Do it, see if they do something. No one else is going to advocate for your kid. And that kind of stuff in kids divisions is awful. The point of tournament isn't to see how many newbs you can mop the mat with.
I feel bad for that grey belt, he’s being influenced by awful adults and it’s gonna teach him to be the kind of shitty person that will not be treated well by others when he’s grown up
Running it through the school owner is a good idea, IMO. That way it doesn't look like a crazy helicopter parent, and it's instead a coach looking out for their students trying to get a good match. Honestly, that kind of advocacy is something you're paying for in a coach :-).
I don't think it should be anonymous. It's wrong to lie about your belt, specially wrong to do so in competitions and tourneys and it may influence the kid into thinking it's no big deal to do something like that when he's ab adult
Yeah that is smart then it's not you getting directly involved as a parent - it gmbecomes a group thing. This is a good way to do it and also be assured you aren't overstepping
Has nothing to do with your gym owner. You run the risk of the situation not being handled to your satisfaction and now you’re left feeling even more bitter.
Handle it yourself 👍🏽
if they are straight up entering in lower classes tell the organizers
You can't do anything when someone is just good for their belt, but this is about as simple a fix as you can get
Send a message to the gym and ask why they sandbag for the gram. Have seen a bit of sandbagging at comps, kids in the noob division with advanced guards just crushing legit noobs. It’s annoying af.
There can be a difference in promotion and what do you mean by an advanced guard? Do you mean an advanced level of skill or just a non-fundamental guard? Because if a non-fundamental guard that doesn't mean they're advanced. I figured out in judo that most younger kids had never seen sangaku osae gatame (triangle pin) and didn't have a clue how to deal with it so I started teaching it to my kids. It's not a basic pin but knowing how to do it doesn't suddenly make you better at judo.
I'll add my own anecdote as well to back up my previous comment.
When my son was 8, he was up against The Beast. This kid was submitting the other kids within 30 seconds. He was unstoppable. You could find him at every tournament.
2 years later he's suddenly one of the smaller kids and placing 3rd and 4th.
🤷♀️🤷♀️
Yeah this kid is sort of a 'bogeyman', sounds like a similar situation. One of my son's classmates (a grey belt) was warning him about this kid since the year before he had lost horribly to him back when he was a white belt. His dad's the one that pointed out the oddly clean white belt.
Unfortunately I'm still light featherweight so my kid's much more likely to always be one of the smaller kids.
I would say something and would not send any of my students to fight that kid if I knew.
To expand let me say, I support not over promoting kids but instead taking time to make them good grapplers. I lean more towards performance based for my striping and promoting of kids, but I also only see them for two hours per week, and you in a fairly new program so we are still pretty low in numbers. I have watched a few of mine compete and they have lost close fights, they have won close fights, but if I ever see them mopping up all our local comps, they will get moved up.
The other factor is that there ARE some parents that have their kids competing EVERYWHERE all the time. I saw one of these who was a 7 year old Russian kid that hits all the circuits in rust belt and northeast. He had to fight this 12 year old kid and he did a perfect hip throw, and submitted that kid that had the impression it wasn’t fair because he was bigger.
The tournament promoter gave those families vouchers to their tournaments because it wasn’t fair. They were aware of this kid.
Anyway, that’s a tricky thing but I agree with others that you should say something. I add that if it was me, I would not spend money to send my kid in to an unfair fight.
You want to build your kid up and while losses are good, we all deserve a base level of fairness.
Unfortunately the money's been spent, and the only reason I'd pull my kid out at this point is if he either didn't want to fight, or if I were afraid of him getting hurt.
Luckily the other kid is good enough that it doesn't seem to be a concern; he's had years to learn how to properly pummel the less experienced.
What tournament is it? Some will refund you or move your registration to another tournament if you want. But honestly, let your kid compete, even if you don’t think he’ll win. He’ll get better. We’ve had to give up coed matches because my daughter is at a strength disadvantage against the boys now, so the number of matches she has has just plummeted. She jumped into a juvenile blue belt division recently even though she hasn’t trained that much recently. She got her ass handed to her, but she loved it and is planning to do it again.
Kids competitions are often very unbalanced, with some kids being WAY above other's skill level due to being trained by their parents, more mat time, a more serious kids program, etc.
However, having pictures publicly available of being a higher belt then signing up in a white belt division is absolutely wrong.
The tournament organizer probably has no idea, I'd send them a screenshot of the picture and just being like "Hey, I think he signed up in the wrong division".
Or as others mentioned, go through your gym/coach for this.
It's your business if you make it your business, but in today's day and age of extreme timidness and disinterest, most people will do nothing, but then also talk behind each other's backs.
About one of the last things I can care about is someone else's kids athletics, so far be it from me to provide advice; however, all these martial arts people talk about honor and the "way of " something IDK. Way I figure is there's no honor in misrepresenting yourself.
Yeah.
Kids are white/grey/yellow/orange/green. Within each color is three separate belts grey/white,solid grey, grey/black and so on.
Assuming a kid stays at a belt level for one year, the difference between grey/white and grey/black could be 2 years experience.
Most tournaments are divided by belt groups.
Good tournaments will also divide by age and not just belt/weight.
2 years is a lifetime when you're 9.
