I´m six month blue belt who unfortunately only train 2 out of the 4 sessions a week.
I was given my blue after 1,5 year but I have been training MMA since 2001 so I am pretty solid technically but my conditioning is my major problem.
During sparring I go even with all other blue belts, tap the new and lighter ones and tap occasionally to the more experiences ones.
When rolling with some of the whites I dont always tap them, basically letting them pass guard to recover it, let them get mount to sweep them and so on. But I always make sure to win on points, basically work on position and wrestling.
My question is, should you always tap a lower belt in sparring to defend your rank=
I say it's up to what you wanna work on at the moment. If you wanna work a new technique with a white belt go for(even if it leads to submission), I think that's a good way of learning new technique. Or if you wanna work on escaping technique. Or of you wanna let him/her work their technique. So I say it fine if you do or don't.
You need to establish your goals when you're training with the whites: either an attacking or a defensive strategy. Either way, you get what you need out of practice, and the white learns from anything you do anyway. Figure out what you need to work on more (attacks/defences), and go from there.
I personally when i roll with white belts i work on one particular area i want to improve for example:
1.escapes
2.attack
3.Sub defense
4.Sweeps
5.Work on improving theirs game
6. etc etc
Sometimes i let them lock the submission tight and then try to escape..
Or if i want to improve their game i usually do like this..If i show them lets say how to get the back i will then roll with them and roll in a way that the only option they have is to take my back,in that way they will improve faster what they learned...but i will not give them the position too easy,they have to work for it....
Or if i show them UPA ,when is the time to roll , i will kill theirs game until i get the mount put my hand in the collar and if they dont do the UPA i will tell them do the UPA,and i will continue to get theirs mount time after time and make them work this move by positioning myself so that they can work the move we practiced that day...
Or i will roll hard with them i they have a competiton coming up....
White belts should be tapped in every roll. You should also spit on them after you have tapped them every time. Anything less and you should be demoted.
I roll the way I was treated. I teach and help with lower belts until they try some spaz move and try to tap me with some utter BS. For that reason alone I never let a new student lock a submission tight before I try to escape because a new guy will pop you without knowing.
But usually I am pretty cool guy to roll with. Like Rickson without the skill.
I say it depends on your mood and if he is a spaz or not. We have alot of wrestler white belts that are very strong and play a good top game but lack the technical skills.
I try to tell them to slow down and take thier time and if that doesn't work, i'll immediatly try to tap them fast to frusterate them.
"When rolling with some of the whites I dont always tap them, basically letting them pass guard to recover it, let them get mount to sweep them and so on. But I always make sure to win on points, basically work on position and wrestling."
Funniest line eva!!!!! Bro if you're keeping track of points in training then you're going about training the wrong way. Training is training, that's when you try and experiment. So what if you tap in training? It only counts on competition day.
I agree with spider guard, though I often find myself doing the opposite. Training is training--that's when you should experiment and not keep track of who wins or loses.
"White belts should be tapped in every roll. You should also spit on them after you have tapped them every time. Anything less and you should be demoted."
You forgot about the part where you have to stomp on their necks as they lie prone on the mat after the roll. If they're not lying prone on the mat after the roll, you better go back and figure out what you're doing wrong.
I think its good to let a white belt tap you here and there. I mean, what are you trying to prove? I think giving a white belt the opportunity to tap you is good because he tends to open his game up with more confidence. If you are always dominating him to death, then as soon as both of you start rolling he's going to go into survival mode from the first minute.
i start light and play around if they go hard i turn it up(I'm 145 so usually I am outweighed). If i'm seriously owning a beginner to the point where I am tapping him over and over quickly - I will stop and show them how i was catching them and what they were doing wrong. Or I will ask if they have any questions
Maybe like 5 mins of instruction and then letting them try it against reduced resistance. Sorta like a miniprivate, and then right back to the previous pace. That way we both improve. I get to work my attacks and they get instruction focused directly on their game.
I usually let them do whatever they want...I know they can't tap me so I practice escapes etc. When we've finished, they usually say something like "You were just playing with me, weren't you?" and I smile and ask them if they had fun. Outplaying new guys often doesn't help their game, and in our school, higher ranked belts are supposed to assist lower ranked guys. It's pointless showing a new guy a move and then defeating his every attempt to apply it....he walks out thinking "Maybe that technique doesn't work...."
All of us only got better by being coached and guided by better guys, so if you're one of them now, you gotta lend a hand to the white belts. Anything else is just an ego trip, a malady usually cured by getting your ass handed to you by your coach etc.
What about if you roll with 3-4 stripe bigger sized white belts? Are blue belts (no matter what their size/weight) supposed to tap them ALL the time?
I know I can usually control most white belts who are bigger than me when we roll in timed bouts (say 6 mins) but I find that when I get really tired (say after several rounds of rolling) I'd probably get tapped by newer white belts.
Good training partners are one of the most important things to have to learn BJJ.
Training partners help each of us learn, a training partner is (good ones) are hard to find.
You also have to teach someone to be a good training partner, just like you had to learn to become one.
All that said, your question, "are you suppose to tap lower belts?", is really dependant on what your goal both long term and short term is at the moment.
Tap the new guys, but once a white belt has settled down, stopped spazzing and is willing to learn, you can ease up and start training a bit more productively.