When Blue Belts are Basically Black Belts - Ruotolo Bros

Blue is the highest you can acheive as a child. I understand the thinking that is behind this when they made it, but IMO it's outdated and doesn't seem to be working well. On the one hand they don't want a bunch of kid blackbelts that can't really fight, but now there are kids that at 15 or 16 are as good or better than world champions. In some cases it could be the kids are young and have strength, speed, flexibility, etc on their side, but often times their actual knowledge of Bjj is as good or better than most blackbelts.

With people starting earlier and better instruction, someone with 10 years of experience can be really good. They might not have a black belt, but IMO they are masters of BJJ. IMHO the belt system needs to be revised.
15 16 yearolds now who are better than world champions? lol who? nicky ryan was 16 beating top no gi guys in his division but who else
 
Blue is the highest you can acheive as a child. I understand the thinking that is behind this when they made it, but IMO it's outdated and doesn't seem to be working well. On the one hand they don't want a bunch of kid blackbelts that can't really fight, but now there are kids that at 15 or 16 are as good or better than world champions. In some cases it could be the kids are young and have strength, speed, flexibility, etc on their side, but often times their actual knowledge of Bjj is as good or better than most blackbelts.

With people starting earlier and better instruction, someone with 10 years of experience can be really good. They might not have a black belt, but IMO they are masters of BJJ. IMHO the belt system needs to be revised.

Belts should never be an issue, it's a tool between you and your coach / coaches / affiliation to show your progress and giving you a goal

The belt system for kids is awesome, if you follow the IBJJF guideline they have constant progression until they can get a black belt at 19 years old. which is more realistic than having a black belt 15 years old kid or stalling people at brown belt for 2-3 years because they can't get a black belt until they have 18.

It's the competition based on belts that is the matter.

It should be based on age group like soccer or hockey with U15,U16, U17... after 20 or 21 you play with the big boys (you can try U21 if your 18...) until you become a master at 30. Who cares about the belts, the game would be, are you the best 17 years old in the world. With that, no sandbagging, it's safer for the kids and we will see stars emerging. As a fan of the sport I would definitely love that, it would be less biased and with no sandbagging.

For the common folks they can still do competition with belt categories or switch it up to beginners (less than a year experience) intermediate (2-3 years) and advanced

Belts in competition is just creating a whining fest, when you lose everybody is sandbagging, when you win it's because you're sandbagging...
 
Belts should never be an issue, it's a tool between you and your coach / coaches / affiliation to show your progress and giving you a goal

The belt system for kids is awesome, if you follow the IBJJF guideline they have constant progression until they can get a black belt at 19 years old. which is more realistic than having a black belt 15 years old kid or stalling people at brown belt for 2-3 years because they can't get a black belt until they have 18.

It's the competition based on belts that is the matter.

It should be based on age group like soccer or hockey with U15,U16, U17... after 20 or 21 you play with the big boys (you can try U21 if your 18...) until you become a master at 30. Who cares about the belts, the game would be, are you the best 17 years old in the world. With that, no sandbagging, it's safer for the kids and we will see stars emerging. As a fan of the sport I would definitely love that, it would be less biased and with no sandbagging.

For the common folks they can still do competition with belt categories or switch it up to beginners (less than a year experience) intermediate (2-3 years) and advanced

Belts in competition is just creating a whining fest, when you lose everybody is sandbagging, when you win it's because you're sandbagging...

Finally, a voice of reason.

Since jiu-jitsu isn't a scholastic sport, and people start at different ages with different training schedules, skill divisions - particularly for beginners - make sense. Tying those to belts, though, has been a source of endless problems. It adds to the belts becoming a massive distraction. It would be simple enough to change the divisions to years of experience, rather than bets (some tournaments already do this for kids and no-gi with good results).
 
If you have a "hobbiest" black belt, that's really just fraud.

really? So all black belts of the world should still compete? So bb in their 40 50 60 are just frauds because they don’t compete anymore or because they can’t hang with youngsters that train 3 times a day and are 18 years old? That’s some logic right there...
 
I think it all comes down to the gym,
I'm sure that's true. I just meant what is technically allowed by ibjj for competition. I only brought it up because of everyone's concerns that 16 yearolds who have been training for a decade will wreck all of the 2-3 year blue belts. If gyms are honest, those 16 yearolds will be purple.


