Belt rank curriculum

Roy Harris and his student Roy Dean are known for this. Search for those guys

@@jv6642 I've had a lot of people ask for a course related this. I've always answered the same. It's not really realistic.

Anyone who presents a course like this with specific techniques from white belt to black belt is just making the course to please people and possible sell a course to make more money.

After white belt, BJJ and grappling becomes so subjective that it's so hard to have specific techniques for reach rank.

For this reason I do not feel it is a good idea to have a course like this.

I can make videos related to possible expectations for each rank in regards to skill level or approach but even then it won't be truly accurate.

If anyone sells this idea to you that it is possible to have an accurate course like this, then I'd be wary of it.

I totally understand, and “expectations “ for belt is more what I meant. If you make a course like that please let me know

Jason that's actually helpful. When I look around our Academy the new guys are up on leg locks and heel hooks really quickly in no-gi and hunting for toe holds and ankle locks in gi early. I've been adding in more defence stuff as a brown belt which is different again from many of the others. Having said that the process of organising my learning and refining it is ongoing! I've been asking myself if I was starting someone off in BJJ where would I begin. The Fundamentals course is obvious.ly a good place to begin!

Everybody progresses at their

scottyb, post: 62838, member: 12197

Roy Harris and his student Roy Dean are known for this. Search for those guys

jv6642, post: 62830, member: 10062

Is there a belt rank curriculum (white-black), with specific techniques you feel should be known.

Curriculum, expectations, guidelines....just depends on the terms you want to use.

Know your fundamentals/ basics and then build more 'advanced' technique for each of those positions to round out your game. Look at different ways to obtain the given technique ig: diff ways to mount escape, back escapes, diff guards and how to hit triangles, sweeps and armbars from them.

I believe the question is meaningful.

If you are in a well organized school with a good teacher who has a clear path or orientation in his mind, then you should not worry about the question. Just be regular in your class and things will move forward normally.

But if, like me, you are in a school, where there is no course structure, no game plan, no explanation of the idea behind a technique, then It's really frustrating for a guy who wants to learn and progress in bjj, especially for the guys who want to know the "why".

I have assisted to many class, expecting myself to understand things better over time, explaining mynon-understanding by saying it's just because I am a complete beginner after all. But the light doesn't come :-). Monday we do a Delariva technique and the next day we do Mount, …We never do half-guard or north south. I learned these words because I watched many videos :-)

I could go for another school, some of you could say, but unfortunately this is the only school I have in the neighborhood which offer courses after usual working hour.

I would love to have a kind of a plan with precise techniques and transition that I can follow, even at home, to ease my learning path. I think it will help guys in my situation.

For your information, Gracie Barra schools use a curriculum to structure their learning around the must-to-know techniques.

What is your point on this ?

Thanks,

RobyBJJ, post: 62889, member: 32035

I believe the question is meaningful.

If you are in a well organized school with a good teacher who has a clear path or orientation in his mind, then you should not worry about the question. Just be regular in your class and things will move forward normally.

But if, like me, you are in a school, where there is no course structure, no game plan, no explanation of the idea behind a technique, then It's really frustrating for a guy who wants to learn and progress in bjj, especially for the guys who want to know the "why".

I have assisted to many class, expecting myself to understand things better over time, explaining mynon-understanding by saying it's just because I am a complete beginner after all. But the light doesn't come :). Monday we do a Delariva technique and the next day we do Mount, …We never do half-guard or north south. I learned these words because I watched many videos :)

I could go for another school, some of you could say, but unfortunately this is the only school I have in the neighborhood which offer courses after usual working hour.

I would love to have a kind of a plan with precise techniques and transition that I can follow, even at home, to ease my learning path. I think it will help guys in my situation.

For your information, Gracie Barra schools use a curriculum to structure their learning around the must-to-know techniques.

What is your point on this ?

Thanks,

I know a lot of people don't want to hear this, but I agree with Jason on this. There is no clear path and a list of techniques for each belt will be arbitrarily chosen by whoever makes the list. Of course there are some moves that are best learned in a particular order such as learning the kimura and then the tarikaplata, but those are rare cases.

Of course it always seems better if there is a structure however I'd argue that even that doesn't help all that much. Unfortunately much of what your teacher teaches you won't actually use, but that's not the teacher's fault. BJJ is often times unique to each person and you'll find that some moves don't really work for you or just don't appeal to you. You need to listen to your teacher and try the moves they show you, but think of it more as a sampler platter rather than something that you need to internalize.

