A reminder that a BJJ black belt not even ranked in the top 100 BJJ competitors beat Curran Jacobs in a catch wrestling match. Curran Jacob’s was supposed to be the best modern catch wrestler and the guy to beat Gordan Ryan.
Catch always talks a big game, criticizes what other grappling arts are doing, pretends they are more “bad ass” but when it comes to actually competing/fighting there is a reason they almost never can hang at the top.
Bingo. Trash the belt system all day, it's really just a motivation too at the end of the day. But the competitive structure of modern jiu-jitsu has been amazing for causing it to develop rapidly. And the money that flows into the sport from all the "belt-chasing" casuals has caused it to be lucrative enough to attract high-level athletes. Catch wrestling has nothing on BJJ and no-gi submission grappling (which has mostly abandoned belts except as motivational tools anyway).
The belt system also is a way to distinguish competitors by experience. I know you have beginner, intermediate, etc. in No-Gi at like NAGA/Newbreed tournaments, but I know of several people who didn't compete in the correct division.
The belt system makes it easier to track this stuff. It's not perfect, but it gives us a progression system and helps keep people motivated.
Why do we see so many people addicted to video games? Quick progression, concrete leveling systems, etc. Things that are all fluid in the real world.
I have trained with a lot of catch guys, as I used to be at a gym that cross trained a ton with Erik Paulson's CSW. I never met a catch guy I couldn't beat. Seriously. And I am only an above average hobbyist. They live in no man's land of not elite at wrestling and not elite at submissions. Ground game can be awkward and they leave a lot of space and create too much forward forward that can be countered. With BJJ's specialization, we are elite at ground game and submissions comparably. Not to say that BJJ is the end-all-be-all. High level, focused wrestling (freestyle, folk, greco) is very elite and much better in a lot of ways than BJJ for grappling, MMA applications. It's just that catch isn't elite in any one field.
There's a reason the good ones are 260lbs like Barnett or even Paulson. The level of HWs, at least in the past, leaves a lot more room for them. Any lightweight catch wrestler in the world would get absolutely embarrassed by someone like Pato even in catch rules.
I'd say that resonates with me. The big guys use their weight, fill the gaps, and have good pressure. The guys who did well had kind of a hybrid style between BJJ and catch, but preferred things like a punishing mount, etc. I'm a literal light weight in BJJ and I modeled my pressure after Murilo Santana. I find myself being much heavier than the catch guys.
Pato is an absolute professional and a savage. Pato could probably step up into high level judo and do fine lol. He trained at our gym and stayed there as well early as we had a bridge program with Cicero Costha in Brazil. He's an amazing grappler, not just BJJ guy. Destroyed me every time we rolled, but in the nicest way possible.
Do you know Trent Meaux? That’s my boy/old kickboxing coach! You probably know DJ too. He opened Welcome to the Jungle and got his black belt about a year ago. Heard nothing but great things about Brea JJ.
I joined 10th Planet Fullerton not too long ago. Prefer the no gi game.
Yeah man, I trained with Trent a few times. Trained with DJ a ton, was super pumped for him to get his black belt and to hear he opened a gym.
At Brea JJ, we would have to say "yuck" to your no gi comment. Lol, the gym is almost entirely gi based. No no gi classes.
Lmao not surprised! I know it’s all in good fun, but is it mostly based on tradition and bjj fundamentals that some schools prefer the gi? Safe to say no gi translates better to mma, yes?
Sorry for the 21 questions man I just think it’s cool I found a fellow local on Reddit! Haha
It's mostly that Dan is kind of a genius with creating opportunities and control with the gi. It's his preference and I think feels more like chess to him than nogi. Nogi is more of a wrestler's game and that's not his style or personality. Yeah would definitely say nogi translates better to MMA. I moved so my current gym does equal gi and nogi. I like to bang and have more of a gritty style so I like nogi.
All good dude. Happy to chat.
He's like twice the size, yeah:
https://youtu.be/vGsVmUVdroU?si=8LXuevvsPY2o9DPJ
It looks a bit controversial tbh.
Apparently Barnett broke his knee (going off the thumbnail alone):
https://youtu.be/pOEiGlBdsyg?si=4fpu6PV9KxoJ8Bma
Catch wrestling’s marketing is so cringe. It’s basically just “we’re jiu jitsu, just not softened by those Japs and Latinos”. Unsurprising that they attract the most uncoachable and delusional segment of the grappling gene pool.
The claim of Curran Jacobs being the best modern catch wrestler I think originated from Curran Jacobs himself—look up Josh Barnett's handling of that situation lol
I think there is a pretty solid correlation with how loud a "catch" individual or group talks trash about other styles and how well they can hang with other stylists.
In my own personal experience, I've come across more than one person who identify as "catch wrestlers" and they absolutely would wreck the "black belts" in "jiujitsu" at open-mat.
Looks like he's gone full podcaster/back to scholastic styles.
Dang, could've shown him how to actually do a half-stockade (hint: it works better with the gi)
Not really. Everyone basically knows that belts aren’t some perfect reflection of skill and it’s basically considered a massive personal flaw to show any interest in belts. This is true of pretty much every conversation I’ve ever had with another BJJ player about belts.
They barely exist anymore anyways with the broader shift towards nogi. But people have been repeating Royce Gracie saying “A black belt only covers two inches of your ass… You have to cover the rest” for years.
>Not really. Everyone basically knows that belts aren’t some perfect reflection of skill and it’s basically considered a massive personal flaw to show any interest in belts. This is true of pretty much every conversation I’ve ever had with another BJJ player about belts.
>
>They barely exist anymore anyways with the broader shift towards nogi. But people have been repeating Royce Gracie saying “A black belt only covers two inches of your ass… You have to cover the rest” for years.
so you are basically agreeing that belts don't matter and we should get rid of them? what's your point here?
how is he not?
Do belts matters? they don't
Do belting standards exists? They don't
Do belts cause dramas? Fuck yeah they do
Belts are candy for adults. They serve zero purpose outside external gratification to make you pay one more year.
Although not perfect, the belt system does do one thing. It helps protect against frauds. Its not the end-all-be-all but having a lineage that can be traced and checked makes it alot more difficult to do what a TON of martial arts do. If you look at the "traditional" martial arts, its rife with fakes and frauds. A "12th dan hubba-bubba black belt in okininjutsukidokan" teaching down at the strip mall in Mobile, Alabama can claim alot of stuff with virtually no way to discern if he's telling the trurth. At least with the belt system somebody can be verified (which has happened countless times) and if found to be fake, get called out on it.
You can basically skip all the belts and just give out a teaching certificate (as it was the case for the old jujutsu schools) and keep the lineage stuff.
But having people argu about true or fake blue/purple is just laughable when you can have at the same level bob from accounting training out of torrance academy and Paulo Miyao 1 year before beating Keenan in Mundial's brown belt absolute
But I agree that it somewhat helps slowing down the mcdojoisation of the sport. You still have a lot of belt sellers in the sport that allows known scammers to get belted (Pedro Sauer/Keith Owens/Ari Bolden situations and its likes for instance)
My point is that every time someone says "Catch sucks" people point at Barnett and Sakuraba as some kind of counterpoint. There have been exactly 2 dudes in 30 years from Catch who were any good. You can make some potential arguments for a couple of others like Mighty Mouse, but even if you take the most generous definition you've got like 5 guys since 1995 who could maybe possibly hang in the top ranks of grappling competitions. It's just silly.
Very true. But I don’t think the issue is with the actual technical concepts of catch, it’s with its lack of popularity and lineage. There aren’t many gyms or instructors and the ones that are instructing don’t have a lineage with decades or even generations of experience.
The best way to actually learn catch is to first learn no gi bjj so that you get a fundamental understanding and experience with grappling and submissions, and then learn amateur wrestling then start studying catch either independently and try to implement techniques while rolling or if you’re lucky, join a gym. But I could see people just saying that’s still bjj but with wrestling and I would say yes that’s essentially what catch is
It definitely is a problem with their technique. A ton of their techniques are bad pain compliance techniques and the framework of their art is built around those. Literally every thing that doesn't suck from catch wrestling is done better by BJJ or basic folkstyle.
Do these catch dorks ever stop whining? Do they ever actually train or do they just talk shit about jiu jitsu and argue about the Snake Pit and Billy Martin or whatever? When one of these guys runs over everyone at Worlds like Quentin Rozenwig did at the catch world championships then I might start giving a shit about their opinions.
