A wise man once said, "A black belt is simply a white belt who never stopped training". This quote is very true and became very inspirational to many individuals which increases the importance of Bjj Belts. Now getting your Bjj belts in Jiu Jitsu is not as easy as it may be for other martial arts such as karate, hapkido or even judo. In fact, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is the hardest martial art to obtain your black belt in since it takes typically about 10 or so years. In most other martial arts you can get your black belt anywhere from 6 months to 4 years; Nowhere near as long as it takes to get your black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. So you should all understand this and how this makes the importance in your bjj belts and the high honor it is to have your black belt in this great martial art.

There are two ways or two systems that every Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school goes by when it comes to their BJJ belts and how they promote their students. One option would be to simply promote people one belt at a time from white all the way to black. And the second option would be to award people with stripes along the way from one belt to another to track your progress and keep students motivated. Every school is different, and one system may not be better than the next. So first, we will discuss a little bit more about the stripe system and how this works. There are 5 stripes to be given per each Bjj belt your sixth stripe would be your new belt. If you are wondering where the stripes are put well, take out your Jiu Jitsu belt and look at the opposite end of where the logo of the belt is attached and there should be a black sleeve at the end, red colored if you’re a black belt. If your belt does not have a black or red sleeve at the end than it is not a true Bjj belt and I recommend you get a new belt. For example, if you are a white belt your instructor will eventually give you 5 stripes which you could put on the sleeve of your belt and when you get your fifth stripe you would know your very close to your blue belt. Now that you know how the system works a bit you could decide if this would be the best system or the following system we are going to explain.

The next system, is the more basic traditional system where you simply promote your students in Bjj from one Jiu Jitsu belt to another without using any sort of track able progress between Bjj belt promotions. This style may leave your curiosity open and keep you working harder toward your new belt. This way could also make you forget about the whole belt system because that is not as important as you actually learning the true martial art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Training in your Bjj Gi, you know that your Bjj Belts promotions are very important and you will stick to the training to progress to your ultimate goal of your black belt. Is the promotion of your Bjj belts important to you?