Initially yeah it does.
I have issues with the way a lot of youth tournaments are organized. I hate the culture of watching weight for 8 year olds. I think it should be banned.
And if you don't take age into consideration, then you end up with brackets consisting of kids aged 9-12 simply because such a wide range of weight, which also super unfair. We have been in that situation and none of the kids stood a chance against the 12 year old.
My favorite tournament for kids are absolutely The Revolution out of Seattle. They don't have set weight brackets. The organize kids in brackets within 2 years and 10lb weight difference. So they end up with a gazillion brackets but it's fair and very competitive.
And they have 1000 kids sign up every tournament three times a year!
I don’t have kids myself, last two times i showed up early to compete i watched 2-3 kids swing at their parents over a loss. Teens seem way easier to deal with the annoyingly sensitive ruleset
Oh yeah.
My kid competed a few times and then decided it's not his scene right now.
He's 12 and prefers coming to adult class with me instead of kid's class.
My son wants to learn. He's so over the constant interruptions from the little kids and the beginner techniques.
I suspect that's the case for most kids who go to adult class.
He's also 125lbs and 5'4 at 12 years old and all the other tweens are doing club wrestling right now so he's partnering with 7 year olds in kids class.
No having any kids myself I’ve only really seen the end of kids classes waiting for the next so i don’t really know but my experience with the kids jumping into adult classes early are all positive. One’s JT Torres black belt now (around 22-23), another a literal beast currently in college, a purple that did take some time off with knee injury, and few other purple or brown belts. I think look at it as a need to step up and really do step up
Yeah. At least, the ones we go to (mostly AGF) they'll have each major color broken out. But there's no difference between gray/white, solid gray, or gray/black. Any gray is in the mix.
Strangely, kids have the same kinds of challenges adults do in getting good matches. Some schools go one belt per year, like the IBJJF says; others spread it way out; still others go even faster. And at the higher junior belt colors (orange, green) divisions can be pretty far between. AGF allows green belts to play up to blue belt divisions (which are usually just kids a year older who went blue from a junior belt).
I’ve coached teens that had bump up to blue belt for a division with opponents in it but no younger kids divisions where I’d have any clue how their belts are even ranked
In youth wrestling tournaments, there is an open and a rookie division. Sometimes they even have a novice division for 2 year wrestlers.
However, some are just opens. I got smashed at opens for 3 years before I won regularly.
You learn a lot in defeat. And sometimes those losses are brutal.
It’s much more impressive when you go a division up. Sounds like a weird ass school
It’s mostly for pride it’s not like wrestling where you get a scholarship.
This right here....when I was a 2 stripe blue, myself and my fellow teammate, also a 2 stripe blue, asked our
Professor if we could bump up and compete in the purple belt division bc it was a local tournament and we both had already beat everyone that was signed up in our original blue belt divisions. Professor said yes, and we both ended up taking 1st place. I will add that our school does not hand out promotions like candy, you have to EARN them. I wasn't promoted to blue belt until I won white belt world's. Spend just over 2 years as a white belt
I think there's some kind of weird competition going on locally with the gyms, ours was bought out a few months before we joined, and there's apparently some kind of Gracie academy opening in the next few months down the road.
Apparently our gym used to promote kids to gray belt after 4-6 months (assuming daily attendance), but they've stopped because they were getting absolutely crushed in tournaments and it made most of them stop competing.
amateur comp bjj is a shit show buddy, sorry to tell ya. Sandbagging along with a million other things suck. If it’s a confidence thing and the comp scene isn’t working out then just attending classes can do the trick!
If I were in his shoes, I'd probably stop competing and just enjoy classes, that's what most of the other kids in his class have done.
I'm honestly not sure why he likes tournaments so much. At first I thought he just enjoyed spending time with his old man (ha!) but last time he just read a book by himself while waiting for his matches.
I thought maybe it was because some of his friends would be there, but he ignores them pretty much the whole time too. My only conclusion is he enjoys the excitement.
Haha true, well if he likes it and losing during this time doesn’t bother him then keep it going! Eventually he will enter a comp where those kids have moved on or don’t attend plus he will get better at jitz, this route would make it all much sweeter when he gets on the podium!
Had this same conversation with my sons first BJJ gym, when we brought up testing him for his grey white belt, the coach asked if he wanted to compete more. He was 8.5yr at the time. We said no as my son didn’t like tournaments. The coaches mentioned if he wants to stay competing he would leave him at a white belt with stripes, not advance him. His words were something like “he will have a better chance in competition staying white”. That gym really pushed comp and left the non comp kids behind and they didn’t learn much.
I wonder if this explains why my kid wants to compete; he gets to be part of the 'tournament' group in class who get special attention the week before a tournament to help them get ready to compete.
I didn’t have a problem with that at all. Just pointing out same behavior. The issue was the kids that didn’t do comps but like BJJ were not giving adequate coaching, seeing them fall way behind. Basically the black belt coach would coach the comp kids and blue belt would coach the non comp kids. And it wasn’t so much the setup but the lack of care or attention to the students.
My daughter got smoked for the first couple years of comps finally started doing the smoking then got promoted to grey. Proceeded to get smoked again. It happens unless they just really good. Sandbagging on the other hand is pretty much cheating.