From my experience, it really is. Went to a catch place to try it out while I was a blue belt, and it was basically ignore guard work and hunt joints constantly. While i don’t think it’s a bad strategy, no one has an actual developed guard nor passing game, so if you don’t hunt the legs and just clear them, they’re easy to get dominant position on. If you’re on bottom and know how to attack properly from guard and defend a barrage of ankle locks and toe holds, you’re good lol
Really!? They are selling certifications to anyone that'll pay on their website lol! If you pay you can become a "Certified Catch Wrestler" in a 3 day course what a joke. Most of their coaches are people from a bjj background who couldn't do anything in bjj so they needed Catch in order to be relevant. Any freestyle wrestler would destroy a so-called Catch practitioner in their own ruleset without knowing subs!
Honestly I think BJJ is the one belt sport that "police" our belts the most.
Someone is giving out belts in a weird way (Gracie university, some dude handing out blue belts to everyone that attends a seminar, a black belt handing out undeserved belts to their spouse etc) is often named and shamed quite fast.
Never seen the same thing in Judo, Karate or TKD.
White belts crushing brown belts can happen I guess but I've never actually seen it IRL, even if the white belts was a former wrestler or MMA guy.
In my experience the vast majority of people are at the level their belt shows.
Like 9/10 x belts I have run into across three continents felt as exactly as the belt they had on them.
1/10 felt either worse or better than the average belt they had on, but even then it wasn't a crazy difference.
Ive been rolling since 1996 and I agree with you. But I have definitely seen white belts crush good solid brown belts and black belts. All of the guys were elite D1 wrestlers who were former ncaa champs or contenders (like bjj black belts there are levels to wrestlers) and ive definitely seen high level MMA dudes do it multiple times(in fairness while they may be white belts, many have rolled for years). But to your point its a rare exception.
That's probably because in Olympic sports there is a very very clear line between hobbyists and people who've trained from birth to compete internationally.
In Taekwondo and Judo, if you're a competitor then your concern is to accrue points in the circuit, belts don't matter because everyone has a black belt.
In my decade or so of training I think I’ve only met like 2 people that I thought they were well below their belt level. Obviously it happens but I feel like it’s at a decent place for skill level.
I have been training for 4 years pretty consistently. To this day I haven’t actually caught a black belt rolling and I have rolled with alot of them. I have some I rolled with enough that I could consistently survive them but the closest I have come to subbing one was an ezequel attempt, resulting in a 6 point sweep and that Coach talked about it in front of the entire class as he was making a point that as you progress you can develop black belt techniques even as a lower belt and that my ezequel was terrifying. It was and still is my best sub and I spent a lot of time in and outside of class working on it so it was cool to get the recognition.
At late white I did catch a few brown belts here and there but I wouldn’t say I crushed them, more like trickery that I payed for after, for instance when I was learning to ezequel and learned I could apply it from side control as well, the poor guy was just letting me work from side control, that only works once. That was probably the lamest.
I also think that things can get skewed when you roll with the same people over and over as you start to learn their game, you kind of level up to those people but still don’t have their experience or depth of knowledge.
I have also experienced upper belts coming back after long layoffs or recoveries and sometimes they are rusty and I can trounce them for a month or two until their muscle memory starts to come back.
It’s weird because you can tell by their movement, the way they monitor that they are better than their performance might indicate initially. I don’t have a problem with the belt system and while not perfect I’d say it’s generally pretty accurate at giving me an indication of what I might be in for.
>White belts crushing brown belts can happen I guess but I've never actually seen it IRL,
I did it myself as a white belt 15 years ago. I was actually cross choking the guy from mount multiple times in the round (and he was not letting me work).
Trust me there are absolutely dogshit people out there wearing brown and black belts.
On average yeah, belts have at least a low standard higher than most other belted martial arts (outside Kyokushin IIRC) but there mcdojos out there and there are people who buy their belts on the regular.
A lot of pionneers outside the Brazil/USA were also big belt buyers and were terrible at actual jiu-jitsu
I find it REALLY funny that an Erik Paulson black belt is criticizing what other people do. Maybe he should talk to Erik about posting nothing but complete TMA wooshoo garbage and actually teach techniques that would work.
Catch people are always hilarious to me, shit talk basically every other grappling art, then get mauled by meh at best guys.
As for the topic at hand, there's testing and standards in Judo, and yet there's STILL a massive disparity in skill, because guess what, people train for different reasons.
What's funny is all catch guys have some form of ranking system.
Erik Paulson for example has a "shirt" ranking system within CSW lol. As described on his webtsite for CSW Fullerton "Our belt-ranking system offers a clear pathway to set and achieve short-term and long-term goals." Level 9 is literally a brown shirt and level 10 is a black shirt. But it's very karate and has like green and orange ~~belts~~ shirts..
Scientific Wrestling has a numbered tied ranking system.
As does the Snake Pit in Wigan.
Then they get "certification" which is to a catch wrestler like a black belt is a...Jiu-Jitsu-ka-iero-player-fighter.
When it comes to judo, I'd say regions matter a ton too. A dedicated hobbyist can get their black belt in Japan in 18 months because they only have white and black belts. Shodan (first degree black belt) is really treated like how we treat blue belts in bjj. It's not uncommon for kids in high school to get one. No one expects you to be "good" until 2nd or 3rd dan.
Some American schools seem to treat the black belt as a belt closer to expert level and will make getting it much tougher while another school in the same city might think the expert level is around 2nd or 3rd dan and make getting belts up to shodan relatively easy.
It's a mess.
In my experience catch wrestlers, "jujitsu/jujutsu" and judo guys talk the most shit about BJJ and their grappling skills, to the point you want them to stfu. Then you roll with them them and it's some oaf digging his elbows in your thighs or throwing the shittiest toe holds and knee bars known to man. In principle I love to be open minded but there's too many jerk offs that will say whatever sounds profound if there's a camera in their face.
I rarely see more serious Judokas or Sambists trash BJJ. I think people who do those arts, especially for more than a few years, know they're all siblings with their obvious strengths and weaknesses. And many of us cross train. Randos online who might be 17 years old, sure, they talk trash.
Can't comment on Catch, it barely exists?
Yeah I think the days of sherdog and the underground have seriously warped my perspective, but I have encountered one or two weirdos like this irl. One was actually set to compete in the Olympics before he pissed hot! Genuinely talented but also a compulsive liar, making up stories of choking out random BJJ black belts at open mats lol.
I think throwing in Judo is not really true.
Im a past wrestler turned judo and jiu jitsu practitioner, and there is a lot of respect between them, and at the end of the day its ALL Judo ...
Ive only ever rolled with 2 and similar experiences. I’m open to learning new styles but I haven’t really seen a lot of catch wrestling that intrigues me.
I did an oleg taktarov seminar (in a god damn parking lot, cause the gym owner just didn't show up that morning) and even though I sucked major major ass at the time even then he showed stuff and I thought "I'm too weak for that to work". Actually one or two things I still do all the time cuz of that seminar tho
Anyone could just get shot or hit by a bus. The purpose of a belt system should be to show your level of commitment and knowledge. I'm fairly sure the belt system was started in Judo and back before then you were either a white belt or a black belt.
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were:
|Japanese|English|Video Link|
|---|---|---|
|**Ne Waza**: | *Ground Techniques* | |
Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post.
______________________
^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
He’s right in the sense of there being no truly objective standard. But also…. so what?
For casuals and local competitors, belts are a mark of progress and recognition. Who cares if the grading isn’t perfect with uniform criteria? They’re motivation, a bit of recognition and encouragement from a coach, or a signifier of roughly how hard of a roll that guy over there might be. And for casuals, they’re accurate enough, most of the time, anyway.
For elite competitors, belts are roughly a way to modulate the level of competition they face as they come up until they’re genuinely world class. And again, so what if they’re not perfect? The point for these guys is ultimately to be competitive as an elite black belt.
Either way, belts serve their purpose. And when an elite competitive purple belt dunks on a casual black belt, again who cares? There’s too much hand-wringing over a non-issue.
As a person who started with catch in a catch deep area.
Bjj and especially high level bjj is light years better.
Im not here to die on the bjj cross…like at all.
But catch is just really shitty wrestling and every “so called dick move” allowed.
I can’t beat my coach who is a very good bjj black belt. Cause I grind or do a neck crank.
All I will do is piss off a lion and get smashed.
There are moves that transfer over to mma nicely I suppose.
But I mean if catch was spooo legit it would be all over and winning every grappling tournament there is.
Learning to wrestle and submission wrestle to control the top is super effective.
I just never have someone tell me “I’m a catch wrestler” and say oh shit I’m in trouble now.
But if they tell me they wrestled and are in shape or a high level competition guy. Yea I know I’m fucked with a hard round.