I'd recommend working on the things that are giving you problems in sparring. What position isn't working for you? Start from there and learn a few moves and find one that "clicks". Then move to the next problem. If you aren't having any big problems, try some moves that seem fun or interesting.

BJJ is more like art and less like math, so asking which order should I learn moves in is like asking which color should I learn first. People can give you an opinion, but any list they give you will be based more on personal preferences and less on reasoning.

For me what I believe has helped is to focus on one aspect of jiujitsu. The last few weeks I have stayed on the bottom and work on my sweeps, and guard retention area. Next I could work on passing, and then takedowns, etc.

Anyone can write up a list of arbitrary techniques that you have to master. But a lot of those techniques won't suit you, will hurt your game and pretty much hold you back and waste your time

Part of the beauty, and frustration, of Jiu Jitsu is that it is very individualized. If you tried to copy my game, you would probably not be very good. If I had tried to copy Bernardo Faria's game exactly, my game would never have developed. Each individual has to create a game that plays to their own strengths and weaknesses, includes their personality, and plays to their specific goals. Even my students games do not, and should not, look like mine. That is why good coaching is so critical in Jiu Jitsu.

I think a specific belt course can be helpful in covering a wide range of techniques in order to find where your game is (so would become irrelevant around purple belt level) but I also think that it encourages a very dangerous thought process within the way BJJ is taught and learned.

If you look at the way people train boxing (chosen because of it's limited weapons to attack with therefore making it a more extreme and poignant example) from beginner to world champion level the people that train it will always be training the jab and the jab-cross. The difference between the novice and the champion will be the speed, timing, angles, and setups of the attack, the attack itself does not change.

But in BJJ for some reason we'll try a fundamental technique and if it doesn't work we'll say "this isn't working, give me a new technique". The world killers in BJJ use the same basic techniques as are taught on day 1, week 1, and month 1 of any white belt journey. The only difference is their execution of that move is more refined, their timing is impeccable and their setups are devious. Many posts are made after major competitions about technique stats and you'll find they're the same techniques all the time, with a few outliers occasionally popping up (but never in any great high percentage success rate). Having belt curriculums encourages technique collecting and drives us away from mastering the basics that work.

I just watched Karate nerd 7 day tutorial. Karate has defined criterias for belts - often. And techniques are copied from instructor. Karate nerd (Jesse Enkampf) said that in the beginning there was no styles and no belts. Only thing that mattered was effectiveness of technique and it was individual. Something worked for some one and so on. Also one point was to be critical. One can think them selves…So for belt system…I think brainstorming would be a good way to go:-)

ptbeast, post: 62901, member: 852

Part of the beauty, and frustration, of Jiu Jitsu is that it is very individualized. If you tried to copy my game, you would probably not be very good. If I had tried to copy Bernardo Faria's game exactly, my game would never have developed. Each individual has to create a game that plays to their own strengths and weaknesses, includes their personality, and plays to their specific goals. Even my students games do not, and should not, look like mine. That is why good coaching is so critical in Jiu Jitsu.

I’ve been to two different gyms. The first gym did stripes and belts relating to the number of classes attended. After 200 classes you were able to take an exam for your blue stripe…not blue belt yet…to pass the exam we had a curriculum to study. It consisted of 3 or 4 different take downs, showing transitions between side control to mount etc, quite a lot of self defence, rolling etc. covid hit on my 199th lesson. Once I started at my new gym I got my blue belt with in a month. Because of the curriculum I studied in order to pass. This gave me a great understanding of many fundamentals which I see is missing from a lot of the newer people in my new gym. While I don’t agree on the attendance and exam system if definitely has its benefits. I am a better practitioner because of it.

@@pequena, yes I definitely agree on a defined curriculum of techniques and concepts for white belts, however, after that I don't.

Coming from traditional martial arts where all the required techniques were listed, I feel like the lack of a defined curriculum is what makes BJJ unique and effective. It acknowledges the fact that body types and styles are different.

I think it’s also worth considering that BJJ is still a very young sport. There is still research being done about the most effective ways to train and new techniques and understandings are still being developed. Podcasts like BJJ mental models is very interesting in that regard. I can totally see a curriculum for beginners being useful, but beyond that, like has been said, it would all be arbitrary.