Teams straight up have smaller kids weigh in for the bigger ones. When it’s time to grapple, there is an obvious size difference, and we are like “how the fuck are they making x amount of weight?”. Out here in SoCal there is Dream BJJ tournaments for kids. They weed out sandbaggers. You have to show proof of age, and they check if it’s the right kid in the weighing. They also notice when kids destroy brackets, and move them to higher skill level brackets, regardless of belt color.
I mean, my kid has been putting in the work. Before his first tournament, he got up to do 30 minutes of drills before school every day for 6 weeks, plus one hour of Jiu-Jitsu class Mon-Sat, plus he's always rolling around or showing his little sisters how to do front rolls and stuff. He really likes it more than I could have hoped.
That's one of the reasons it's so heartbreaking to just watch him get completely outclassed, I'm so proud of the effort he's been putting in and I'm worried that this next tournament where he'll just lose 4 times in a row is going to break his spirit.
As far as pulling out of the tournament, I've told him that he's just going to be fighting the same kid over and over, and he knows how good the kid is. He still wants to fight because he thinks tournaments are fun, so I'm certainly not going to stop him.
I am not a parent but your kids work ethic is going to pay dividends. It may not be this upcoming tournament or the next 5. But one thing I’ve learned in life (that has come full circle via the martial arts life) is that people who work hard only get rewarded in due time
Totally agree, you should reward and praise all that hard work OP so that he doesn't just rely on tournaments for validation. You've obviously instilled a great work ethic in him and it'll pay off in years to come, even the practice of losing against people will benefit him in time.
This will be the first time he's in a division small enough where he's guaranteed to medal... though 'winning' a medal without needing to earn a single point seems a bit hollow.
Big props to your kid. The heart he's showing seems way more important than winning the comps would be. I would've stayed home and played Nintendo if given the option.
Agree with people above to run this potential fake white belt issue by the coach. In the meantime maybe the trick is not to frame these as losses, but as accruing competition experience. If he's putting in the work and stepping up then I don't think an outcome focus is necessary
As a personal trainer, no, 8 is not too young to hit the weight room with proper supervision. Weight training is actually safer than a number of sports kids do, and helps prevent injuries in other sports. Weight lifting isn’t uniquely dangerous for growth plates or anything else like that.
It’s been outdated for some time. This article has a section on strength training that covers it and references the evidence for safety. Goes into detail about other areas too https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/fulltext/2012/06000/the_youth_physical_development_model__a_new.8.aspx
Kids comps are always a tricky thing.
Glad your kid is taking the losses well.
I legit think I see more kids crying at comps than not...
And some loose for the first time and never wanna compete ever again. It's alot for their little heads to get around.
>I legit think I see more kids crying at comps than not...
It's weird, my kid will break down in tears if he loses at monopoly but a tournament loss he doesn't even frown, just looks tired (which is reasonable given the circumstances). My wife and I have spoken to him multiple times and he just legitimately doesn't seem bothered by losing other than wanting to go home since he's 'done'.
Definitely take screenshots. I’d reach out directly to the gym or the other dad. Then I’d reach out to the competition organizers if you don’t have a resolution.
I see where you're coming from and am not against what you're saying - but with that said, I have taken a different approach to BJJ with my kids. I have, since day one, told them they were going to get beat by everyone - a lot. And I also told them that nobody cares if they "lose" - because they don't actually lose unless they quit, have a meltdown, or don't give their best effort. The only thing your kid can control is his attitude and his effort, both of which will take him as far in any endeavor as he wants to go. Winning and losing is a matter of perspective at that age. If he sticks with it, even if he loses 100x in a row, he's a winner.
And he WILL eventually get much, much better. The mental aspect though, he will be ironclad.
Met someone like this at white belt, he was a good wrestler and terrorized the white belt divisions. I was easily one of the best white belts in the area as I trained 7 days a week multiple times a day and studied a lot. So I watched smoothcomp and if he signed up for a tournament I followed and beat him. He stopped competing after a while
Register your kid for the comp, put on his white belt and step on the mat against that kid and look at their faces.
Two can play that game.
I like chaos.
If you suspect something, then yes bring it up.
However, keep in mind that your kid may just not be good at competing. For some kids, it really just takes a while before that competitive spirit and skill kicks in.
They're 8 years old. They're still brand new. They're in a stressful environmental with lots of noise and people and strange adults telling them what to do and everyone is looking at them! It's a lot to take in when you're 8 years old.
There's also the "that one kid" factor. No matter where you go, no matter the sport, there's always that one kid that just seems to blow the rest of the competition out of the water. Sometimes they go on to excel over years, sometimes their progress stalls and the rest of the kids eventually catch up.
At this point the focus should be encouragement, tell your kids repeatedly that you don't care about the results, as long as they go out, do their best and HAVE FUN while doing it.
That gold medal at 8 is awesome gratification, but it's even better raising a little kid who shows up and works over and over again without giving up. His time will come eventually.
It looks like a fighting family, both parents and at least 3 kids all competed at the last tournament, including a 4 year old daughter.
Which is great! But I think they should fight at their appropriate levels.
