Blue Belt Testing Requirements

After discussing belt tests with Marshal Carper, I felt like writing up what my blue belt requirements would be. These are idealized, since I don’t actually rank anyone or run a school, and I don’t know how practical all the testing would be. I’m sharing them here since the feedback from those who have read them has been positive, and they may help direct those who are having trouble figuring out what to work on.

Some people object to formal belt tests, and I understand their usual criticisms, especially if there’s a price for testing. A good instructor gauges their students’ progress and readiness for promotion through daily training. So this may just be an exercise for me laying down what I’m looking for in a blue belt, even though I may never run these tests. If it ever does become a real standard for my students, then it will remove the guesswork so my students know exactly what to expect.

These requirements may seem exhaustive, and the blue belt test may seem like too many techniques, but I don’t expect anyone to pass these with 100% accuracy. My reason for requiring so many techniques at blue belt is I feel that is the right time to make someone show you they are aware of the breadth of BJJ fundamentals, without worrying too much about how deep their knowledge is or how skilled their performance is. The purple belt and up are not really about what techniques you know (you’re assumed to know all the important ones by then) but other qualities like timing, use of combinations, depth of knowledge, etc.

Path to Blue Belt – Testing Requirements

The goal of these requirements is to clearly explain what is expected of you as you earn stripes on your white belt and eventually test for your blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Other important factors also play a role in your promotion, such as how long you have been training, your attendance record, your behavior in and outside the gym, your performance against resisting opponents, your tournament performance, your physical conditioning, previous martial arts experience, etc. Your instructor is already gauging these daily. The formal tests below give us a chance to ensure you are gaining the necessary knowledge and skills to build a solid foundation in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

The focus of a white belt trying to earn a blue belt should be on learning defenses, escapes, good habits (like defensive postures and good base) and self defense, and those are where the most technical proficiency is expected at testing. A basic knowledge of takedowns, positions, strategy and submissions is also needed, but a deep understanding and flawless execution is not expected or required.

If you need help learning something required for a test, you should ask your instructor or a more experienced student for guidance. Try to find a training partner who wants to put in extra work, ideally another white belt who is also preparing for their next test too.

Remember that your goal should not be to get a piece of colored cotton, but to improve your jiu-jitsu, your mind and your body. The belt represents the recognition of your instructor for your dedication and skill. It’s hard not to be eager to earn your first belt, but if you make your goal to constantly learn and better yourself, the belts will come naturally.

White Belt, 1st Stripe

What is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu?

  • Explain how jiu-jitsu came to Brazil, and how it developed into an unique system.
  • Explain what jiu-jitsu translates to and its meaning.
  • What makes it different than Japanese jujitsu and judo and other martial arts like karate?
  • What is your instructor’s lineage back to the founders of Brazilian jiu-jitsu?

Basic Movements

  • Forward breakfall
  • Sideways breakfall
  • Backward breakfall
  • Shrimping
  • Reverse shrimping
  • Bridging to all fours
  • Technical stand-up
  • Box sit-outs

White Belt, 2nd Stripe

Three Ranges of Combat

Explain and demonstrate the three ranges of combat: stand-up, clinch, and ground. What are their advantages and disadvantages and what are your goals in each range? How do these change for a BJJ match, a MMA match and a self defense situation? You are not expected to demonstrate any specific techniques in detail, but need to show a basic understanding of the three ranges.

Defensive Postures

Show the correct defensive postures and grips from these inferior positions:

  • Rear mount
  • Mount
  • Knee-on-belly
  • Side control
  • Turtle
  • Half guard

You do not yet need to know how to escape these positions, just how to safely protect your arms, neck and face.

White Belt, 3rd Stripe

Positional Hierarchy

Explain and demonstrate the hierarchy of these grappling positions: rear mount, mount, knee-on-belly, side control, turtle, half guard, open guard and closed guard. You should be able to explain the advantages and disadvantages of each position from both the top and bottom, and what your basic goals are from each. You are not expected to demonstrate any specific techniques in detail, but to have a general understanding of the positions and the proper way to hold them.

