White Roller

It can be tricky rolling with the White Belts. In Gracie Jiu-Jitsu the White Belts don't do it at all. The concept is that they work on basics, and pre-planned drills. Students don't really do free grappling until they earn their Blue Belts.

Sometimes, they want to try it. We have a couple of sessions per week called Open Mat where this would not be inappropriate. Sometimes they roll with each other, but sometimes they want to try somebody with a bit more skill, and they ask Blue Belts to play with them.

This can be fun for both, but generally the higher students have enough knowledge and experience that they could dominate their White Belt partner.

This is a very bad idea. It can be really discouraging to anybody to get so heavily shut out.

Our Blue Belts let the Whites try things out. Sometimes they let things happen, and sometimes they don't. The White Belts know they have a partner that is taking it easy, but even so it is much more fun. The Blue might pull a couple of submissions on the White, and let the White get a couple, too. Everybody wins.

Tonight I was with a White Belt who really likes to push. He is good enough that he is a challenging partner. After a bit, I started using him to test my own technique.

Not the stuff I do all the time, but the things I find unnatural. I wanted to see if they would work on somebody who had never experienced them, and who would go nuts trying to escape. For example, I caught him in the high-low guard control position, and he couldn't get out until I let him.

He got a few submissions on me. I don't think I pulled any on him. The only ones I tried were ones those I've learned lately, and I couldn't get them to work. Clearly I need to work on them a lot more.

It was fun. I look forward to having some of our senior White Belts getting into the Blue Belt class.

More people to regularly roll around with.