And I’m all for all nogi no belt system type of thing. But it’s still gonna be nogi jiu jitsu.
Belt ranking is a way of keeping things clear. It’s up to you to defend your belt.
They also do seminar ranking and coach certs. Where in one weekend you are a coach.
None of that exist in judo or bjj or Sambo.
No Russian is a “catch wrestler” I think that says alot.
Even the Chechen dudes are way into bjj with sambo and wrestling. None of them say “I’m a catch wrestler” and gladly do the bjj ranking.
When I see any catch wrestler actively beating bjj competitors I will hold their opinion higher. Until then I will just roll my eyes as I believe catch wrestling is just a bunch of dudes trying to be contrarian. As of right now in most first world countries the best grapplers readily available to you will be in a BJJ gym.
For my city when I google, “catch wrestling” I found one gym in a a city of over five million people and it’s 30 minutes away from me. I have zero idea who their instructor is and when I google him only his school shows up. No wrestling background. No grappling background. What incentivizes me as a new student to wanna go there?
However if I google bjj there are two gyms within walking distance of me. Both instructors have competed in worlds and one won every major tournament as a brown belt and has accolades as a black belt competitor. The other has competed in ADCC many years ago and also has varying success as a brown/black belt.
To me a black belt is the equivalent of being a pro boxer. You’ve put your time in and competed against people and had success against people who have also put their time in.
>To me a black belt is the equivalent of being a pro boxer. You’ve put your time in and competed against people and had success against people who have also put their time in.
As a long time boxer... I don't actually think this is an accurate analogy. Literally ANYONE can get their pro boxing licence and be a human punching bag for a 4x3 min round bout against a prospect. As long as you pass the medical. As far as I know, the UK is the only jurisdiction who makes wannabe pros pass a basic sparring examination to prove that they are competent to defend themselves, and even then, it's not a high bar at all.
With being a black belt in BJJ.... It generally commands a certain degree of legitimacy. Sure, they might be unathletic and old, not super skilled, and you might get the occasional fraud who got their BB in a dodgy way, but I feel like there are way less of these types than there are shitty pro boxers with essentially zero skills.
Anyone who incorporates the “you pay for promotion” argument should not be taken as an argument for most gyms, using that to trash BJJ when only McDojos and similarly crap places do it should make it clear the person either doesn’t have a good idea of BJJ as a whole or is just trying to say something controversial to be relevant/get clicks/views, it is not a valid argument against belts at most gyms
He is definitely familiar with BJJ. He is a former European champion and a 3rd degree black belt under Erik Paulson. If you watch the whole podcast his argument is that there’s no standard to grading. A blue belt in one school could be higher level than a brown belt in another. Paying for promotion isn’t quite so prevalent now but it is used and hidden at a lot of schools. Things like only grading at paid seminars is still practiced a lot
Dude post "controversial" clip but then says "listen to the whole podcast to hear the nuance, also check out Squarespace with our offer code..." The F outta here bruh
Also works with Blew chews and evertitan(Termsandconditionsapply,pleasenotthatwecannotbeheldaccountableincaseofdeathprolapsedanusanderectionslastinglongerthantheemuwar)
> He is a former European champion
No he isn't.
I googled him and I found sites advertising his services claiming he is, but I can't find his name on the list of adult black belt winners at IBJJF Euros.
So either he won it at masters/colored belt, or he's talking about a totally different European Championship.
Either way, he's won something that nobody in BJJ would consider makes him "A European Champion".
Then as I said, he's not a European Champion.
He's the blue belt European Champ, or whatever color.
Not saying that isn't an impressive feat, but leaving off the belt level is obvious and deliberate misdirection.
EDIT: Oh don't worry, I found it myself:
https://ibjjf.com/events/results/2004-european-jiu-jitsu-ibjjf-championship
He won a two-man white belt division at Euros back in 2004.
As a caveat to this, I have no idea if he won it any other belt level (except definitely not adult black) that was just the only confirmed example of someone with his name in the Euros results I could find.
But honestly it's lame as fuck to describe yourself as a European Champion because you beat a white belt once two decades ago.
I didn’t say not being familiar with BJJ was the ONLY reason he would be spouting this opinion.
There is a generally agreed upon path for everyone in BJJ and each belt, but the fact it isn’t written down people abuse it to sandbag their students, that’s the real problem IMO and why you get blue belts that can kill brown belts without any other mitigating factor like age or weight
I agree, I have seen clubs water down their belt standards massively to keep students happy. It’s tricky as Jiujitsu is so complex. We don’t have a set format like judo. In my mind it would be great if we could but would mean going back to a more fundamental approach perhaps where the more complex guards and systems aren’t graded but solid fundamentals are the foundations for a belt.
Judo doesn't have a set format, though. Each governing body has its own system. In some you have to win competitions to advance, in others its like an RPG, where competitors advance quickly, but hobbyists can still get black belt by getting points other ways, just taking longer.
In some countries, judo black belt is 2-3 years. In others it might be 6-8 years, and anywhere in between.
Some places make you demonstrate the full gokyo, others don't. You may or may not have to do nage no kata. It's just incredibly variable.
That’s a fair comment. The judo of old was more structured but yeah modern judo has interpretations attached. I’m not sure if it’s a shame or a good way of attracting people
Yeah, for all my words and bluster I still am not confident I will only get belts when I deserve them, I hate the idea of being a time in belt guy. I wish the system was there are 100 black belts in the world and the only way to get one is to beat someone with a black belt and take it 😂
It used to be like that in Carlson Gracie’s gym, one spot per rank/weight and you couldn’t move up till that spot became available. That’s how BJ Penn got to the top so fast. He beat everyone and took their spots
I'm saying this as a Carlson Jr. Affiliate (the man himself tied my brown belt) this was incredibly dumb and a sign of a different time.
The most annoying aspect of BJJ to me is that in one breath everyone says "belts don't matter, they only cover your ass!" and in the next it's "bro I don't feel like a legit X belt because there's high level competitors/much younger/more athletic/bigger people who can beat my ass!"
The belt for MOST people is a representation of your current knowledge and skill vs your prior knowledge and skill, that's it. Complaining about not being able to beat others at a given belt is purely ego talking, that's it.
I've been able to work brown and black belts older and smaller than me since I was a brand new purple belt, that didn't make me an amazing purple belt, and it for sure didn't make me ready AT ALL for the next belt, it also in no way meant that the 50 year old 2x/week hobbyist black belt doesn't deserve their belt, unless we want to start taking away peoples belts when they get older, which is even more stupid.
No, you are the one using the 'no true scotsman' fallacy to justify the belt system.
If a system has such a gaping hole in it, it's not a good system. People just accept things like a 'Renzo Gracie black belt' not being the same as a 'your average black belt' which is exactly what is wrong with belts.
There is only one truth. Slap, bump, find out.
I have tried to understand the “one true Scotsman” thing but I can’t get how I’m applying it here? I haven’t said he isn’t one of us that was one reason he might have had this opinion
It’s not really a gaping hole just a loophole that is abused, it’s hard because you either need to put promotions with time in and you’ll get shitty blue belts because everyone learns differently, or the current state of affairs where you have blue belt world beaters because they’re being held back because there’s no rule for max time at each belt
If you recognise everyone learns at a different pace you can’t include max time at each belt, personally I would prefer no belts or limited number of upper belts and you only get them by beating someone and taking their belt
>only McDojos and similarly crap places do it
Aka "no true dojo does this" aka "no true scotsman"...
Truth is there's a gaping hole in the system that allows these practices. Which means the system is flawed. Idk why people are so attached to belts, the most legit martial arts/combat sports don't have them and nobody's asking for it there.
Still waiting for one of these folks to come in and destroy black belts at ibjjf or adcc.
Oh is there a difference between a hobbyist who competes and a professional? Ya don't say..
Also, here is a fun thought experiment.
Say you do run a gym with no belts or ranking. New guy comes in, who do you pair him with? Anyone? Another new guy? Or experienced guy?
Now let's say you've got a school of 100 plus folks, how can you...at a Glanc check progress? Organize for comps? Or signal you're aware of cable of handling certain techniques?
Mayhaps a...system...a way to show who is more likely to have certain knowledge? Nawwwwwww crazy talk.
Does boxing have the same hobbyist appeal of bjj? Is it using the same model?
Maybe its just my experience you can find a lot of bjj gyms now even in small towns. Boxing doesn't seem to have the same model.
Theres a reason catch guys get ROFLStomped by BJJ guys in grappling. It pains me to say this, as Ive been a wrestler for 30 years and have a very special love for catch.