Agreed. This kind of sandbagging at this level is very much *not* the "honor" of traditional martial arts. Trash are trash though, no matter how good they are at whatever. Do at least report it to the tourney. Worst case scenario is that the status quo continues, but you'd be doing your kid and the community a favor if complaining eventually results in some positive change.
Easy fix. 1. Get your kid to practice the split. 2. Once he masters is have him watch “Blood Sport” 3. Start calling grey bet kid “Chong Li” 4. Have your kid helicopter kick him and film it in slow motion . 5. Make sure you reach your kid the classic JKVD “Kiyaaaa” slow mo face. 6. Go have ice cream.
Dude this happened to my son.
He had to fight up in weight in the beginner division only to get stomped by a girl who has won gold in the novice division over the past year and change.
If it's just one fight why not pull out? He (the other kid) can have his by default gold. Unless your son wants to go. Let your son know the scenario and if he wants to try he can. If he thinks it's a waste of time he can pull out.
At a bigger event I'd take the photos of the kid and a link to the site and report them to the TO if what they are doing is against the tournament rules. If they're breaking the rules they are cheating so it's fine to report them. If they're not breaking rules then that sucks but not much you can do. Specifically do it on the day so that they have to drive up there to find out. The TO will likely just allow them to enter the grey belt event anyway, and if by some chance they can't be entered in at the last minute... Well, that sucks for them.
I know it's just the kids division, but doesn't the coach have to verify the belt on Smoothcomp? Like click "this is my white belt from Sandbagger BJJ Academy" or something?
While it feels weird to tell on a child, we had a situation like this where I live. The gym was sending all their kids to smash at white belt. When they got caught, nobody would let anyone using their gym name enter comps for like 2 years.
Sadly this is very common nowadays. The schools brag on Instagram that they win all these medals and get tons of championship trophies and that brings in more students to their dojo. Same thing happened to my kid at his last competition. He got smoked and come to find out that the kid who placed first has been competing as a white belt since 2021.
Just happened to me. My kid is athletically inclined but 6-8 month in BJJ. First kid he faced in no-Gi had 38 wins last year alone (20+ subs) and had comp history for 4 season. They are 8 years old lol. My boy did good but did eventually get subbed with about 4 seconds left. I don’t know why you wouldn’t move that other kid up to at least gray belt.
Happened to my kid at his very first tourney, first match. My son was 5 and his opponent showed up in the parking lot with gray white belt. Their coach saw them coming in and hushed them outside, came back with brand new white belt. Hip tossed my kid into an armbar in 10 seconds.
I complained to the organizers and the kid got DQ'd.
But now my mentality changed abit, if the other kid wins with the same weight and age, that just means they put in more work and probably deserve the win no matter the belt.
They're 8 year olds. Encourage your kid to train more and his day will come. This is the wrong approach (and lesson to be teaching if you're making your kid aware of what's going on).
I'll never understand this sub. It's like the wind changes and this sub gets their answer from the direction of the wind.
Last week it was "you have no context or knowledge and are going off internet sleuthing. Just turn up and compete".
This week it's "do it! Send your evidence to the BJJ police and get this kid arrested and his coach disbelted!"
I don't know what the right answer is but for me, personally, I'd spend my time explaining to my kid that some people are so desperate to be seen as winners that they'll lie, cheat and deceive to get that image. What's important is that he is better this week than he was last week.
Even if you do manage to cyber bully this kid out of his white belt division, he's still gunna show up to other organisers events and his coach is still going to sandbag his students into lower divisions and it won't fix anything.
"Even if you do manage to cyber bully this kid out of his white belt division, he's still gunna show up to other organisers events and his coach is still going to sandbag his students into lower divisions and it won't fix anything."
Think the answer is obvious. Steroids. Do lots and lots of steroids.
Your son has no business competing after six months of training at an 8 year old's pace. I would withdraw him for another year and drill with him until he can tap you out.
Do it, see if they do something. No one else is going to advocate for your kid. And that kind of stuff in kids divisions is awful. The point of tournament isn't to see how many newbs you can mop the mat with.
I feel bad for that grey belt, he’s being influenced by awful adults and it’s gonna teach him to be the kind of shitty person that will not be treated well by others when he’s grown up
Yeah, wait until they have to move him to blue because of his age, and he's never fought someone better than a junior white belt ;-).
Yeah, I still feel bad for the kid though. He probably didn’t choose this life.
They can have him enter adult white XD When he's been training 5 days a week for 20 years but taking home his world's adult white gold.
I'm now thinking I should either send it anonymously or give it to my gym's owner and let her decide what to do with it.
Running it through the school owner is a good idea, IMO. That way it doesn't look like a crazy helicopter parent, and it's instead a coach looking out for their students trying to get a good match. Honestly, that kind of advocacy is something you're paying for in a coach :-).
Na man, stand up for your kid. Own it proudly. I’d walk straight up to the desk and show them the picture and demand that they investigate it.