Basic Positions

As you explain the positional hierarchy, also demonstrate how to properly hold these positions:

  • Rear mount (harness or double lapel grip, two hooks, why you don’t cross the feet)
  • Mount (collar grip, crossface, hands wide)
  • Knee-on-belly
  • Side control (head-and-arm, 100 kilos, cradle, how you block the guard return)
  • Side ride (top of turtle, front, back and side)
  • Half guard top (underhook and crossface)
  • Posture in closed guard

White Belt, 4th Stripe

Awareness and Self Defense

Explain the role awareness plays in protecting yourself, and how you would responsibly defend yourself and use Brazilian jiu-jitsu outside the school.

Self Defense

  • Defending punches and haymakers
  • Defending kicks and knees
  • Achieving the safe clinch
  • Escape from front bear hug over the arms
  • Escape from front bear hug under the arms
  • Escape from rear bear hug over the arms
  • Escape from rear bear hug under the arms
  • Escape from standing front headlock/guillotine
  • Escape from standing side headlock
  • Escape from standing rear headlock/rear choke
  • Defending strikes from closed guard
  • Standing up from closed guard while defending strikes
  • Defending strikes and getting to your feet while downed versus standing attacker

Blue Belt

Of everything tested for your blue belt, escapes from inferior positions, especially side control, are the most important. Because being stuck in bad positions is the biggest problem for beginners, you will be expected to have worked hard to overcome this. You can have a rough areas still (especially submissions), but you will not receive a blue belt if your escapes are sloppy or rely too much on strength or flexibility.

Positional Escapes

Demonstrate and explain the following:

  • 2-3 escapes from side control (return to guard and getting to your knees)
  • 2-3 escapes from mount (shrimping to guard, bridging escape and reversal)
  • 2-3 escapes from rear mount (while face up and belly down)
  • 1-2 escape from knee-on-belly
  • 1-2 escape from north-south
  • 2-3 escapes from turtle (sit-outs, reversals and returning to guard)

Submission Defenses

  • Defending the guillotine from guard (protecting the neck, passing to the correct side)
  • Defending the armbar from guard (stacking and freeing the arm)
  • Defending the armbar from mount (bridging to knees and stacking)
  • Defending the rear naked choke (protecting your neck, trapping their arm)
  • Defending the collar choke from guard (protecting the neck and breaking grips)
  • Defending the collar choke from mount (protecting the neck and escaping mount)
  • Defending the triangle choke (how to avoid it, early escape and late escape)
  • Defending the kimura from guard (how to avoid it, early and late escapes)
  • Defending the omoplata from guard (how to avoid it, early and late escapes)
  • Defending the straight ankle lock (how to avoid it, how to escape)

Takedowns

  • Good posture, grip fighting and footwork
  • Hip throw
  • Uchimata
  • Osoto-gari
  • Uchi-gari
  • Tomeo-nage
  • Fireman’s carry
  • Double leg
  • Single leg
  • Rear takedown
  • Sprawling to defend takedowns
  • Pulling guard

Guard Passing

  • Posture in closed guard
  • 2 ways to open closed guard
  • Stacking pass
  • Double under pass
  • Over-under pass
  • Bullfighter pass
  • Cross knee pass
  • 2-3 half guard passes (underhook, facing legs, etc.)

Transitions

  • Advancing from side control to knee-on-belly
  • Advancing from side control to mount
  • Taking the back from mount
  • Taking the back from side control when they turn away
  • Taking the back from the front headlock/sprawl
  • Taking the back from side ride/top of turtle
  • Taking the back from the bottom of half guard
  • Returning to closed guard from half guard

Sweeps

  • Scissors sweep
  • Pendulum sweep
  • Hip bump sweep
  • Double ankle grab sweep
  • Overhead (feet on hips) sweep
  • Tripod sweep from spider guard
  • Sickle sweep from spider guard
  • Hook sweep from butterfly guard
  • Armdrag from butterfly guard