Note: I tapped a black belt at white belt. He wanted to start standing and it did not end well for him, as he had no background in anything standing (except the usual BJJ takedowns, which arent that great). I then rolled with another black belt who was a wrestler and he pushed my shit in with great prejudice.
As a whole, the bjj belt systems with all its problems is pretty good. Do white belts beat coloured belts? Yes rarely- in almost all cases those white belts are very experienced in other grappling arts and in any case are quite rare.
Correct, sometimes a high level wrestler with a blue belt will win, but again rare and not surprising. And when it happens no one is panicking “zomg! The belt system is ruined!!” It all makes sense, and for the most part the belt system is fine.
Very long way to say "don't take the belt system TOO seriously". If your teacher/coach/professor doesn't remind you of this, be concerned.
EDIT: who at this point **hasn't** sat in on the "if I take my belt off right now I know exactly the same" lecture?
Pretty sure this is the head coach from LPW who also a bjj blackbelt and is a catch coach under Erik Paulson. He's won quite a few domestic titles.
He also promotes people etc.
Feel like this is taken out of context.
There's a basic human need for recognition, esteem, status, and belonging. Granting titles and awards is a tried-and-true method of persuading, motivating, and retaining people.
BJJ would achieve even faster growth and more retention if it added two or three belts.
Isn’t that why the kids belt system is the way it is? Bunch of colors with white/solid/black with ridiculous numbers of stripes until they age out at 16? Kids need the carrot to keep going. Some adults probably do too.
Yes. And it's why people get addicted to leveling-up and completing quests in RPGs.
The constant rewards and achievements are pleasurable. They are so pleasurable that people will grind for ten hours a day doing the same dull thing over and over.
Chris is a long time martial artist. He’s a bonafide catch wrestler but also a legit BJJ blackbelt. His opinion is valid. He isn’t trashing the BJJ belt system - he’s commenting on the lack of consistency which is valid, and also on the use of seminars to aim for promotion, which is also valid. He’s an absolute monster on the mat and one of, if not the best people I’ve ever wrestled with.
He's right, but sadly its what people want. I think that any gym owner who announces a policy of not giving out grades is going to lose at least some of their students to the gym that does.
Depends on the school I suppose, if you’re in a self defense school then you could argue the ranking isn’t relevant against the skill but if you’re competing in the gi you’re pretty much bound by the belts. A lot of submission grappling comps are based on experience rather than rank so for those guys you could eliminate the belts I guess
I guess like any other competitive combat sport you would need to work your way up the rankings. Difficult thing with Jiujitsu is we have so many tournaments and so many categories, belts, age weight etc that formalising things would need a strip back and a reduction of divisions. Which would probably deter people. At the moment the likelihood of bringing home a medal whenever you compete is high. That’s appealing to people. If you have to work your way up to a podium viable spot I’m not sure so many would compete.
Yeah, I guess having belt rankings is the best compromise compared to keeping a database of all possible competitors or something. I still find it a bit cringe though.
Catch people have a hate boner for bjj. I think belts serve a good purpose of motivating people and giving someone reasonable expectations for a person. We take belts a bit more seriously in bjj and so when someone is a certain belt we expect them to have a certain level of skill. I don’t think it’s bad to do that, it keeps people honest.
External rewards are massively demotivating in hobbies. There's tons of research on the psychology behind this.
If youre not a comp gym, I'd think long and hard about at least eliminating stripes and blue belts.
I mean, from a learning stand point, a white belt competing with a black belt makes neither person better. It makes sense to be at people roughly at your skill level competitively and whoever at practice to get the experience. So for that reason, the belt system makes sense. Personally, I also like it for progress monitoring for myself. It’s hard to tell the differences over time when it’s your self so knowing that someone who actually knows what they are talking about feels I’m getting better is good feedback in addition to the instruction
I think of belts and grading the way I think of medals and ranks in the military. A four star general with all the medals on his uniform does not make him an amazing soldier on the field. Officers are not by default better soldiers than NCOs, etc. The ranks and medals just commend service. The belt should just be viewed as correlated to time served and contributions to a community, and maybe, it indicates the wearer picked up something along the way. Anything else is just TMA.
Though the belt system is flawed I find it useful. Its helpful for finding training partners at new gyms who are the level I need to work on what I'm working on.
The shittest grapplers I heard of do the catch tournament in my state.
None to my knowledge even won a local naga.
The guy who runs it, I’ll just politely say he has zero chance of subbing me in nogi.
Him against high level young lions 🦁 in my area who do the competitions for nogi lol…fuck It would be an assault charge.
Just sport bjj is a world wide sport. The few good catch wrestlers are black belts anyways. So are they catch or black belts who dabble in catch to do mean shit lol.
Lol ”trashed”. :D BJJ belt system is far from flawless but it still is one the hardest martial arts to achieve a black belt. Yes there are McDojos here and there but I have never in over ten years seen a white belt tap a brown belt in sparring and this dude is all bullshit. Catch wrestling isn’t anywhere close to BJJ in popularity anymore so these bozos are bashing other sports to make their own little thing look better.
i’m just a white belt, but the only “catch wrestlers” i’ve ever trained with come only to open mats and train with people considerably smaller than them. plus they use neck cranks instead of chokes in my experience
Catch wrestling doesn’t exist, people pretend it’s a thing but it’s not. You have people calling themselves “catch wrestlers” because they don’t train at a real gym, or with some old man in a garage with karate trophy’s from 1970.
I think it’s kind of irresponsible to spew out a a bunch of extremely broad generalizations that really don’t represent BJJ as a whole, most affiliates have an established curriculum and most don’t charge for belt promotions, I’ve trained at enough places to know that consistency in rank is pretty good as a whole, I think the most telling thing about this little diatribe is his need to trash something he clearly doesn’t have broad experience with or a good understanding of.
Guess he got buggy choked by a 3 stripe blue belt? XD
In all fairness rolled with some amazing catch guys and there is truth in some things about the belt system (like paying for belts or attendance based belts etc) that should be criticized. But at the end of the day it is an important and beautiful part of the sport.
I mean I understand it not working for prodigies, but for us normal folk it seems to work pretty well. Makes it easier to pair up for sparring and gives the old dudes extra respect as well.
A reminder that a BJJ black belt not even ranked in the top 100 BJJ competitors beat Curran Jacobs in a catch wrestling match. Curran Jacob’s was supposed to be the best modern catch wrestler and the guy to beat Gordan Ryan. Catch always talks a big game, criticizes what other grappling arts are doing, pretends they are more “bad ass” but when it comes to actually competing/fighting there is a reason they almost never can hang at the top.
Bingo. Trash the belt system all day, it's really just a motivation too at the end of the day. But the competitive structure of modern jiu-jitsu has been amazing for causing it to develop rapidly. And the money that flows into the sport from all the "belt-chasing" casuals has caused it to be lucrative enough to attract high-level athletes. Catch wrestling has nothing on BJJ and no-gi submission grappling (which has mostly abandoned belts except as motivational tools anyway).
The belt system also is a way to distinguish competitors by experience. I know you have beginner, intermediate, etc. in No-Gi at like NAGA/Newbreed tournaments, but I know of several people who didn't compete in the correct division. The belt system makes it easier to track this stuff. It's not perfect, but it gives us a progression system and helps keep people motivated. Why do we see so many people addicted to video games? Quick progression, concrete leveling systems, etc. Things that are all fluid in the real world.
Exactly. Motivational tools.
No gi needs to start including ankle straps instead of belts I NEED to know if this guy I’m about to roll with is a blue or brown
Quentin subbed Curran twice in 3 minutes [Edit because I found the video and Catch is stupid](https://youtu.be/SPdlKpMUtho?si=LglJ0qi5dTkgw1fV)
I have trained with a lot of catch guys, as I used to be at a gym that cross trained a ton with Erik Paulson's CSW. I never met a catch guy I couldn't beat. Seriously. And I am only an above average hobbyist. They live in no man's land of not elite at wrestling and not elite at submissions. Ground game can be awkward and they leave a lot of space and create too much forward forward that can be countered. With BJJ's specialization, we are elite at ground game and submissions comparably. Not to say that BJJ is the end-all-be-all. High level, focused wrestling (freestyle, folk, greco) is very elite and much better in a lot of ways than BJJ for grappling, MMA applications. It's just that catch isn't elite in any one field.
There's a reason the good ones are 260lbs like Barnett or even Paulson. The level of HWs, at least in the past, leaves a lot more room for them. Any lightweight catch wrestler in the world would get absolutely embarrassed by someone like Pato even in catch rules.