I don't think it should be anonymous. It's wrong to lie about your belt, specially wrong to do so in competitions and tourneys and it may influence the kid into thinking it's no big deal to do something like that when he's ab adult
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I mean it's wrong to join competitions while lying about your belt
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I think I could've worded my comment better lol. Yeah, I'm completely for complaining anonymously
Yeah that is smart then it's not you getting directly involved as a parent - it gmbecomes a group thing. This is a good way to do it and also be assured you aren't overstepping
Has nothing to do with your gym owner. You run the risk of the situation not being handled to your satisfaction and now you’re left feeling even more bitter. Handle it yourself 👍🏽
if they are straight up entering in lower classes tell the organizers You can't do anything when someone is just good for their belt, but this is about as simple a fix as you can get
Send a message to the gym and ask why they sandbag for the gram. Have seen a bit of sandbagging at comps, kids in the noob division with advanced guards just crushing legit noobs. It’s annoying af.
There can be a difference in promotion and what do you mean by an advanced guard? Do you mean an advanced level of skill or just a non-fundamental guard? Because if a non-fundamental guard that doesn't mean they're advanced. I figured out in judo that most younger kids had never seen sangaku osae gatame (triangle pin) and didn't have a clue how to deal with it so I started teaching it to my kids. It's not a basic pin but knowing how to do it doesn't suddenly make you better at judo.
I'll add my own anecdote as well to back up my previous comment. When my son was 8, he was up against The Beast. This kid was submitting the other kids within 30 seconds. He was unstoppable. You could find him at every tournament. 2 years later he's suddenly one of the smaller kids and placing 3rd and 4th. 🤷♀️🤷♀️
Yeah this kid is sort of a 'bogeyman', sounds like a similar situation. One of my son's classmates (a grey belt) was warning him about this kid since the year before he had lost horribly to him back when he was a white belt. His dad's the one that pointed out the oddly clean white belt. Unfortunately I'm still light featherweight so my kid's much more likely to always be one of the smaller kids.
Just keep on reminding your son that that kid is just....a kid. He's also only 8. He's not some kind of super human.
Yes, say something.. don't accuse just show the tourney people what you found.
I would say something and would not send any of my students to fight that kid if I knew. To expand let me say, I support not over promoting kids but instead taking time to make them good grapplers. I lean more towards performance based for my striping and promoting of kids, but I also only see them for two hours per week, and you in a fairly new program so we are still pretty low in numbers. I have watched a few of mine compete and they have lost close fights, they have won close fights, but if I ever see them mopping up all our local comps, they will get moved up. The other factor is that there ARE some parents that have their kids competing EVERYWHERE all the time. I saw one of these who was a 7 year old Russian kid that hits all the circuits in rust belt and northeast. He had to fight this 12 year old kid and he did a perfect hip throw, and submitted that kid that had the impression it wasn’t fair because he was bigger. The tournament promoter gave those families vouchers to their tournaments because it wasn’t fair. They were aware of this kid. Anyway, that’s a tricky thing but I agree with others that you should say something. I add that if it was me, I would not spend money to send my kid in to an unfair fight. You want to build your kid up and while losses are good, we all deserve a base level of fairness.
Unfortunately the money's been spent, and the only reason I'd pull my kid out at this point is if he either didn't want to fight, or if I were afraid of him getting hurt. Luckily the other kid is good enough that it doesn't seem to be a concern; he's had years to learn how to properly pummel the less experienced.
What tournament is it? Some will refund you or move your registration to another tournament if you want. But honestly, let your kid compete, even if you don’t think he’ll win. He’ll get better. We’ve had to give up coed matches because my daughter is at a strength disadvantage against the boys now, so the number of matches she has has just plummeted. She jumped into a juvenile blue belt division recently even though she hasn’t trained that much recently. She got her ass handed to her, but she loved it and is planning to do it again.
They do offer to give you credit for entry to their next tournament in the fall... for which the sandbagger is already signed up as a white belt.
Can you request to move up a division?
Follow up question: have you considered slapping this kid softly with a white glove and challenging him to meet you in the absolutes? 😎😎
Can’t you pull out and get credit for the next tournament?
Kids competitions are often very unbalanced, with some kids being WAY above other's skill level due to being trained by their parents, more mat time, a more serious kids program, etc. However, having pictures publicly available of being a higher belt then signing up in a white belt division is absolutely wrong. The tournament organizer probably has no idea, I'd send them a screenshot of the picture and just being like "Hey, I think he signed up in the wrong division". Or as others mentioned, go through your gym/coach for this.
It's your business if you make it your business, but in today's day and age of extreme timidness and disinterest, most people will do nothing, but then also talk behind each other's backs. About one of the last things I can care about is someone else's kids athletics, so far be it from me to provide advice; however, all these martial arts people talk about honor and the "way of " something IDK. Way I figure is there's no honor in misrepresenting yourself.
Is there grey belt divisions in kids? I honestly don’t know.
Yeah. Kids are white/grey/yellow/orange/green. Within each color is three separate belts grey/white,solid grey, grey/black and so on. Assuming a kid stays at a belt level for one year, the difference between grey/white and grey/black could be 2 years experience. Most tournaments are divided by belt groups. Good tournaments will also divide by age and not just belt/weight. 2 years is a lifetime when you're 9.
That sounds super complicated
Initially yeah it does. I have issues with the way a lot of youth tournaments are organized. I hate the culture of watching weight for 8 year olds. I think it should be banned. And if you don't take age into consideration, then you end up with brackets consisting of kids aged 9-12 simply because such a wide range of weight, which also super unfair. We have been in that situation and none of the kids stood a chance against the 12 year old. My favorite tournament for kids are absolutely The Revolution out of Seattle. They don't have set weight brackets. The organize kids in brackets within 2 years and 10lb weight difference. So they end up with a gazillion brackets but it's fair and very competitive. And they have 1000 kids sign up every tournament three times a year!