Submissions

  • Guillotine from standing
  • Guillotine from closed guard
  • Kimura from closed guard
  • Armbar from closed guard
  • Collar choke from closed guard
  • Triangle from closed guard
  • Omoplata from closed guard
  • Armbar from side control
  • Kimura from side control or north-south
  • Armbar from mount
  • Americana from mount
  • Arm triangle from mount
  • Collar choke from mount
  • Rear collar choke from rear mount
  • Rear naked choke from rear mount
  • Straight anklelock

Sparring

You will be paired up with several partners of different sizes and experience levels (including your instructor) to do positional and free sparring. You are not required to “win” these matches, and you will not fail if you tap to submissions. The goal of this sparring is to test specific skills in live grappling, as well as your physical conditioning and endurance.

Attributes of a Blue Belt

  • Good base and balance while on top
  • Good posture and arm positioning while on bottom
  • Not committing basic mistakes or being clueless in common positions
  • Capable of defending against an untrained attacker
  • Able to maintain composure and not panic when stuck in bad positions
  • Able to skillfully perform one or more basic moves from each major position
  • Physically fit and able to complete each round of sparring without needing to stop

How to teach to different skill levels

This question came in response to The case for dividing classes by belt rank, given my flexible stance on “the basics.”

Q: Does your new approach to divided classes change your “anything can be a fundamental technique” stance?

Thanks–I’m appreciating that you’re making your expertise so available to the community.

A: The divisions between classes have less to do my philosophy about basic versus advanced techniques and more to do with the right way of teaching and structuring classes for different kinds of students. Even if I think all good techniques, even “advanced” ones, have their own fundamentals, it doesn’t mean I teach just any moves to beginners. Certain techniques are more appropriate for new students, and more importantly, certain ways of running classes are better for beginners. The same is true of advanced students.

What may help you understand what I mean is if I explain how we run our classes at Gracie Barra Clearwater. This is in line with how Gracie Barra HQ is organizing all of their schools.

Fundamental class: These classes are open to all belt levels, but they are especially good for new white belts. In these classes, the focus is on core BJJ techniques with an emphasis on self defense. These moves tend to require less exact timing, finesse and strategy, traits beginners aren’t expect to have yet. For live training, students do positional sparring (from the positions learned that day) rather than free sparring, since this focuses their attention and prevents injuries (fewer reckless scrambles).

Advanced class: Open to three stripe white belts and higher. In these classes, the emphasis shifts to sport BJJ techniques, though some self defense is still covered. An example of this would be in teaching two versions of a double leg takedown, one for a grappling tournament (breaking gi grips, penetration step with knee touching the ground), and the other for a street fight (defending punches while shooting, not dropping your knee to the cement). These classes also do positional sparring, but they get to do free sparring too.

Black belt class: Open to blue belts and higher. In these classes, the instructor is free to cover any topic he wants, since he doesn’t have to worry about beginners being confused or left behind. These classes feature more takedowns, more combinations, deeper strategy, and harder conditioning. Like always, positional sparring is used (since it’s just a good training method) but much more free sparring and competition style sparring is done.

When we first switched to this class structure, I spoke to the classes about how the purpose was to give students the right type of training for where they are in their development, and not to “hide” techniques from them. BJJ doesn’t have any true “secret” moves, and that’s something I’ve always liked. To have “black belt only” moves, you have to either not spar (so no one ever sees the move, and you can’t really know if it works), or you have to kill everyone who sees it (which makes you a true kung fu master). We show everything we know in BJJ, and it’s our depth of understanding and our training methods that make our knowledge valuable.

As an instructor, I could easily teach “the same” moves at all three classes, but what would be different is the depth to which I expect each group to understand it.

Let’s take butterfly guard as an example. In the beginners class, I would expect them to be working on the good habits of sitting up, getting underhooks, keeping their hooks alive, and doing a simple hook sweep.

In the advanced class, I would cover this too, but expect people to already have a decent grasp of the positioning, allowing me to go into more detail on the sweep, and show simple combinations for when that sweep is countered.