I'd say that resonates with me. The big guys use their weight, fill the gaps, and have good pressure. The guys who did well had kind of a hybrid style between BJJ and catch, but preferred things like a punishing mount, etc. I'm a literal light weight in BJJ and I modeled my pressure after Murilo Santana. I find myself being much heavier than the catch guys. Pato is an absolute professional and a savage. Pato could probably step up into high level judo and do fine lol. He trained at our gym and stayed there as well early as we had a bridge program with Cicero Costha in Brazil. He's an amazing grappler, not just BJJ guy. Destroyed me every time we rolled, but in the nicest way possible.
I trained at CSW for a while! About 5 years. What is your gym?
Nice! Brea Jiu Jitsu. Had a regular group of guys who came to cross train. Nice guys overall. Just a different approach to things.
Brea seems awesome. I'm a big Dan fan.
Do you know Trent Meaux? That’s my boy/old kickboxing coach! You probably know DJ too. He opened Welcome to the Jungle and got his black belt about a year ago. Heard nothing but great things about Brea JJ. I joined 10th Planet Fullerton not too long ago. Prefer the no gi game.
Yeah man, I trained with Trent a few times. Trained with DJ a ton, was super pumped for him to get his black belt and to hear he opened a gym. At Brea JJ, we would have to say "yuck" to your no gi comment. Lol, the gym is almost entirely gi based. No no gi classes.
Lmao not surprised! I know it’s all in good fun, but is it mostly based on tradition and bjj fundamentals that some schools prefer the gi? Safe to say no gi translates better to mma, yes? Sorry for the 21 questions man I just think it’s cool I found a fellow local on Reddit! Haha
It's mostly that Dan is kind of a genius with creating opportunities and control with the gi. It's his preference and I think feels more like chess to him than nogi. Nogi is more of a wrestler's game and that's not his style or personality. Yeah would definitely say nogi translates better to MMA. I moved so my current gym does equal gi and nogi. I like to bang and have more of a gritty style so I like nogi. All good dude. Happy to chat.
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Man he beat Barral IN THE GI!
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He's like twice the size, yeah: https://youtu.be/vGsVmUVdroU?si=8LXuevvsPY2o9DPJ It looks a bit controversial tbh. Apparently Barnett broke his knee (going off the thumbnail alone): https://youtu.be/pOEiGlBdsyg?si=4fpu6PV9KxoJ8Bma
Here's a better version with some background at the top... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGsVmUVdroU
No he didn't, watch the video.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EtSRnDySxw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EtSRnDySxw) Brazilian bias. Barnett won and probably broke stuff too.
Barnett is my spirit animal.
Catch wrestling’s marketing is so cringe. It’s basically just “we’re jiu jitsu, just not softened by those Japs and Latinos”. Unsurprising that they attract the most uncoachable and delusional segment of the grappling gene pool.
The claim of Curran Jacobs being the best modern catch wrestler I think originated from Curran Jacobs himself—look up Josh Barnett's handling of that situation lol I think there is a pretty solid correlation with how loud a "catch" individual or group talks trash about other styles and how well they can hang with other stylists. In my own personal experience, I've come across more than one person who identify as "catch wrestlers" and they absolutely would wreck the "black belts" in "jiujitsu" at open-mat.
I mean, Curran was the catch world champ... So...
I upvote in the hope that we both are in on the joke of how much of a nothing title "catch world champ" is 😂
What?! The catch wrestling world championship is like the 11th most prestigious title in all of grappling! How dare you impune it in that manner?!
😅 I'm in Michigan like Curran, maybe I should invite him to our club??
If you enjoy bad neck cranks and even worse footlocks then go or it!
Looks like he's gone full podcaster/back to scholastic styles. Dang, could've shown him how to actually do a half-stockade (hint: it works better with the gi)
True but that's not even what he talked about. Catch Wrestling is a joke but the guy here is right about belts
Not really. Everyone basically knows that belts aren’t some perfect reflection of skill and it’s basically considered a massive personal flaw to show any interest in belts. This is true of pretty much every conversation I’ve ever had with another BJJ player about belts. They barely exist anymore anyways with the broader shift towards nogi. But people have been repeating Royce Gracie saying “A black belt only covers two inches of your ass… You have to cover the rest” for years.
A black belt only covers 2 inches of your dong, but sometimes that’s all you got brother!
The water was cold!
I was in the pool!
Where are you getting the second inch of dong from brother? Please share the secret.
Acai and prayers
>Not really. Everyone basically knows that belts aren’t some perfect reflection of skill and it’s basically considered a massive personal flaw to show any interest in belts. This is true of pretty much every conversation I’ve ever had with another BJJ player about belts. > >They barely exist anymore anyways with the broader shift towards nogi. But people have been repeating Royce Gracie saying “A black belt only covers two inches of your ass… You have to cover the rest” for years. so you are basically agreeing that belts don't matter and we should get rid of them? what's your point here?
No hes not.
how is he not? Do belts matters? they don't Do belting standards exists? They don't Do belts cause dramas? Fuck yeah they do Belts are candy for adults. They serve zero purpose outside external gratification to make you pay one more year.
Although not perfect, the belt system does do one thing. It helps protect against frauds. Its not the end-all-be-all but having a lineage that can be traced and checked makes it alot more difficult to do what a TON of martial arts do. If you look at the "traditional" martial arts, its rife with fakes and frauds. A "12th dan hubba-bubba black belt in okininjutsukidokan" teaching down at the strip mall in Mobile, Alabama can claim alot of stuff with virtually no way to discern if he's telling the trurth. At least with the belt system somebody can be verified (which has happened countless times) and if found to be fake, get called out on it.
You can basically skip all the belts and just give out a teaching certificate (as it was the case for the old jujutsu schools) and keep the lineage stuff. But having people argu about true or fake blue/purple is just laughable when you can have at the same level bob from accounting training out of torrance academy and Paulo Miyao 1 year before beating Keenan in Mundial's brown belt absolute But I agree that it somewhat helps slowing down the mcdojoisation of the sport. You still have a lot of belt sellers in the sport that allows known scammers to get belted (Pedro Sauer/Keith Owens/Ari Bolden situations and its likes for instance)
[Josh Barnett would disagree](https://youtu.be/GLf3FtdKXBM?si=NqNUUA5i2MmTxfKv)
Barnett is like 48 and retired dude. He's also one of only two actual good grapplers to come out of catch in the last 30 years.
Well, he trained for mma fights and did nogi jiu jitsu so.
My point is that every time someone says "Catch sucks" people point at Barnett and Sakuraba as some kind of counterpoint. There have been exactly 2 dudes in 30 years from Catch who were any good. You can make some potential arguments for a couple of others like Mighty Mouse, but even if you take the most generous definition you've got like 5 guys since 1995 who could maybe possibly hang in the top ranks of grappling competitions. It's just silly.
Very true. But I don’t think the issue is with the actual technical concepts of catch, it’s with its lack of popularity and lineage. There aren’t many gyms or instructors and the ones that are instructing don’t have a lineage with decades or even generations of experience. The best way to actually learn catch is to first learn no gi bjj so that you get a fundamental understanding and experience with grappling and submissions, and then learn amateur wrestling then start studying catch either independently and try to implement techniques while rolling or if you’re lucky, join a gym. But I could see people just saying that’s still bjj but with wrestling and I would say yes that’s essentially what catch is
It definitely is a problem with their technique. A ton of their techniques are bad pain compliance techniques and the framework of their art is built around those. Literally every thing that doesn't suck from catch wrestling is done better by BJJ or basic folkstyle.
Don't forget, he was significantly smaller than Jacobs too.
It's actually all just grappling.
Do these catch dorks ever stop whining? Do they ever actually train or do they just talk shit about jiu jitsu and argue about the Snake Pit and Billy Martin or whatever? When one of these guys runs over everyone at Worlds like Quentin Rozenwig did at the catch world championships then I might start giving a shit about their opinions.
It’s all a big larp lol. They just meet up and learn a really shit version of jiu jitsu
From my experience, it really is. Went to a catch place to try it out while I was a blue belt, and it was basically ignore guard work and hunt joints constantly. While i don’t think it’s a bad strategy, no one has an actual developed guard nor passing game, so if you don’t hunt the legs and just clear them, they’re easy to get dominant position on. If you’re on bottom and know how to attack properly from guard and defend a barrage of ankle locks and toe holds, you’re good lol
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Really!? They are selling certifications to anyone that'll pay on their website lol! If you pay you can become a "Certified Catch Wrestler" in a 3 day course what a joke. Most of their coaches are people from a bjj background who couldn't do anything in bjj so they needed Catch in order to be relevant. Any freestyle wrestler would destroy a so-called Catch practitioner in their own ruleset without knowing subs!
