Perspectives on the BJJ belt system- part 2
You know how being ahead of the typical development curve makes you appear impressive? What if you could lie about your development curve so that you could make yourself appear more "ahead" than you really are? On the menu: sandbagging and promotion timelines.
Sandbagging is not unique to BJJ, either. Prodigies and their parents have lied about their age to make themselves appear more impressive, along with athletes from countries with poor documentation and infrastructure. In League of Legends, skilled players create accounts with lower grades, hoping to dominate any actually novice players.
In particular, owing to the history of the BJJ belt ranks, blue, purple, and brown belts actually hold quite a bit of weight in their own right, whereas in Judo (the originator of the Judo-like system used by most non-western martial arts), the intermediate colour belts ain't worth jack shit. Thus, because being a "blue belt champion" actually holds some merit, there are incentives to sandbag in that regard.
Let us now cover the who, what, when, where, etc. of things. Competitors, especially those below purple, are likely to either sandbag (by skipping promotion ceremony days, but not necessarily limited to that) or be sandbagged by their instructors. In fact, there are gyms out there that purposefully demote belt colours of previous practitioners switching to theirs for this effect. I will not name names, though.
On the other hand, recreational practitioners and truly dominant competitors tend to be promoted fairly quickly. The common wisdom is to promote the recreational folks steadily so that they stay engaged and continue to pay the gym, especially in gyms where recreational folks form the bulk of the paying base. In particular, where active competitors subsidize their tuition by teaching, it becomes all the more important to keep the recreational folks happy. As for truly dominant competitors, if you do not promote them quickly, you are very likely to draw the ire of the entire community at large if you deliberately hold them back.
There are gyms out there where the competitors actually form the bulk of the paying base. In these gyms, they are very likely to neglect the recreational practitioners, which amounts to longer promotion timelines for everyone. The active competitors are bringing in fame and money (not everyone can subsidize their tuition by teaching, so some of them will be paying full tuition), whereas the recreational folks are only bringing in money, so do the math there.
Sandbagging is not unique to BJJ, either. Prodigies and their parents have lied about their age to make themselves appear more impressive, along with athletes from countries with poor documentation and infrastructure. In League of Legends, skilled players create accounts with lower grades, hoping to dominate any actually novice players.
In particular, owing to the history of the BJJ belt ranks, blue, purple, and brown belts actually hold quite a bit of weight in their own right, whereas in Judo (the originator of the Judo-like system used by most non-western martial arts), the intermediate colour belts ain't worth jack shit. Thus, because being a "blue belt champion" actually holds some merit, there are incentives to sandbag in that regard.
Let us now cover the who, what, when, where, etc. of things. Competitors, especially those below purple, are likely to either sandbag (by skipping promotion ceremony days, but not necessarily limited to that) or be sandbagged by their instructors. In fact, there are gyms out there that purposefully demote belt colours of previous practitioners switching to theirs for this effect. I will not name names, though.
On the other hand, recreational practitioners and truly dominant competitors tend to be promoted fairly quickly. The common wisdom is to promote the recreational folks steadily so that they stay engaged and continue to pay the gym, especially in gyms where recreational folks form the bulk of the paying base. In particular, where active competitors subsidize their tuition by teaching, it becomes all the more important to keep the recreational folks happy. As for truly dominant competitors, if you do not promote them quickly, you are very likely to draw the ire of the entire community at large if you deliberately hold them back.
There are gyms out there where the competitors actually form the bulk of the paying base. In these gyms, they are very likely to neglect the recreational practitioners, which amounts to longer promotion timelines for everyone. The active competitors are bringing in fame and money (not everyone can subsidize their tuition by teaching, so some of them will be paying full tuition), whereas the recreational folks are only bringing in money, so do the math there.
댓글
댓글 쓰기