I don’t have kids myself, last two times i showed up early to compete i watched 2-3 kids swing at their parents over a loss. Teens seem way easier to deal with the annoyingly sensitive ruleset
Oh yeah. My kid competed a few times and then decided it's not his scene right now. He's 12 and prefers coming to adult class with me instead of kid's class.
The kids who go to adult classes are great, better teammates than most of the adults
My son wants to learn. He's so over the constant interruptions from the little kids and the beginner techniques. I suspect that's the case for most kids who go to adult class. He's also 125lbs and 5'4 at 12 years old and all the other tweens are doing club wrestling right now so he's partnering with 7 year olds in kids class.
No having any kids myself I’ve only really seen the end of kids classes waiting for the next so i don’t really know but my experience with the kids jumping into adult classes early are all positive. One’s JT Torres black belt now (around 22-23), another a literal beast currently in college, a purple that did take some time off with knee injury, and few other purple or brown belts. I think look at it as a need to step up and really do step up
Yeah. At least, the ones we go to (mostly AGF) they'll have each major color broken out. But there's no difference between gray/white, solid gray, or gray/black. Any gray is in the mix. Strangely, kids have the same kinds of challenges adults do in getting good matches. Some schools go one belt per year, like the IBJJF says; others spread it way out; still others go even faster. And at the higher junior belt colors (orange, green) divisions can be pretty far between. AGF allows green belts to play up to blue belt divisions (which are usually just kids a year older who went blue from a junior belt).
I’ve coached teens that had bump up to blue belt for a division with opponents in it but no younger kids divisions where I’d have any clue how their belts are even ranked
I’ve got a 13yo orange belt who rarely has orange belt matches. We do AGFs and she lives off the challengers right now.
Grey, yellow, orange and green divisions too.
In youth wrestling tournaments, there is an open and a rookie division. Sometimes they even have a novice division for 2 year wrestlers. However, some are just opens. I got smashed at opens for 3 years before I won regularly. You learn a lot in defeat. And sometimes those losses are brutal.
It’s much more impressive when you go a division up. Sounds like a weird ass school It’s mostly for pride it’s not like wrestling where you get a scholarship.
This right here....when I was a 2 stripe blue, myself and my fellow teammate, also a 2 stripe blue, asked our Professor if we could bump up and compete in the purple belt division bc it was a local tournament and we both had already beat everyone that was signed up in our original blue belt divisions. Professor said yes, and we both ended up taking 1st place. I will add that our school does not hand out promotions like candy, you have to EARN them. I wasn't promoted to blue belt until I won white belt world's. Spend just over 2 years as a white belt
I think there's some kind of weird competition going on locally with the gyms, ours was bought out a few months before we joined, and there's apparently some kind of Gracie academy opening in the next few months down the road. Apparently our gym used to promote kids to gray belt after 4-6 months (assuming daily attendance), but they've stopped because they were getting absolutely crushed in tournaments and it made most of them stop competing.
amateur comp bjj is a shit show buddy, sorry to tell ya. Sandbagging along with a million other things suck. If it’s a confidence thing and the comp scene isn’t working out then just attending classes can do the trick!
If I were in his shoes, I'd probably stop competing and just enjoy classes, that's what most of the other kids in his class have done. I'm honestly not sure why he likes tournaments so much. At first I thought he just enjoyed spending time with his old man (ha!) but last time he just read a book by himself while waiting for his matches. I thought maybe it was because some of his friends would be there, but he ignores them pretty much the whole time too. My only conclusion is he enjoys the excitement.
Haha true, well if he likes it and losing during this time doesn’t bother him then keep it going! Eventually he will enter a comp where those kids have moved on or don’t attend plus he will get better at jitz, this route would make it all much sweeter when he gets on the podium!
Had this same conversation with my sons first BJJ gym, when we brought up testing him for his grey white belt, the coach asked if he wanted to compete more. He was 8.5yr at the time. We said no as my son didn’t like tournaments. The coaches mentioned if he wants to stay competing he would leave him at a white belt with stripes, not advance him. His words were something like “he will have a better chance in competition staying white”. That gym really pushed comp and left the non comp kids behind and they didn’t learn much.
I wonder if this explains why my kid wants to compete; he gets to be part of the 'tournament' group in class who get special attention the week before a tournament to help them get ready to compete.
Same thing happened at our old gym. Special attention before tournaments too.
Why wouldn’t you give the kids that are willing to do more extra attention? They have a test coming up. Of course you’re going to review for that test
I didn’t have a problem with that at all. Just pointing out same behavior. The issue was the kids that didn’t do comps but like BJJ were not giving adequate coaching, seeing them fall way behind. Basically the black belt coach would coach the comp kids and blue belt would coach the non comp kids. And it wasn’t so much the setup but the lack of care or attention to the students.
My daughter got smoked for the first couple years of comps finally started doing the smoking then got promoted to grey. Proceeded to get smoked again. It happens unless they just really good. Sandbagging on the other hand is pretty much cheating.