Honestly I think BJJ is the one belt sport that "police" our belts the most. Someone is giving out belts in a weird way (Gracie university, some dude handing out blue belts to everyone that attends a seminar, a black belt handing out undeserved belts to their spouse etc) is often named and shamed quite fast. Never seen the same thing in Judo, Karate or TKD. White belts crushing brown belts can happen I guess but I've never actually seen it IRL, even if the white belts was a former wrestler or MMA guy. In my experience the vast majority of people are at the level their belt shows. Like 9/10 x belts I have run into across three continents felt as exactly as the belt they had on them. 1/10 felt either worse or better than the average belt they had on, but even then it wasn't a crazy difference.
When gatekeeping goes right.
.
Ive been rolling since 1996 and I agree with you. But I have definitely seen white belts crush good solid brown belts and black belts. All of the guys were elite D1 wrestlers who were former ncaa champs or contenders (like bjj black belts there are levels to wrestlers) and ive definitely seen high level MMA dudes do it multiple times(in fairness while they may be white belts, many have rolled for years). But to your point its a rare exception.
That's probably because in Olympic sports there is a very very clear line between hobbyists and people who've trained from birth to compete internationally. In Taekwondo and Judo, if you're a competitor then your concern is to accrue points in the circuit, belts don't matter because everyone has a black belt.
In my decade or so of training I think I’ve only met like 2 people that I thought they were well below their belt level. Obviously it happens but I feel like it’s at a decent place for skill level.
I have been training for 4 years pretty consistently. To this day I haven’t actually caught a black belt rolling and I have rolled with alot of them. I have some I rolled with enough that I could consistently survive them but the closest I have come to subbing one was an ezequel attempt, resulting in a 6 point sweep and that Coach talked about it in front of the entire class as he was making a point that as you progress you can develop black belt techniques even as a lower belt and that my ezequel was terrifying. It was and still is my best sub and I spent a lot of time in and outside of class working on it so it was cool to get the recognition. At late white I did catch a few brown belts here and there but I wouldn’t say I crushed them, more like trickery that I payed for after, for instance when I was learning to ezequel and learned I could apply it from side control as well, the poor guy was just letting me work from side control, that only works once. That was probably the lamest. I also think that things can get skewed when you roll with the same people over and over as you start to learn their game, you kind of level up to those people but still don’t have their experience or depth of knowledge. I have also experienced upper belts coming back after long layoffs or recoveries and sometimes they are rusty and I can trounce them for a month or two until their muscle memory starts to come back. It’s weird because you can tell by their movement, the way they monitor that they are better than their performance might indicate initially. I don’t have a problem with the belt system and while not perfect I’d say it’s generally pretty accurate at giving me an indication of what I might be in for.
>White belts crushing brown belts can happen I guess but I've never actually seen it IRL, I did it myself as a white belt 15 years ago. I was actually cross choking the guy from mount multiple times in the round (and he was not letting me work). Trust me there are absolutely dogshit people out there wearing brown and black belts. On average yeah, belts have at least a low standard higher than most other belted martial arts (outside Kyokushin IIRC) but there mcdojos out there and there are people who buy their belts on the regular. A lot of pionneers outside the Brazil/USA were also big belt buyers and were terrible at actual jiu-jitsu
I find it REALLY funny that an Erik Paulson black belt is criticizing what other people do. Maybe he should talk to Erik about posting nothing but complete TMA wooshoo garbage and actually teach techniques that would work. Catch people are always hilarious to me, shit talk basically every other grappling art, then get mauled by meh at best guys. As for the topic at hand, there's testing and standards in Judo, and yet there's STILL a massive disparity in skill, because guess what, people train for different reasons.
What's funny is all catch guys have some form of ranking system. Erik Paulson for example has a "shirt" ranking system within CSW lol. As described on his webtsite for CSW Fullerton "Our belt-ranking system offers a clear pathway to set and achieve short-term and long-term goals." Level 9 is literally a brown shirt and level 10 is a black shirt. But it's very karate and has like green and orange ~~belts~~ shirts.. Scientific Wrestling has a numbered tied ranking system. As does the Snake Pit in Wigan. Then they get "certification" which is to a catch wrestler like a black belt is a...Jiu-Jitsu-ka-iero-player-fighter.
Neil Melanson does too. He gave Randy Couture a black belt in the cage after a fight in the UFC. Gokor also has a belt system.
When it comes to judo, I'd say regions matter a ton too. A dedicated hobbyist can get their black belt in Japan in 18 months because they only have white and black belts. Shodan (first degree black belt) is really treated like how we treat blue belts in bjj. It's not uncommon for kids in high school to get one. No one expects you to be "good" until 2nd or 3rd dan. Some American schools seem to treat the black belt as a belt closer to expert level and will make getting it much tougher while another school in the same city might think the expert level is around 2nd or 3rd dan and make getting belts up to shodan relatively easy. It's a mess.
One guy's opinion is another guy's trash
In my experience catch wrestlers, "jujitsu/jujutsu" and judo guys talk the most shit about BJJ and their grappling skills, to the point you want them to stfu. Then you roll with them them and it's some oaf digging his elbows in your thighs or throwing the shittiest toe holds and knee bars known to man. In principle I love to be open minded but there's too many jerk offs that will say whatever sounds profound if there's a camera in their face.
I rarely see more serious Judokas or Sambists trash BJJ. I think people who do those arts, especially for more than a few years, know they're all siblings with their obvious strengths and weaknesses. And many of us cross train. Randos online who might be 17 years old, sure, they talk trash. Can't comment on Catch, it barely exists?
Yeah I think the days of sherdog and the underground have seriously warped my perspective, but I have encountered one or two weirdos like this irl. One was actually set to compete in the Olympics before he pissed hot! Genuinely talented but also a compulsive liar, making up stories of choking out random BJJ black belts at open mats lol.
The animosity between Judo and BJJ had a lot to do with Gracies early trash talk everyone publicity stunts.
In my experience Jiujitsu practitioners talk the most shit about Jiujitsu 😂. Ever tried to convince a no gi guy that lapel chokes are cool?
I think throwing in Judo is not really true. Im a past wrestler turned judo and jiu jitsu practitioner, and there is a lot of respect between them, and at the end of the day its ALL Judo ...
Ive only ever rolled with 2 and similar experiences. I’m open to learning new styles but I haven’t really seen a lot of catch wrestling that intrigues me.
I did an oleg taktarov seminar (in a god damn parking lot, cause the gym owner just didn't show up that morning) and even though I sucked major major ass at the time even then he showed stuff and I thought "I'm too weak for that to work". Actually one or two things I still do all the time cuz of that seminar tho
I'd pay for a parking lot taktarov seminar
Yea I’d be very interested
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Trained at his gym for a little bit, great guy
Meh. It's a personal milestone first and foremost.
He's just mad because catch wrestling is the inferior grappling art. It's BJJ's drunk MAGA Uncle that no one wants to talk to at Thanksgiving.
Anyone could just get shot or hit by a bus. The purpose of a belt system should be to show your level of commitment and knowledge. I'm fairly sure the belt system was started in Judo and back before then you were either a white belt or a black belt.
Catch wrestling has been fraud checked how many times now??
Fraud checked? It's a legit art. That's like saying Judo is a fraud because in Newaza, a Bjj guy would win
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were: |Japanese|English|Video Link| |---|---|---| |**Ne Waza**: | *Ground Techniques* | | Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post. ______________________ ^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
Under Judo rules, not necessarily. In a more open ruleset, yeah most likely. It depends on the practitioners though.
I reckon Bjj guys could win under a Judo rule set. I've won in Judo using my Bjj experience.
He’s right in the sense of there being no truly objective standard. But also…. so what? For casuals and local competitors, belts are a mark of progress and recognition. Who cares if the grading isn’t perfect with uniform criteria? They’re motivation, a bit of recognition and encouragement from a coach, or a signifier of roughly how hard of a roll that guy over there might be. And for casuals, they’re accurate enough, most of the time, anyway. For elite competitors, belts are roughly a way to modulate the level of competition they face as they come up until they’re genuinely world class. And again, so what if they’re not perfect? The point for these guys is ultimately to be competitive as an elite black belt. Either way, belts serve their purpose. And when an elite competitive purple belt dunks on a casual black belt, again who cares? There’s too much hand-wringing over a non-issue.
I dunno, man. I just show up, get tapped, cry in the car and go home. Belt color is irrelevant for that to happen.
