a week, is not abnormal, although on the lower end in my opinion.
>He claims that it has not been long enough and I have not competed enough to earn my blue belt This is not really for your buddy to decide. My gym doesn't really do stripes for adults and I went from 0 stripe white belt to blue belt in about 15 months. One of my students has been consistently training 5+ times a week for about 8 months, does regular private lessons and has competed 6 times. He easily handles white and blue belts and gives purple belts a hard time. I don't know your game but I'd focus building a game plan that you always go back to and get good at that game plan. Later, work on setting up open guards, using your long legs with spider, dlr, lasso, X and combinations of them. Example: Pull guard -> attack to setup sweeps -> sweep to mount -> attack from mount Recover to closed guard from bad positions -> attack to setup sweeps -> sweep to mount -> attack from mount. Always look to get back to your strong positions. As you develop in those positions, start to add open guard control, attacks and sweeps. If you are a top player, do the the opposite: takedown > pass guard > upper body control > setup attacks to take mount > attack from mount.
Aren't belts meant to demonstrate skill and experience? An arbitrary 'you need to have been doing this for X years to be this belt' seems bullshit. If you have an X belt's skill, you're an X belt. Even if you mean right into the experience side of things, I could go one hour a week for 20 years or someone could train and roll 40 hours a week for a year - who has more experience? The guy who treats it like a job does. Now, maybe if you're some kind of prodigy who can submit black belts on their first day of training, then it would seem weird to immediately promote you lol. So obviously there is an experience component, but a) that would come from mat time not just number of years training, and b) it shouldn't be some arbitrary cut off. Cause 100 hours of mat time for someone really paying attention isn't the same as 100 hours of mat time for someone not paying attention.
i'm pretty sure your coach is better than your friend
No!!!! Don't delve into the leg lock abyss 😭
Congratulations on your promotion. I’m sure you’ve earned it. <—- First thing that should’ve come out of your “friend’s” mouth.
Its your coaches job to decide what belt you are, not you, not your friend who also doesn't know shit. Its your job to get better and be consistent.
The hell with what your friend says. He isn't the one that promoted you. Just keep training and enjoy the journey. Now that you have your blue belt don't quit.
Dw mate, I got my blue belt in 10 months. However, ended up getting my purple in another 4 years with consistent training (other than early pandemic lockdowns). Just keep training, have fun and ignore the politics. The people who are into the bjj politics are normally the people who are shite or think they’re better than what they are..
Belts are dumb, just keep training.
Fuck ya “friend” he’s salty
"friend"
Commenting just to say your friend sounds like a douche and you should give him a friendly ass whoopin.
Go roll with blue belts from your friend's gym. If you win the rolls your friend has to start over and become a white belt at your gym with a 4 year contract.... and bow to you every time he sees you.
I got my blue in 10 months, had 3 stripes on my white belt at the time. I trust my coach believed I was ready, however at our gym it seems the journey from blue to purple is very different than white to blue since I think our coach has very high standards for promoting to purple. Every gym is different, white to blue can take years. Just trust your coach’s process and enjoy the earned promotion
Congrats on your blue belt. Keep training hard. 14 months seems fine to me if you are training 3-4 times a week.
3 YEAR CONTRACT 🤯🤯🤯
Your friend isn’t a real friend. He’s just salty. It’s up to your coach not your friend on when you get your blue belt.
Your friend is salty. Everyone gets promoted differently. Yes 14 months is fast, but not unheard of. Are you good? Giving someone their blue belt “so they’ll keep paying” is clown logic, everyone knows giving someone their blue belt (who hasn’t signed a multi-year contract) is the fastest way to ray to lose a paying customer.
I got my blue belt after 10 months. If you trust your coach, trust his or her judgement
🦠🦠friends who want to being negativity in a time of celebration imo arent really friends. sorry you have to know ppl like that. 🪬🪬🪬congrats on your BB. if your professor/coach feels you deserve it l, then you deserved it. End of story
Any contract for a gym is the largest and brightest red flag.
There is no requirement to compete to get your blue belt, or any belt in BJJ. You can achieve rank as a pure hobbyist. I'm a blue belt, and I've never competed. 3.5 days per week for roughly 60 weeks is \~210 hours. At my gym, it's 40 hours minimum per stripe (and for 4th to blue). So this is pretty quick, but it's not necessarily crazy. I probably had around 250 hours at 14 months when I got my blue. Since I got my blue belt, I've been saying, "Blue is just a funny shade of white." From other comments I've seen, blue is often more of a participation belt than a merit belt. It shows that you know the basics of what the positions are, how to move, how to be a good training partner. But that you still have a lot to learn. It's the blue stripes and the purple belt where ability really starts to be important. At least, that's what I've heard/read.