In the highest level class, I wouldn’t need to worry as much about the positioning or the basic sweeps, allowing me to show combinations and attacks that need timing and awareness that I wouldn’t expect a beginner to have.

Hopefully that explains my stance well enough. If not, send in more questions or debate in the comments below!

Drill to Spin, Drill to Win

My two favorite BJJ sites are running a contest, and I joined in on the fun! The Jiu Jitsu Laboratory and DSTRYRsg launched Drill to Win, asking for jiu-jiteiros to send in videos of their favorite drills for the chance to win amazing prizes (that is, t-shirts and stickers). Here’s mine!

Here’s a description of the drills:

1. Spin behind – This is a simple drill which is good for staying on top of side control when your opponent is turning in to you with an underhook. You can also use it to get the harness (or other back control grips) if they turn far enough on their side. I was emphasizing the spin more than taking the back in these reps.

2. Spin behind to kimura grip – Adding to the previous drill by grabbing a kimura grip during the spin. I’m aware that my arm and leg positioning is different than how others teach the spin behind (see Ryan Hall’s Back Attack DVD for an example), but it’s how my teacher Professor Eduardo de Lima always showed it, and it lends itself to grabbing this kimura grip.

3. Spin behind to kimura grip and armbar – The flow continues into an armbar. It’s important that you stretch the elbow away with the kimura grip to stop them from spinning up and pulling their arm out (again a point made in Ryan Hall’s DVD, which he credits to Dave Camarillo). You can see another variation of the spin behind to armbar here.

4. Passing guard to spin behind – You can do this with almost any type of pass, but it works especially well with standing passes that go over the top of the legs. You’ll see a mix of kneeslides, leg drags, bull fighters, x-passes and the like.

5. Crucifix vs bad single leg – This drill has the simple purpose of making you recognize when the arm is vulnerable to being trapped in the crucifix. You could upgrade it by having your partner do a good single leg with the head inside, then sprawling and pushing their head to the outside.

6. Reverse omoplata! – My favorite move ever!

The case for dividing classes by belt rank

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My school Gracie Barra Clearwater moved to a new, bigger, nicer building in the last month of 2012. GBCW has been my home for the past decade, and it is where I have earned all my belts under my teacher Eduardo de Lima. This move has been a big step forward for us. It has been a lot of stress and hard work, but it’s also very exciting. My first class was in a bare bones warehouse, and now I’m a teacher in our professional training studio.

Along with the better facilities came changes to the class structure and membership plans as we fully adopted the modern Gracie Barra school model. I wanted to share my perspective on these with you, since many people seem interested in how this works. What you’ll read below comes from what I’ve shared with my students and teammates.

The GB model involves splitting classes into Fundamental (all belt levels, but especially white belts), Advanced (three strip white belts and higher), and Black Belt (blue belts and higher). It appears Marcelo Garcia and the Mendes brothers and other high level instructors use a similar class structures, and this is a growing trend if not already a standard practice.

At our old warehouse gym, we had half-heartedly tried running separate Fundamentals and Advanced classes, but we didn’t divide them well, and we didn’t keep track of who should be in which class, so eventually it fell apart and reverted back to “one big class for everyone.” So when I first learned about the plan to split the memberships up at the new school, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

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Like a lot of the long time students, I remember how when I started, I just got tossed into a group class before I even knew how to tie a belt, then had to bumble through warm-ups I didn’t know, do more push ups than I’d ever done in my life, then be put up against the higher belts to spar (while trying to not pass out from heat stroke). After class, it was left up to me to figure out how to pay for classes and how buy my first gi, then let to wander away, maybe to never return. (This is also after it took me three tries to find the old gym back in the warehouses.)

So I understand the old school pride and the “you kids have it easy these days” attitude of old timers. Many of you from the garage days have much gnarlier stories than I do, and I’m one of the kids who had it easy in your eyes. Those were special times to train and learn jiu-jitsu.