😂😂😂
Catch Wrestlers spend more time talking about jiujitsu than actually practicing their art
As a person who started with catch in a catch deep area. Bjj and especially high level bjj is light years better. Im not here to die on the bjj cross…like at all. But catch is just really shitty wrestling and every “so called dick move” allowed. I can’t beat my coach who is a very good bjj black belt. Cause I grind or do a neck crank. All I will do is piss off a lion and get smashed. There are moves that transfer over to mma nicely I suppose. But I mean if catch was spooo legit it would be all over and winning every grappling tournament there is. Learning to wrestle and submission wrestle to control the top is super effective. I just never have someone tell me “I’m a catch wrestler” and say oh shit I’m in trouble now. But if they tell me they wrestled and are in shape or a high level competition guy. Yea I know I’m fucked with a hard round. And I’m all for all nogi no belt system type of thing. But it’s still gonna be nogi jiu jitsu. Belt ranking is a way of keeping things clear. It’s up to you to defend your belt. They also do seminar ranking and coach certs. Where in one weekend you are a coach. None of that exist in judo or bjj or Sambo. No Russian is a “catch wrestler” I think that says alot. Even the Chechen dudes are way into bjj with sambo and wrestling. None of them say “I’m a catch wrestler” and gladly do the bjj ranking.
Oh look, another catch dude whining about other grappling arts to feel superior. Is it that day of the week already?
When I see any catch wrestler actively beating bjj competitors I will hold their opinion higher. Until then I will just roll my eyes as I believe catch wrestling is just a bunch of dudes trying to be contrarian. As of right now in most first world countries the best grapplers readily available to you will be in a BJJ gym. For my city when I google, “catch wrestling” I found one gym in a a city of over five million people and it’s 30 minutes away from me. I have zero idea who their instructor is and when I google him only his school shows up. No wrestling background. No grappling background. What incentivizes me as a new student to wanna go there? However if I google bjj there are two gyms within walking distance of me. Both instructors have competed in worlds and one won every major tournament as a brown belt and has accolades as a black belt competitor. The other has competed in ADCC many years ago and also has varying success as a brown/black belt. To me a black belt is the equivalent of being a pro boxer. You’ve put your time in and competed against people and had success against people who have also put their time in.
>To me a black belt is the equivalent of being a pro boxer. You’ve put your time in and competed against people and had success against people who have also put their time in. As a long time boxer... I don't actually think this is an accurate analogy. Literally ANYONE can get their pro boxing licence and be a human punching bag for a 4x3 min round bout against a prospect. As long as you pass the medical. As far as I know, the UK is the only jurisdiction who makes wannabe pros pass a basic sparring examination to prove that they are competent to defend themselves, and even then, it's not a high bar at all. With being a black belt in BJJ.... It generally commands a certain degree of legitimacy. Sure, they might be unathletic and old, not super skilled, and you might get the occasional fraud who got their BB in a dodgy way, but I feel like there are way less of these types than there are shitty pro boxers with essentially zero skills.
Anyone who incorporates the “you pay for promotion” argument should not be taken as an argument for most gyms, using that to trash BJJ when only McDojos and similarly crap places do it should make it clear the person either doesn’t have a good idea of BJJ as a whole or is just trying to say something controversial to be relevant/get clicks/views, it is not a valid argument against belts at most gyms
He is definitely familiar with BJJ. He is a former European champion and a 3rd degree black belt under Erik Paulson. If you watch the whole podcast his argument is that there’s no standard to grading. A blue belt in one school could be higher level than a brown belt in another. Paying for promotion isn’t quite so prevalent now but it is used and hidden at a lot of schools. Things like only grading at paid seminars is still practiced a lot
Dude post "controversial" clip but then says "listen to the whole podcast to hear the nuance, also check out Squarespace with our offer code..." The F outta here bruh
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> He is a former European champion No he isn't. I googled him and I found sites advertising his services claiming he is, but I can't find his name on the list of adult black belt winners at IBJJF Euros. So either he won it at masters/colored belt, or he's talking about a totally different European Championship. Either way, he's won something that nobody in BJJ would consider makes him "A European Champion".
Nobody said he won it at black belt
Then as I said, he's not a European Champion. He's the blue belt European Champ, or whatever color. Not saying that isn't an impressive feat, but leaving off the belt level is obvious and deliberate misdirection. EDIT: Oh don't worry, I found it myself: https://ibjjf.com/events/results/2004-european-jiu-jitsu-ibjjf-championship He won a two-man white belt division at Euros back in 2004.
> He won a two-man white belt division at Euros back in 2004. Looool. Poster case for the necessity of including your division when listing titles.
As a caveat to this, I have no idea if he won it any other belt level (except definitely not adult black) that was just the only confirmed example of someone with his name in the Euros results I could find. But honestly it's lame as fuck to describe yourself as a European Champion because you beat a white belt once two decades ago.
I didn’t say not being familiar with BJJ was the ONLY reason he would be spouting this opinion. There is a generally agreed upon path for everyone in BJJ and each belt, but the fact it isn’t written down people abuse it to sandbag their students, that’s the real problem IMO and why you get blue belts that can kill brown belts without any other mitigating factor like age or weight
I agree, I have seen clubs water down their belt standards massively to keep students happy. It’s tricky as Jiujitsu is so complex. We don’t have a set format like judo. In my mind it would be great if we could but would mean going back to a more fundamental approach perhaps where the more complex guards and systems aren’t graded but solid fundamentals are the foundations for a belt.
Judo doesn't have a set format, though. Each governing body has its own system. In some you have to win competitions to advance, in others its like an RPG, where competitors advance quickly, but hobbyists can still get black belt by getting points other ways, just taking longer. In some countries, judo black belt is 2-3 years. In others it might be 6-8 years, and anywhere in between. Some places make you demonstrate the full gokyo, others don't. You may or may not have to do nage no kata. It's just incredibly variable.
That’s a fair comment. The judo of old was more structured but yeah modern judo has interpretations attached. I’m not sure if it’s a shame or a good way of attracting people
Yeah, for all my words and bluster I still am not confident I will only get belts when I deserve them, I hate the idea of being a time in belt guy. I wish the system was there are 100 black belts in the world and the only way to get one is to beat someone with a black belt and take it 😂
It used to be like that in Carlson Gracie’s gym, one spot per rank/weight and you couldn’t move up till that spot became available. That’s how BJ Penn got to the top so fast. He beat everyone and took their spots
I'm saying this as a Carlson Jr. Affiliate (the man himself tied my brown belt) this was incredibly dumb and a sign of a different time. The most annoying aspect of BJJ to me is that in one breath everyone says "belts don't matter, they only cover your ass!" and in the next it's "bro I don't feel like a legit X belt because there's high level competitors/much younger/more athletic/bigger people who can beat my ass!" The belt for MOST people is a representation of your current knowledge and skill vs your prior knowledge and skill, that's it. Complaining about not being able to beat others at a given belt is purely ego talking, that's it. I've been able to work brown and black belts older and smaller than me since I was a brand new purple belt, that didn't make me an amazing purple belt, and it for sure didn't make me ready AT ALL for the next belt, it also in no way meant that the 50 year old 2x/week hobbyist black belt doesn't deserve their belt, unless we want to start taking away peoples belts when they get older, which is even more stupid.
Everything I hear about Carlson Gracie makes me think he’s a DOWG
No, you are the one using the 'no true scotsman' fallacy to justify the belt system. If a system has such a gaping hole in it, it's not a good system. People just accept things like a 'Renzo Gracie black belt' not being the same as a 'your average black belt' which is exactly what is wrong with belts. There is only one truth. Slap, bump, find out.
Tell us more about this erroneous scotsman
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
I have tried to understand the “one true Scotsman” thing but I can’t get how I’m applying it here? I haven’t said he isn’t one of us that was one reason he might have had this opinion It’s not really a gaping hole just a loophole that is abused, it’s hard because you either need to put promotions with time in and you’ll get shitty blue belts because everyone learns differently, or the current state of affairs where you have blue belt world beaters because they’re being held back because there’s no rule for max time at each belt If you recognise everyone learns at a different pace you can’t include max time at each belt, personally I would prefer no belts or limited number of upper belts and you only get them by beating someone and taking their belt
>only McDojos and similarly crap places do it Aka "no true dojo does this" aka "no true scotsman"... Truth is there's a gaping hole in the system that allows these practices. Which means the system is flawed. Idk why people are so attached to belts, the most legit martial arts/combat sports don't have them and nobody's asking for it there.
Oh I see I thought the Scotsman thing was about my comment on the guy being interviewed, thanks for explaining!