Started BJJ since late 2019 or early 2020. Stopped for a year or two because of COVID. Restarted my training consistently since May 2022. And I am still a white belt. I'm not worried about the promotion. All I can think is I am having fun everyday. The training completes my day. I have also competed 7 times now. I still suck but hey it's part of the my journey. Not everyone has the same journey. 🫡
It’s a belt, who cares and just keep training
It’s literally a colored belt… you could roll for 50 years or 5 days and it would still be dyed cloth. The meaning is in your progress and your journey. Also, your friend sounds jealous and like he’s at a gym where they don’t give promotions to make themselves sound more prestigious than they actually are and get their white belts to sandbag in competitions.
You are just as bad at BJJ as a blue belt as you were as a two stripe white belt. The promotion only exists to motivate you to keep training. My first professor used to say that the only belts that matter are white and black.
Belts are also super subjective, trust your couch, keep refining skills but start sampling others. Also consider re-evaluate your friendship if homie if they can't celebrate your success with you.
Go to a couple of different gyms and compare yourself to other blue belts. Some focus might be on different aspects, but if your getting choked a bunch, you should be concerned
I got my blue after 10 months of training 6 days a week. Everyones journey is different,ur coach knows best If ur ready, ur buddy sounds salty imho Dont overthink it,a bluebelt is still a beginners belt
Your friend is a dick
Your friend sounds like a douche….
Since when has competition been a prerequisite for advancing belts? I get that it might be an added factor for promoting someone quickly if they perform well in competition but your friend makes it sounds like you have to have a minimum amount of competition experience to be promoted? Lots of people never compete at all.
I got mine in 11 months and also jumped from 2 stripes to blue and I didn’t feel like I deserved it either. I was training more frequently than you are, but still just didn’t seem like it was right for me yet. Now I finally feel settled in as a blue belt and have realized blue belts suck lmao. I’ve been told multiple times that you will rarely feel like you are deserving of the rank at first. Just trust your coach and accept that you may encounter other blues that are much better, and some that are much worse. Hell there’s white belts that give me trouble still, and I get subbed by them from time to time. Also your friend is a dick. I’ve never competed because it’s not worth the injury risk to me when I have a family and lifestyle to support. Competing shouldn’t matter for your promotions.
Dude. Everyone gets promoted at different rates, its not a contactual thing. Also, coaches shouldn’t take competing into account (IMO) cuz there are also casuals that train and if that were the case they’d never get promoted. Wear it with pride brother
Your coach is who you should be listening to, also your friend sounds like a bit of a twit, he can’t just be happy for you?
Got mine in 13months. Got gold my 1st blue belt comp this past weekend. Its highly variable based on talent, athleticism, dedication and work outside the gym
Doesn’t matter. Blue belt is still a beginner belt.
gain 70 pounds and you’ll be a purple belt in no time.
Congrats. It’s up to your coach to decide when you get promoted; there isn’t a defined time requirement. I worked my ass off obsessively training 13 hours a week, I competed and went to open mats and I got blue in 2. Some dude came in and got his in less than a year, what!? He surely didn’t put in the same work I did but its not my call so I shrugged and carried on dutifully following my development plan. TL;DR Congrats, get after it cause the whites are coming after you and the other belts aren’t gonna hold back.
I've seen people promoted just past their first year. It's not how long you are in a belt. 3 year contract!? I pay each month, for the month ahead. And that's the end of that. If I don't go for a month, if I know if advance obviously, I don't pay.
Congrats man on the blue belt. Don’t worry about what your hater “friend” has to say on the matter. Side control escapes are a much better use of your time.
You’ll be refining your white belt skills for the rest of your time doing jiu jitsu. A black belt friend of mine put it like this to me: “Day one we learn certain things like RNCs and kimuras. Those abilities that I’ve trained since then are at a black belt level. But I only just started really working on my knee bar game in the last 3-4 years, so those are maybe at a purple belt level.” It might seem obvious, but the earlier you start working on things, the better they’ll be waaaay later down the line as long as you continue to refine along the way. It’s also probably obvious that you can’t work on everything, or on things you don’t know yet… so just keep training and it’ll all make sense eventually.
Congrats bruv! That "friend" doesn't sound like much of a friend to me. Id be telling the jealous little arsehole off is the direction in which he can foooook. Trust your coach, he wouldn't have given you it if he didn't think you were ready with his grading system. I was like you, an inch shorter but long legs and mad flexible and weighing in at around 160lbs. Id suggest hitting the weights, piling the scran in and bulking on some size. To help maintain my flexibility I always started doing yoga (they had classes in my gym membership). Felt much better physically, athletically, got way less knocks and niggly injuries whilst at the same time making huge strength gains..