As we approached the opening of the new school and I got involved with the planning, I had my own concerns. Would we be “losing” something by splitting the classes up? Would we be “softening” or “dilluting” jiu-jitsu to appeal to a broader market? What if I liked our gym being “underground” because I’m a jiu-jitsu hipster who did it “before it was cool”? With all of these changes, would it be the same school I loved?

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You may have your own answers to those questions, but for me, after teaching and training in the new classes, and seeing the new business practices in action, I am very happy to report that all of my concerns have disappeared. The changes have been for the best of the school, the students (even the crusty higher belts) and Eduardo. The new system has only raised the standards for training, and given the school a real chance to grow and attract new students.

After seeing the way the new classes run, and the other changes to the business operations of the school, here’s what I see us “losing”:

  • Getting to inflate our ego with the “pride” of being “too tough” for 90% of new people.
  • A needless risk of injury that often ended new students’ journeys into BJJ before they really started.
  • Classes where the instructor has to walk the tightrope between teaching green beginners and seasoned competitors, only to leave both disappointed.
  • The attitude that “jiu-jitsu just isn’t for everyone” that comes from not knowing how to give people the right kind of training they need in their personal development.

And, sorry, but the hair and lint tumbleweeds are no more thanks to heightened cleaning standards.

We aren’t cutting out sparring, we aren’t lowering the standards for earning belts, we aren’t selling belts, we aren’t “softening” the training for the experienced guys. In fact, I’ve had some of the toughest and most technical training in years at the new Black Belt classes, since Eduardo is now free to really let out the techniques he’s had to hold back not because he wants to but because he has to struggle with making the a single class “work” for everyone. We’ve been doing takedowns and sparring from standing in almost every class so far, and up to an hour of sparring. Like I’ve been telling the class every time I teach, by making a place for the beginners, we’ve opened up room at the top for the higher belts to get the training they need too.

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When I was a white belt, Eduardo told me an analogy for jiu-jitsu that always stuck with me. He said the path to black belt was like climbing toward the summit of a tall mountain. You can see the goal far ahead of you, but you still have to take one step at a time and focus on making steady progress.

This mountain climbing metaphor offers us many valuable comparisons for how we think about training and learning this beautiful art. Let’s look at the new Fundamentals and Advanced classes we are launching at Gracie Barra Clearwater in this way.

New students doing the Fundamentals and Advanced classes are climbing the same mountain as every past student. All that has changed is the path being followed.

With the new curriculum, we have more clearly drawn the map, especially at the beginning of journey, so people can get their feet on the trail. Now we can steer new students in the right direction, making sure they see all the landmarks, and keep ourselves from veering off into unnecessary detours.

We used to send people right up against the sheer cliff faces of jiu-jitsu, even if they had no idea where they were going, leaving it to them to find the many pitfalls the hard way. That approach gives you “tough” fighters through survival of the fittest (or the stubbornest) but it also drives away students who had real potential but who needed a different introduction to the art. Some people love this rough path, and I can’t blame them because it’s fun it its own ways.

But let’s not kid ourselves. Jiu-jitsu doesn’t need any help being harder to learn. It is challenging enough on its own. That’s what makes it such a fun and interesting pursuit. An instructor’s big responsibility is to provide a path that each student can follow on their journey to black belt (and beyond) without getting hopelessly lost, seriously injured or quitting. The instructor’s goal is not to eliminate challenges, but to make the student ready to face the right challenges, ones that will further their personal growth.

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With Gracie Barra’s new three levels of classes (Fundamentals, Advanced and Black Belt), we have a clear structure that both students and instructors can use to improve the quality of training. These programs don’t replace the insight and expertise of a skilled instructor, but they are useful tools. By the end of the Fundamentals program, both the instructors and the students can be sure that the major areas have been addressed. This frees the instructors in the Black Belt classes to take students further into the highly advanced and intricate topics without worrying about students who can’t keep up.

The mountain isn’t made any smaller by having a smoother path to its summit. Those who pioneered the way should be proud of their hard work, and those who are just beginning should be grateful they can benefit from their work too. What we want to create are intelligent, technical and determined martial artists, and to present them with challenges that bring them higher on their paths to jiu-jitsu mastery. We’ve never had a greater opportunity to do this than today!