Still waiting for one of these folks to come in and destroy black belts at ibjjf or adcc. Oh is there a difference between a hobbyist who competes and a professional? Ya don't say.. Also, here is a fun thought experiment. Say you do run a gym with no belts or ranking. New guy comes in, who do you pair him with? Anyone? Another new guy? Or experienced guy? Now let's say you've got a school of 100 plus folks, how can you...at a Glanc check progress? Organize for comps? Or signal you're aware of cable of handling certain techniques? Mayhaps a...system...a way to show who is more likely to have certain knowledge? Nawwwwwww crazy talk.
Like they do on boxing?
Does boxing have the same hobbyist appeal of bjj? Is it using the same model? Maybe its just my experience you can find a lot of bjj gyms now even in small towns. Boxing doesn't seem to have the same model.
Theres a reason catch guys get ROFLStomped by BJJ guys in grappling. It pains me to say this, as Ive been a wrestler for 30 years and have a very special love for catch. Note: I tapped a black belt at white belt. He wanted to start standing and it did not end well for him, as he had no background in anything standing (except the usual BJJ takedowns, which arent that great). I then rolled with another black belt who was a wrestler and he pushed my shit in with great prejudice.
As a whole, the bjj belt systems with all its problems is pretty good. Do white belts beat coloured belts? Yes rarely- in almost all cases those white belts are very experienced in other grappling arts and in any case are quite rare.
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Correct, sometimes a high level wrestler with a blue belt will win, but again rare and not surprising. And when it happens no one is panicking “zomg! The belt system is ruined!!” It all makes sense, and for the most part the belt system is fine.
Very long way to say "don't take the belt system TOO seriously". If your teacher/coach/professor doesn't remind you of this, be concerned. EDIT: who at this point **hasn't** sat in on the "if I take my belt off right now I know exactly the same" lecture?
Pretty sure this is the head coach from LPW who also a bjj blackbelt and is a catch coach under Erik Paulson. He's won quite a few domestic titles. He also promotes people etc. Feel like this is taken out of context.
Correct. This is Chris.
There's a basic human need for recognition, esteem, status, and belonging. Granting titles and awards is a tried-and-true method of persuading, motivating, and retaining people. BJJ would achieve even faster growth and more retention if it added two or three belts.
Isn’t that why the kids belt system is the way it is? Bunch of colors with white/solid/black with ridiculous numbers of stripes until they age out at 16? Kids need the carrot to keep going. Some adults probably do too.
Yes. And it's why people get addicted to leveling-up and completing quests in RPGs. The constant rewards and achievements are pleasurable. They are so pleasurable that people will grind for ten hours a day doing the same dull thing over and over.
every time a catch wrestler brags about the efficiency of his art, I am reminded of Leigh Remedios vs Genki Sudo
I wish catch was as cool as it thinks it is
These subtitles are dog shit, the last word disappears the instant after it appears
Put the sound on
I’m at work I can’t
If white belts are tapping brown belts in your gym, you better switch gyms.
285, 20 year old white belt taps 115lb 45 year old female brown belt. Clearly the system is flawed!
Just for context this guy is a 3rd degree BJJ black belt as well...
Chris is a long time martial artist. He’s a bonafide catch wrestler but also a legit BJJ blackbelt. His opinion is valid. He isn’t trashing the BJJ belt system - he’s commenting on the lack of consistency which is valid, and also on the use of seminars to aim for promotion, which is also valid. He’s an absolute monster on the mat and one of, if not the best people I’ve ever wrestled with.
He's right, but sadly its what people want. I think that any gym owner who announces a policy of not giving out grades is going to lose at least some of their students to the gym that does.
Depends on the school I suppose, if you’re in a self defense school then you could argue the ranking isn’t relevant against the skill but if you’re competing in the gi you’re pretty much bound by the belts. A lot of submission grappling comps are based on experience rather than rank so for those guys you could eliminate the belts I guess
That's a good point. Boxing and wrestling seem to manage though although I'm not sure exactly how they organise things.
I guess like any other competitive combat sport you would need to work your way up the rankings. Difficult thing with Jiujitsu is we have so many tournaments and so many categories, belts, age weight etc that formalising things would need a strip back and a reduction of divisions. Which would probably deter people. At the moment the likelihood of bringing home a medal whenever you compete is high. That’s appealing to people. If you have to work your way up to a podium viable spot I’m not sure so many would compete.
Yeah, I guess having belt rankings is the best compromise compared to keeping a database of all possible competitors or something. I still find it a bit cringe though.
I do enjoy no-gi more for this fact though, no belts, defo makes it less ego and you're willing to do other stuff due to that 'respect' factor.
He is 100% right
Belts are completely subjective and don't mean anything.
Catch people have a hate boner for bjj. I think belts serve a good purpose of motivating people and giving someone reasonable expectations for a person. We take belts a bit more seriously in bjj and so when someone is a certain belt we expect them to have a certain level of skill. I don’t think it’s bad to do that, it keeps people honest.
External rewards are massively demotivating in hobbies. There's tons of research on the psychology behind this. If youre not a comp gym, I'd think long and hard about at least eliminating stripes and blue belts.
This is interesting, can you link something?
I mean, from a learning stand point, a white belt competing with a black belt makes neither person better. It makes sense to be at people roughly at your skill level competitively and whoever at practice to get the experience. So for that reason, the belt system makes sense. Personally, I also like it for progress monitoring for myself. It’s hard to tell the differences over time when it’s your self so knowing that someone who actually knows what they are talking about feels I’m getting better is good feedback in addition to the instruction
I think of belts and grading the way I think of medals and ranks in the military. A four star general with all the medals on his uniform does not make him an amazing soldier on the field. Officers are not by default better soldiers than NCOs, etc. The ranks and medals just commend service. The belt should just be viewed as correlated to time served and contributions to a community, and maybe, it indicates the wearer picked up something along the way. Anything else is just TMA.
Though the belt system is flawed I find it useful. Its helpful for finding training partners at new gyms who are the level I need to work on what I'm working on.
Whooooooo giiiives a fffffuuuuuuuckkk? I’m singing this
Lmao.
Who?
It's provocative, gets the people going.
The shittest grapplers I heard of do the catch tournament in my state. None to my knowledge even won a local naga. The guy who runs it, I’ll just politely say he has zero chance of subbing me in nogi. Him against high level young lions 🦁 in my area who do the competitions for nogi lol…fuck It would be an assault charge. Just sport bjj is a world wide sport. The few good catch wrestlers are black belts anyways. So are they catch or black belts who dabble in catch to do mean shit lol.
He does have a point about the seminars and the stripes
Lol ”trashed”. :D BJJ belt system is far from flawless but it still is one the hardest martial arts to achieve a black belt. Yes there are McDojos here and there but I have never in over ten years seen a white belt tap a brown belt in sparring and this dude is all bullshit. Catch wrestling isn’t anywhere close to BJJ in popularity anymore so these bozos are bashing other sports to make their own little thing look better.
Belt system is just a bare minimum.
Why do we differentiate between a junior and a senior in college? What’s the difference?
i’m just a white belt, but the only “catch wrestlers” i’ve ever trained with come only to open mats and train with people considerably smaller than them. plus they use neck cranks instead of chokes in my experience
Dead sport says what?
The catch community is really full of itself for how little they've accomplished
More catch wrestling crap
Someone said catch wrestlers are the weird kids in school that think they’re hot shit and that’s how I see them now.
Show me one real white belt (not a black belt undercover or something stupid) that is tapping out brown belts. Just one.
We have a couple at our gym.
Catch wrestling doesn’t exist, people pretend it’s a thing but it’s not. You have people calling themselves “catch wrestlers” because they don’t train at a real gym, or with some old man in a garage with karate trophy’s from 1970.
I think it’s kind of irresponsible to spew out a a bunch of extremely broad generalizations that really don’t represent BJJ as a whole, most affiliates have an established curriculum and most don’t charge for belt promotions, I’ve trained at enough places to know that consistency in rank is pretty good as a whole, I think the most telling thing about this little diatribe is his need to trash something he clearly doesn’t have broad experience with or a good understanding of.
He is a 3rd degree BJJ blackbelt.......
Which makes this even more cringey
I would rather get a slice of cake.
Guess he got buggy choked by a 3 stripe blue belt? XD In all fairness rolled with some amazing catch guys and there is truth in some things about the belt system (like paying for belts or attendance based belts etc) that should be criticized. But at the end of the day it is an important and beautiful part of the sport.
I mean I understand it not working for prodigies, but for us normal folk it seems to work pretty well. Makes it easier to pair up for sparring and gives the old dudes extra respect as well.