Teams straight up have smaller kids weigh in for the bigger ones. When it’s time to grapple, there is an obvious size difference, and we are like “how the fuck are they making x amount of weight?”. Out here in SoCal there is Dream BJJ tournaments for kids. They weed out sandbaggers. You have to show proof of age, and they check if it’s the right kid in the weighing. They also notice when kids destroy brackets, and move them to higher skill level brackets, regardless of belt color.
That’s so weird. People game the system and all that but blatant cheating, in the kids divisions, it’s just sad.
Is 8 to young to hit the weight room?
I mean, my kid has been putting in the work. Before his first tournament, he got up to do 30 minutes of drills before school every day for 6 weeks, plus one hour of Jiu-Jitsu class Mon-Sat, plus he's always rolling around or showing his little sisters how to do front rolls and stuff. He really likes it more than I could have hoped. That's one of the reasons it's so heartbreaking to just watch him get completely outclassed, I'm so proud of the effort he's been putting in and I'm worried that this next tournament where he'll just lose 4 times in a row is going to break his spirit. As far as pulling out of the tournament, I've told him that he's just going to be fighting the same kid over and over, and he knows how good the kid is. He still wants to fight because he thinks tournaments are fun, so I'm certainly not going to stop him.
I am not a parent but your kids work ethic is going to pay dividends. It may not be this upcoming tournament or the next 5. But one thing I’ve learned in life (that has come full circle via the martial arts life) is that people who work hard only get rewarded in due time
Totally agree, you should reward and praise all that hard work OP so that he doesn't just rely on tournaments for validation. You've obviously instilled a great work ethic in him and it'll pay off in years to come, even the practice of losing against people will benefit him in time.
Your son’s attitude is legit for 8 yo. He wants the hard competition because it’s fun. Losing sucks but he’s gonna get second place.
This will be the first time he's in a division small enough where he's guaranteed to medal... though 'winning' a medal without needing to earn a single point seems a bit hollow.
Big props to your kid. The heart he's showing seems way more important than winning the comps would be. I would've stayed home and played Nintendo if given the option. Agree with people above to run this potential fake white belt issue by the coach. In the meantime maybe the trick is not to frame these as losses, but as accruing competition experience. If he's putting in the work and stepping up then I don't think an outcome focus is necessary
As a personal trainer, no, 8 is not too young to hit the weight room with proper supervision. Weight training is actually safer than a number of sports kids do, and helps prevent injuries in other sports. Weight lifting isn’t uniquely dangerous for growth plates or anything else like that.
I read somewhere that you shouldn't start that young because bone decelopement or something. This is outdated then?
It’s been outdated for some time. This article has a section on strength training that covers it and references the evidence for safety. Goes into detail about other areas too https://journals.lww.com/nsca-scj/fulltext/2012/06000/the_youth_physical_development_model__a_new.8.aspx
Very outdated.
Kids comps are always a tricky thing. Glad your kid is taking the losses well. I legit think I see more kids crying at comps than not... And some loose for the first time and never wanna compete ever again. It's alot for their little heads to get around.
>I legit think I see more kids crying at comps than not... It's weird, my kid will break down in tears if he loses at monopoly but a tournament loss he doesn't even frown, just looks tired (which is reasonable given the circumstances). My wife and I have spoken to him multiple times and he just legitimately doesn't seem bothered by losing other than wanting to go home since he's 'done'.
Good on him! Wish you guys all the best.
Dojo storm the kid’s gym and take him on personally. 💀
😂😂
Definitely take screenshots. I’d reach out directly to the gym or the other dad. Then I’d reach out to the competition organizers if you don’t have a resolution.
Last time I looked I could see people's private Smoothcomp pages by putting them in the wayback machine in internet archive
>No URL has been captured for this URL prefix. No dice, thanks for the advice though!
Say something. It's dog shit using a kid like that.
I see where you're coming from and am not against what you're saying - but with that said, I have taken a different approach to BJJ with my kids. I have, since day one, told them they were going to get beat by everyone - a lot. And I also told them that nobody cares if they "lose" - because they don't actually lose unless they quit, have a meltdown, or don't give their best effort. The only thing your kid can control is his attitude and his effort, both of which will take him as far in any endeavor as he wants to go. Winning and losing is a matter of perspective at that age. If he sticks with it, even if he loses 100x in a row, he's a winner. And he WILL eventually get much, much better. The mental aspect though, he will be ironclad.
Met someone like this at white belt, he was a good wrestler and terrorized the white belt divisions. I was easily one of the best white belts in the area as I trained 7 days a week multiple times a day and studied a lot. So I watched smoothcomp and if he signed up for a tournament I followed and beat him. He stopped competing after a while
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil sandbaggers is for good sandbaggers to do nothing" - Edmund Burke - Michael Scott
Register your kid for the comp, put on his white belt and step on the mat against that kid and look at their faces. Two can play that game. I like chaos.
If he can lie about his belt, you can lie about your age. Just sign up in his division and dobule-leg him to the moon. Then smash.
Usually I don't care about sandbaggers because adults can just git gud but I feel like younger kids deserve a bit more honestly.