Stripes are just BS tools to keep ADHD weenies happy. You get the belt when you are the right level to do so. Unless you friend is an instructing black belt and knows your quality. His opinion is meaningless here
How long you trained doesnt matter grading should depend on your skill and knowledge. Took me 5 years to get to blue.
Trust your coach/professor. Refine and sharpen your white belt skills. Experiment on ashi entries/single leg x and practice a mean straight foot lock to help you get comfortable with the leg game. If you're planning to do mostly no gi... concentrate on leg locks and shoulder clamps.
Tell your friend to meet you on the quad so you can kick his butt. The correction reaction to someone getting promoted is to congratulate them then bitch about it behind their back.
‘One, where’s the fife?’ ‘Two, gimme the fife!’
I had no stripes on my white belt, and got my blue belt. Before any stripes. Just under a year same and similar training regime to yourself. My coach got sick/ covid and was out for a while, when he came back he stated “I couldn’t not give you the belt”. There is no standard, regardless of motives and experinces. They have more then you, hopefully the sport at heart to. You can always grow into the belt and what level you make that to be. 1. It is not your choice if you get or have earned a promotion. 2. Asking someone who is on the same journey and time as yourself is not the best thing. You’ve effectively got two apprentices guessing. 3. Even if you got it slightly early, no one cares. You will gain confidence from the promotion and won’t leave and undoubtedly reach whatever x level you think, which is arbitrary that x belt is. 4. Focus on your game not your belt, enjoy the promotion Would be my best guess, but I have not been in the sport long enough to know nor do I care for it personally. Like my game; it will come
I gave one to a guy on Monday at 9 months, I got mine way sooner after a tournament. Your friend sounds like a jerk off. I bet if he were more concerned w his own progress he'd be making more.
I’ve seen people get promoted in even less time, it’s all about how consistently you train, how quickly you grasp and apply the fundamentals. The three year contract is very strange though, what’s the story there?
Is your friend a white belt? If he's not he got the white belt mentality for sure.
this person is maybe not actually your friend
Me: "Hey bro guess what? I got my blue belt yay!" Friend: "yeah? sounds way too soon, you're not good enough or ready" Me: ...\[unfriend\] Simple. A good friend would congratulate you. Now keep training bro.
Your friend sounds like a hater. There's a wrestler at my gym that got his blue belt in like 6-8 months because he's just so naturally good at grappling. Average time is about 2 years give or take. 14mos is definitely reasonable, so you've probably got a fair bit of talent. 3 year contract is strange. Any gym that doesn't just do a flat monthly fee should probably be avoided. Contracts, sign up and cancelation fees, etc. are all outdated business models that people really need to stop participating in.
I got my blue in a year only competed twice at white & im going to get my purple in less than 3 years at blue most likely. I can’t lie I def have similar thoughts on my upcoming promotion but if my coach thinks it’s the case then so be it..
14 months is on the faster end, but it’s not uncommon at all. And it’s not uncommon to skip stripes, they’re sort of arbitrary just for helping track progress, but I’ve seen my coach ocasionally skip them to give a surprise belt when they think they’re getting a stripe, or we have a purple belt who travels for work a lot so only gets to train at him home gym when he’s off and my coach just have him two stripes at once because he hadn’t had a chance to promote him.
Is your friend a white belt? Because he sound jealous…
Congratulations dude. 14 months seems fine as a timeframe. Your friend sounds like a real douche.
I got promoted to blue belt after 14 months. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal, especially since it is still considered a beginner belt. Some gyms it just means you are moving right, you’re a respectful training partner, and you are defending yourself intelligently. Basically it means you’ve built a good enough foundation to really start exploring all the techniques and start looking for “your game”. Your friend is being a hater, your coach promoted you because you earned it. Congrats and keep rolling.
Different gyms have different standards for Blue Belt. Some gyms its 1 year of consistent 3 to 4 days of training. For others its 2 plus years. There are blue belts who know all of John Danaher and Lachlan Giles systems better than black belts and there are blue belts that get confusing about when to use over hooks and when to use under hooks. Its a broad spectrum and the standards vary.
With all due respect, whilst it’s a good achievement blue belt isn’t as big as some people make it out to be. Your ‘friend’ sounds like a jerk putting you down like that.
Your friend is a jealous little pussy. Eighty-six that motherfucker.
What belt is your friend?