I hope you are as excited about the changes at the new school as I am! See you on the mats!

How to train with smaller partners

Q: At our gym, we frequently let some of the older, more advanced teens into the advanced
adult class. Our gym focuses primarily on MMA, so most of the guys that
train there are huge. As a result, I am one of the smallest people at 5’5″,
140, so I frequently get paired with the kids.

Now, this isn’t really a problem, except that some of the kids are way
smaller than me (100 lbs vs 140). I’m inexperienced in rolling with people
that are smaller than me (I’m used to being the smallest), and VERY
inexperienced in rolling with people MUCH smaller than me.

Any tips? I don’t want to be the passive partner or the “sits on you and
squashes you the whole time” partner (I’ve experienced that too much!) and
I would like both of us to come out of the experience with something.

A: Starting jiu-jitsu as a featherweight, I’ve had similar experiences to yours. If a teenager or a smaller woman needed a safe training partner, they got me. As an instructor, I’ve run teenage and young adult classes. It can be tricky to make the experience valuable to yourself and your much smaller training partners.

I’ve trained with women who complained about someone going too hard on them, then turned around and complained that someone else goes too light. So which is it? They can’t have it both ways, so what can you do?

Like Goldilocks, my answer is “not too hard, not too soft.”

No one wants you to lay there like a dead fish. Don’t be “that guy” by coaching them through doing everything to you. That’s condescending and doesn’t teach them much. They want to be feel respected and to not be treated like a lost puppy. There is a place for little bits of advice if they are clueless, by try to save talk for outside of sparring.

Give them a chance to set the tone of the match, see how hard they want to go, then act accordingly. Since they are lighter than you, the risk of injury is much lower, assuming they don’t bust out surprise heelhooks.

The way you can both benefit from training together is if you make clean, crisp technique your priority—and I’m talking about both yours and theirs. Use training with smaller partners to improve your sensitivity, precision, finesse—any trait associated with “being technical.” Training with smaller, lighter partners, you’ll have to be honest with yourself about if your technique was correct. Don’t allow yourself to succeed if you did it wrong.

You’ll also have to learn to evaluate their technique, since you don’t want to give them anything if they’re doing it flat out wrong. A good practice is to pick a certain point you want them to improve and keep setting it up to happen, ratcheting up the difficulty as they succeed.

Here’s a trick. If you think they’re up to it, go fast and push the pace without getting too aggressive or determined to get submissions. People feel satisfied with a roll if there was a lot of action, even if no one got tapped or crushed. Just make sure you don’t go so fast that it turns into a spazzfest.

When you roll, don’t hold on to any one position too tightly. Allow more transitions and escapes, but only if they do the techniques correctly. Apply purposeful pressure when you gain dominant positions to show them the consequences, but don’t force it. They need to develop some toughness too.

While you should probably go easy on the submissions, don’t be afraid to submit them if they make real mistakes, because it doesn’t help them to learn bad habits. But if they realize their mistake and try to defend properly, let it play out rather than tapping them immediately. You can learn from this too.

Don’t go so light that you allow bad habits, and don’t go so hard that you needlessly discourage them. Use this as an opportunity to refine your technique and theirs.

3 questions, 3 answers

1. Drilling a technique. Should you just focus on one side or do both?

2. Will practicing MMA make your sport BJJ game go down and vice versa?

3. When rolling. Should you start on you feet and focus on takedowns or guard pulling? Both?

Three short questions get you three short answers.

1. Drill both sides if you have time. Otherwise, drill whichever side you’ll use most. And try to drill escapes and defenses on both sides. You don’t need to be equally good at both sides, but you need a plan for both sides, even if the plan is “get to where I can do the other side.”

2. Doing one will help the other to the degree that the skills overlap. Here’s a scientific diagram to explain it:

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3. It depends on your game and what you need to improve most. If you’re like most jiu-jiteiros, you should work on your takedowns. But if you’re up against a wrestler or judoka and it’s not the time to get tossed on your head, pull guard.