From their grading handbook:
1
2.2
2.3
2.3.1
2.3.2
ARTICLE 2 – MINIMUM AGES
Minimum age requirements for athletes between 04 to 15 years old
White – Any age
Group Grey (Gray and White Belt, Gray Belt, Gray and Black Belt) – 4 to 15 years
Group Yellow (Yellow and White Belt, Yellow Belt, Yellow and Black Belt) – 7 to 15 years
Group Orange (Orange and White Belt, Orange belt, Orange and Black Belt) – 10 to 15 years
Group Green (Green and White Belt, Green Belt, Green and Black Belt) – 13 to 15 years
Minimum age requirements for athletes starting from 16 years old
White – Any age
Blue – 16 years or more
Purple – 16 years or more
Brown – 18 years or more
Black – 19 years or more
Red and black – 50 years or more
Red and white – 57 years or more
Red – 67 years or more

Having belts that require you to be an old man is laughable to me. It's some cult-like TMA shit.
 
really? So all black belts of the world should still compete? So bb in their 40 50 60 are just frauds because they don’t compete anymore or because they can’t hang with youngsters that train 3 times a day and are 18 years old? That’s some logic right there...

I think that they should have been there at one point. Not even competing, but competitive. You're seeing a lot of black belts that never jad glory days. They never performed at all, but came twice a week for ten years and perform like a decent blue belt.
 
I think that they should have been there at one point. Not even competing, but competitive. You're seeing a lot of black belts that never jad glory days. They never performed at all, but came twice a week for ten years and perform like a decent blue belt.

true, many guys have earned the bb via showing up, Mats don’t lie and most people even in their gym know that. Now the fact that Nicky Ryan wrecks you doesn’t mean you are not a bb. The fact that you have not win any mayor tournament doesn’t mean you are not a bb, means you are not a competitor or didn’t have the chance to compete, and even if you were entering bb tournaments, doesn’t mean jack, all it takes is some money and you as a bb could be competeting and getting your ass handle for ever. I know a case of a bb from my country who only competed in big tournaments in Brazil, though wasn’t competing in small tournaments here in my country, truth to be told, he wasn’t good enough to beat the locals, but had some big tournaments under his belt (never won a match though, to be honest, he got some tough ass mother fuckers on his first fights almost always) to be honest the whole belt system as right now is just a cash machine, there is very little difference between an elite purple brown or even bb... shit got real a while ago...
 
I'm sure that's true. I just meant what is technically allowed by ibjj for competition. I only brought it up because of everyone's concerns that 16 yearolds who have been training for a decade will wreck all of the 2-3 year blue belts. If gyms are honest, those 16 yearolds will be purple.


From their grading handbook:


Having belts that require you to be an old man is laughable to me. It's some cult-like TMA shit.

Swtich the belt blue for purple, it’s the same, a 16 years old kid who has 10 years of training will most certainly wreck a purple with 4 years...
 
On Matburn a few months ago, I believe the twins said that they could be promoted to purple (I believe they have been promoted since).

My understanding might be a bit hazy since it was a few months ago and I'm probably doing a bit of inferring (so sorry if I'm essentially putting words into their mouths).

The issue with that was, at the juveniles, it would drastically cut down the number of people they could compete against. Most of the juveniles were at blue and realistically, the difference in skill between blue and purple wasn't huge so they rather go with way more quantity rather than a bit more quality. Being in the competition scene, they know who their rivals and who are giving them the toughest matches in any case.
 
true, many guys have earned the bb via showing up, Mats don’t lie and most people even in their gym know that. Now the fact that Nicky Ryan wrecks you doesn’t mean you are not a bb. The fact that you have not win any mayor tournament doesn’t mean you are not a bb, means you are not a competitor or didn’t have the chance to compete, and even if you were entering bb tournaments, doesn’t mean jack, all it takes is some money and you as a bb could be competeting and getting your ass handle for ever. I know a case of a bb from my country who only competed in big tournaments in Brazil, though wasn’t competing in small tournaments here in my country, truth to be told, he wasn’t good enough to beat the locals, but had some big tournaments under his belt (never won a match though, to be honest, he got some tough ass mother fuckers on his first fights almost always) to be honest the whole belt system as right now is just a cash machine, there is very little difference between an elite purple brown or even bb... shit got real a while ago...

Of course he does. They enter a few "major" (really just whatever IBJJF tournament is around), tournaments, have the IBJJF kick out the rest of the competitors and wow, congrats at winning worlds master 3 at black belt. All without having to mingle with the peasants at NAGA.
 
Swtich the belt blue for purple, it’s the same, a 16 years old kid who has 10 years of training will most certainly wreck a purple with 4 years...
I don't believe that. Sure, there are some 16 yearolds who are really physically developed and the extra years of training help, but there would be plenty of times that the purple belt would win.

