I felt like the new kid at school again, wondering where I fit in or if I fit in. But then, I also started getting my butt whooped by other purple belts and even some blue belts. I thought I was ready for my purple belt - I had defeated purple belts in competition as a blue belt, and I was doing well rolling with the other more experienced purple belts in the gym. After finally battling through the “blue belt blues,” I found myself knee-deep in “purple belt panic” (Is that a thing?). This is a question that I once asked one of my upper belt mentors as a brand-new impostor-syndrome-riddled purple belt. What does this mean for us as students? How can we trust that we are where we “should” be on the jiu-jitsu belt rainbow, that we aren’t getting unfairly held back or promoted too early? Whether it’s because the lower belt is above where they “should” be or the upper belt is below where they “should” be, it’s simply proof that every instructor has a different perception of what a student at each belt level “should” look like. Yes, you can probably safely assume that a blue belt is “good,” a purple belt is “very good,” a brown belt is “ really good,” and a black belt is “great,” but there are absolutely purple belts who can beat a lot of black belts, and blue belts who are more knowledgeable than brown belts.
In other words, if you ask someone, “What makes a blue/purple/brown/black belt?” you’re probably going to get a lot of different responses. There are also some students who have the appropriate skill level for their rank but not a lot of knowledge, and others who know a lot of techniques, but struggle to put them into practice. The downside of this, of course, is that there are lots of outliers within belt levels, with some practitioners being far more advanced than most of their “belt mates” and others being significantly less experienced and knowledgeable than what is typically expected of their rank.
In some ways, this “organized mess” of jiu-jitsu grading is beneficial to students and the art as a whole - students can decide how they want their progress to be judged and find a coach that fits their preferences. There are even some coaches who promote solely based on attendance. Some coaches are more focused on competitive results when grading their students, while others acknowledge progress based on their students’ individual goals and journeys. Others take a more subjective approach, grading each student as they see fit based on their own perception of their skills. Some instructors, for example, require students to test for their belts and stripes, having a specific set of techniques and skills that students have to demonstrate before getting promoted. Of course, most jiu-jitsu instructors know what they’re looking for as they prepare to promote their students with a new stripe or belt, but across the martial art as a whole, there’s a whole lot of variety in skill level within and between belts. You only need to cross-train or compete once or twice to realize that promotions in jiu-jitsu are relatively arbitrary.
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