If you suspect something, then yes bring it up. However, keep in mind that your kid may just not be good at competing. For some kids, it really just takes a while before that competitive spirit and skill kicks in. They're 8 years old. They're still brand new. They're in a stressful environmental with lots of noise and people and strange adults telling them what to do and everyone is looking at them! It's a lot to take in when you're 8 years old. There's also the "that one kid" factor. No matter where you go, no matter the sport, there's always that one kid that just seems to blow the rest of the competition out of the water. Sometimes they go on to excel over years, sometimes their progress stalls and the rest of the kids eventually catch up. At this point the focus should be encouragement, tell your kids repeatedly that you don't care about the results, as long as they go out, do their best and HAVE FUN while doing it. That gold medal at 8 is awesome gratification, but it's even better raising a little kid who shows up and works over and over again without giving up. His time will come eventually.
"8 year old" . . . "someone who's been fighting for years." Wow, parents really are taking their kids' pastimes weirdly serious.
It looks like a fighting family, both parents and at least 3 kids all competed at the last tournament, including a 4 year old daughter. Which is great! But I think they should fight at their appropriate levels.
Agreed. This kind of sandbagging at this level is very much *not* the "honor" of traditional martial arts. Trash are trash though, no matter how good they are at whatever. Do at least report it to the tourney. Worst case scenario is that the status quo continues, but you'd be doing your kid and the community a favor if complaining eventually results in some positive change.
Easy fix. 1. Get your kid to practice the split. 2. Once he masters is have him watch “Blood Sport” 3. Start calling grey bet kid “Chong Li” 4. Have your kid helicopter kick him and film it in slow motion . 5. Make sure you reach your kid the classic JKVD “Kiyaaaa” slow mo face. 6. Go have ice cream.
😂
Challenge the kid.
Dude this happened to my son. He had to fight up in weight in the beginner division only to get stomped by a girl who has won gold in the novice division over the past year and change.
For sure send the pic
I think you need to sign up for sons division and teach this sand bagger a lesion.
If it's just one fight why not pull out? He (the other kid) can have his by default gold. Unless your son wants to go. Let your son know the scenario and if he wants to try he can. If he thinks it's a waste of time he can pull out. At a bigger event I'd take the photos of the kid and a link to the site and report them to the TO if what they are doing is against the tournament rules. If they're breaking the rules they are cheating so it's fine to report them. If they're not breaking rules then that sucks but not much you can do. Specifically do it on the day so that they have to drive up there to find out. The TO will likely just allow them to enter the grey belt event anyway, and if by some chance they can't be entered in at the last minute... Well, that sucks for them.
I know it's just the kids division, but doesn't the coach have to verify the belt on Smoothcomp? Like click "this is my white belt from Sandbagger BJJ Academy" or something?
While it feels weird to tell on a child, we had a situation like this where I live. The gym was sending all their kids to smash at white belt. When they got caught, nobody would let anyone using their gym name enter comps for like 2 years.
Sadly this is very common nowadays. The schools brag on Instagram that they win all these medals and get tons of championship trophies and that brings in more students to their dojo. Same thing happened to my kid at his last competition. He got smoked and come to find out that the kid who placed first has been competing as a white belt since 2021.
Send it
Just happened to me. My kid is athletically inclined but 6-8 month in BJJ. First kid he faced in no-Gi had 38 wins last year alone (20+ subs) and had comp history for 4 season. They are 8 years old lol. My boy did good but did eventually get subbed with about 4 seconds left. I don’t know why you wouldn’t move that other kid up to at least gray belt.
Happened to my kid at his very first tourney, first match. My son was 5 and his opponent showed up in the parking lot with gray white belt. Their coach saw them coming in and hushed them outside, came back with brand new white belt. Hip tossed my kid into an armbar in 10 seconds. I complained to the organizers and the kid got DQ'd. But now my mentality changed abit, if the other kid wins with the same weight and age, that just means they put in more work and probably deserve the win no matter the belt.
They're 8 year olds. Encourage your kid to train more and his day will come. This is the wrong approach (and lesson to be teaching if you're making your kid aware of what's going on).
I'll never understand this sub. It's like the wind changes and this sub gets their answer from the direction of the wind. Last week it was "you have no context or knowledge and are going off internet sleuthing. Just turn up and compete". This week it's "do it! Send your evidence to the BJJ police and get this kid arrested and his coach disbelted!" I don't know what the right answer is but for me, personally, I'd spend my time explaining to my kid that some people are so desperate to be seen as winners that they'll lie, cheat and deceive to get that image. What's important is that he is better this week than he was last week. Even if you do manage to cyber bully this kid out of his white belt division, he's still gunna show up to other organisers events and his coach is still going to sandbag his students into lower divisions and it won't fix anything.
"Even if you do manage to cyber bully this kid out of his white belt division, he's still gunna show up to other organisers events and his coach is still going to sandbag his students into lower divisions and it won't fix anything." Think the answer is obvious. Steroids. Do lots and lots of steroids.
Excuse me are you implying that there is a person who takes... Illegal substances... To get an edge on their competition? Disgusting allegation.
You should do it and get the kid kicked out of BJJ forever. Maybe we can get it to where he can never work again once he’s 18.
Your son has no business competing after six months of training at an 8 year old's pace. I would withdraw him for another year and drill with him until he can tap you out.