The rate that you learn physical movements is a lot lower from ages 6-12ish than it is after that. I would say that someone who trained from ages 6-16 probably got a similar training value as someone who trained from ages 16-21. An example in a somewhat similar sport: in collegiate wrestling guys who started wrestling in highschool beat guys who started in elementary school all of the time.

I'm not saying that training longer isn't an advantage or that there aren't any 16 yearolds at brown or black belt level, but I think that purple belt is a suitable place to put a really good 16 yearold. If he is that good, he'll be a black belt by the time he's 20 anyway.

Edit: Btw, where I train we actually have an 18 yearold purple belt who has been training since he was 9. He has really good rolls with a 28 yearold purple belt who has been training for 5 years. They are both fit and compete at the same weight.
 
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Damn - I guess when you've been training since you were a kid you've basically put in the time to be at that level.



I literally don't understand any part of this post. Neither is practising at full intensity. Neither looks particularly elite in this video.

Fake news.
 
The Ruotolos have beat a IBJJF SIlver medalist and an ADCC silver medalist. Its one thing if your instructor thinks you aren't ready for a belt, but the IBJJF doesn't know how good someone is, so I don't understand why they are making rules regarding time/age. The biggest problem is it stops competition and now we really don't know who the best people in the world are. A few years ago J.Alves(a brown belt) beat Shane Jamil Taylor while Shane was the current black belt world champion. If the current rules were in place people like BJ Penn, Fabrico Werdum, etc wouldn't have been world champions.
 
The Ruotolos have beat a IBJJF SIlver medalist and an ADCC silver medalist. Its one thing if your instructor thinks you aren't ready for a belt, but the IBJJF doesn't know how good someone is, so I don't understand why they are making rules regarding time/age. The biggest problem is it stops competition and now we really don't know who the best people in the world are. A few years ago J.Alves(a brown belt) beat Shane Jamil Taylor while Shane was the current black belt world champion. If the current rules were in place people like BJ Penn, Fabrico Werdum, etc wouldn't have been world champions.

Because making rules like that means people will pay to be properly evaluated. And that no one is gonna pull up and sub Roger or Buchecha in an upset because they can't enter in the first place.
 
been saying this for a long time, its ridiculous that guys that have been grappling for over 10 years are "blue belts" these kids must comepete as blue belts beause of their age, yet some random dude whos been traing for 2 yeatrs have to go agasint this "kids" who have more mat time than 99% of hobbiest black belts, its ridiculous.
I remember Chris Brennan got pissed at one of the local tournaments I went too because his teenage son (whose he's been training wrestling and BJJ for 10 years) got smoked hardcore by some 16 year old BJJ blue belt priodigy from Brazil who had been training for over 10 years.

He went on some facebook rant trying to defend his sons honor and was basically whining that the brazilian was sandbagging and had been training his whole life. A bunch of people called him out and said "uhhh haven't you been personally training your son since he was a toddler" ? <Lmaoo>

The brazilian in question (Matheus Gabriel) was a freak of nature to be fair, he went on to win the world champion at blackbelt just 3 years after smoking Chris's son
 
Those kids are good as I've seen previously, but nothing in that video makes me think black belt. They seem to be just playing around. In actuality they can likely compete well vs purple and browns.
Tye just beat Vagner Rocha a couple months ago via unanimous decision. And Vagner got silver in the wight class above Tye the month prior at ADCC. And speaking ADCC. Tye put on dominating performances in wins over Bruno Frazatto and Pablo Mantovani to make the semis. In the semis against Cobrinha Jr (Kennedy Maciel) he was headed to a sure decision intense passing and 2 deeeep d'arce chokes. In the final minute he went for a heel hook and Kennedy ended up taking Tye's back and RNC'ing for the win.

In the bronze match, Tye had another barn-burner match with Paulo Miyao where he pushed the pace with passing and with sweep attempts. And got Paulo in that kneebar that anyone else on earth would've tapped to. And also got Paulo in a couple more d'arce attempts. After a tight regulation and overtime Paulo won with a sweep in the final 90 seconds.

The kneebar became a #leglocksdontwork meme
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After ADCC Tye would go on at Grapplefest 6 to have a dominating win with lots of passes and sub attempts over Tom Halpin and Tye's brother Kade would land a flying d'arce submission win over top Lachlan Giles and Craig Jones' bad ass teammate and top prospect Jeremy Skinner.

The Ruotolo Bros are putting on black belt performances in high level competition.
 
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