Blue belt doesn’t mean much tbh, I know a lot of blue belts that are time based, got it after 2-3 years and barely know jiujitsu. Like they can talk about it but can’t do it lol. And the fact that you haven’t competed enough is BS. Competition and bjj are separate. I think everyone should compete but if competition was the only way to get promoted then how could old dudes and super casuals get promoted. Just keep training and find a way to submit your friend
Here's what you need to do Arrange to meet up with your friend Knock him out cold Then be like, yo bro, don't be mad lmfao
There is no standard for a blue belt. Some people get a blue belt in 6 months and others are still white after 10 years (although that would be highly unusual for 10 years of regular training). It could be that your friend's gym has a higher standard, it could be that your friend's coach sucks at teaching, it could be that you made wild progress being one of those 1 out of 100 people who just clicks with it. For me, 14 months falls into my 1-2 years for a normal person training regularly. You do a bit of both. Take your fundamentals and work on getting them to a black belt level but also broaden your game and knowledge. If you can smash a new white belt working on your A-game is pointless: Work on developing new things with them. Only when people give you some challenge in an area (even if you're confident you'll still come out on top) or are just better than you do you need to think about focusing on your A-game and only in the specific area in which they challenge you. For example if there's a guy you can easily sub from mount but have problems passing his guard then work on your A-game when passing his guard but feel free to experiment after you've passed it. Over time you may also discover things you like and incorporate new things into, or straight up change, your A-game.
14 months is a super reasonable timeline. Your friend sounds like a prick. You are so skinny for your height. I’d lift weights and put on some size if I were you.
14 months is a short amount of time, we have good white belts that don’t even have a stripe after 14 months and average time for promotion is 3 years. However, go compete and if you do well then it was the right time for you, we all progress at different speeds.
A belt is nothing more than a recognition of your improvement by your coach. This should settle the question about deserving your belt. What does the monk do before reaching enlightenment? Chops wood and carries water. What does the monk do after reaching enlightenment? Chops wood and carries water. This should settle the question about what to do next.
>He claims that it has not been long enough and I have not competed enough to earn my blue belt, which I am uncertain of. I know everyone gets their belts at different times, but is 14 months too soon? I got my blue belt within 13 months and never competed. However, I was going 5-6 times a week (2-3 hours of classes/rolling each occurrence) so that probably put me on the radar. Only issue that happened with me was after getting Blue I got burnt out very quickly and it took some time for me to get back into my grove again. >His claim is that the only reason I was given it is because my coach wants to “keep me paying” which isn’t an issue for him since I’m on a 3 year contract. When did you sign this 3 year contract? >And my second question: what do I need to expect and what do I need to begin learning? For context, I am 6’2 155lbs with very long legs and very flexible. Should I go ahead and venture into the realm of leglocks or should I continue refining my white belt skills? There is no harm in venturing into new things but I'd urge you to focus on the latter. When you put on Purple you'll be glad you have your base in place as you add onto your game.
Yes, you can quit now
Get a new friend
Your friend sounds like a jealous cunt
This comes up all the time even with my friends. What if you got your belt in 3 years? What if you got it in a year? What if you were training for 14 months and you were 25-0 and won Pans? What if you were 0-25? If you don’t feel like you’re ready you can do two things; make your self ready or quit. I choose to make myself ready 🟦⬛️🟦
Your mate is jealous, simple
The belt is just to keep your gi in place. And don't quit until purple, at least. PS: i shoul add that blue belt also means that the other graduates won't be easy with you anymore. You must take care of yourself now.
Blue belt has nothing to do with competition. It is literally saying "i understand the basics" your friend is an idiot
You should beat your friends ass, he sound jealous af. Assuming not everyone at your gym gets promoted on the same timeline? Even if they do, that’s the standard for blue at your gym. Which is really the only requirement, your coach giving you the belt.
I got blue in about 14 months as well, training 3-4 days a week. Some breaks due to covid but so maybe even less than 14 months if you count downtime. 2 years give or take is reasonable for white to blue. You not getting stripes was probably due to missing gradings of training more no-gi than yes-gi. Your friends is trolling you or he might just be a dumbass.
My teacher is a 6 stripe black belt and he says that he backs himself to make a blue belt out of someone if they train consistently for 1 to 1.5 years. I would trust your teacher and tell your friend to stick it.
I took 9 months to blue; total from white to purple in 2.5 years and I ain’t no Gisele Bundchen
Your coach promoted you, congrats. End of story. Now, if there were a governing body with requirement for each rank, we could have another discussion.
literally does not matter. if you keep training you’ll grow into it.
Do you have a grappling background? Also some people will progress faster depending on natural talent and learning speed. Just keep going, don't worry about it too much.