Thoughts on newly promoted blue belts giving speeches?

  • Inspiring to hear their unique journey and hardship to get something difficult
  • Wait until black belt to be giving your speech

0 voters

Been seeing a trend of people getting promoted to blue belt, everyone claps, then out of nowhere they start giving a speech about it.

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We usually rent out a small, local banquet hall, have it catered, set up a podium with a microphone and proper stage lighting. We invite families, friends and local dignitaries to attend.

Then we offer uninterrupted time for people getting their 1st stripe to reflect on their white belt journey, so far.

Afterwards we have a professionally shot & edited DVD of the event available.

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I used to have a friend that turned into a douche bag when he got his blue belt.

He became insufferable when he got his purple. Apparently that bestows immense amounts of knowledge about everything, even outside of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, on the awardee.

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What fucking blue belt is giving a speech? Never heard of this in my life lol

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Uhm no

Ita starting to happe with these new white belt man I’m telling you. Never seen it in 10 years and seen it like 3 times in the past year

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It’s related to BJJ getting bigger and attracting a greater swarth of the general public.

For a lot of folks it’s the most difficult they’ve ever done. Think about it. How many people stick with something for 1-2 years. Especially something as physically demanding?

It’s cringey but not surprising.

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As society is getting gayer & gayer, well, everything else is too.

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Sometimes my professor makes a kid make a speech after getting a stripe on their white belt. It’s always fucking hilarious.

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Belts are kinda lame

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Damn that’s the hottest thing I’ve read on the UG in awhile :hot_face:

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When I was a white belt in '97 I saw my fist BJJ black belt promotion.

The guy leading the warm ups was a 4-stripe brown belt who had moved to the U.S. from Brazil the year before. He was part of the same team (Carlson) .

It was a normal Tuesday class, we were doing jumping jacks to start the warm-up.

My teacher & Carlson Gracie, Jr. interrupted and said, (paraphrase) “Hey we decided this guy more than deserves to be promoted. He’s a great guy, very technical. Already taught at his own class in Brazil. This is from us and also from, Marcelo --his other teacher from Brazil.”

Quick hugs.

–Back to Jumping Jacks.

It took about 1 minute, 90 seconds, max. No speech.

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I just got to cry a little(not really) while laughing and while running the gauntlet and getting whipped with belts.

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When I promote people, I just throw the new belt at them. People applaud and that’s it.

We are just given a belt and then you get shark tanked.

Maybe bringing back the gauntlet would reign some of this behavior in…

When I was teaching we started with big ceremonies. Then we decided to mix it up. If we hade a hardcore grinder who put in his 8-12yrs training with the same group of buddies we gave the black belt at the end of a hard training session. He was with his crew. They just got done having some fun and all his regular peers are there. Getting your black belt wearing a soaked sweaty gi has a special value.

I NEVER let anyone give a speech. Had one guy turn after getting his purple belt after a rough 6yr journey and yell “Fuck Yes!” That’s a close to a speech as I’ve allowed. Conversely my students tended not to post the 32 page social media thank you list either.

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Yes. But this generation would also increase your lawsuits exponentially

I had a 20 something blue belt come in my office an tell me he was switching gyms because he made friends with some guys from another academy socially during covid.

While he was sitting there telling me how I changed his life, I was on my computer deleting his program kinda ignoring him. Then I closed my laptop and said, “You’re all set”. He stood up and goes, “So that’s it?” and starts to cry. Real tears. He trained maybe 3x a week for maybe 14months. A no stripe blue belt. A total unauthentic, retarted, whatever student who thought he was going to be the next Gordon. He was moving to an academy 5 miles away and starts to cry when he’s telling me he was leaving. He stood there waiting for a hug or some shit and I just patted him on the back and said, good luck.

It was the gayest, most bitch ass thing I’ve ever seen.

Like 3 months later he tagged me when he got his first stripe on his blue belt and wrote some gay ass love letter to BJJ with a photo montage of him training in class. These dorks are ruining our sport. 20yrs ago that woulda got your ass kicked.

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