Crunch it

Today I was trying to look up somebody who trains at a different Gracie certified training center than myself. Along the way, I noticed some stuff about the rank structure of the Gracie system.

The first earned belt is a Blue one. Each colored belt has five levels associated with it. These are no-stripe, one-stripe, two-stripe, three and four.

The Gracie distance education program is so new that it's promotion scheme has only had an effect on Blue Belt ranks at this time. All Gracie students with higher rank that that are those who train at the Gracie Academy in Torrance, or who live very close to it.

For the purposes of this evaluation, I will ignore no-stripe Blue Belts. My reasons are that such students are still pretty new to the system, and I am too lazy to try and count how many there are registered online with the slow internet I have access to right now.

That leaves the lowest rank of this evaluation to be Blue Belt Stripe One. There are a total of 208 listed. I am leaving out any whose rank is listed as “unverified.” 7 of them are from our school in Gibsons, or roughly 3.5% of the total. Of these, 3 are currently active, either at home or on Vancouver Island. The grand total of 208 includes both current and inactive students, unless they have been promoted.

There are three ways that these 208 students could have earned their rank. It could have been awarded directly at the Gracie Academy, or at any of a number of certified training centers. It also could have been received without direct contact by students of Gracie University through taking an online video exam.

That takes us to Blue Belt Stripe Two. There are 73 folks who've earned their second stripe. Gibsons is responsible for just 1 of them, or a shade over 1%. This is the absolute highest rank that can have been reached by Gracie University students, while Certified Training Center and Gracie Academy students can be still higher. This will change as time goes on and more Gracie University exams become available.

The highest rank that it is possible to have reached under normal circumstances through a Certified Training Center is Blue Belt Stripe Three. There are 28 of this rank that have been produced at either CTCs, or at the Gracie Academy itself. Gibsons has 2 three-stripers, or just over 7% of the total.

All ranks above that have been awarded directly by the Gracie Academy, or at a very small number of other, special locations. At the rank of Blue Belt Stripe Four there are currently 8 listed.

None of the numbers available are perfect. I suspect that the main Gracie Academy removes their local students from the list if it is known that they have become inactive, but I don't know this for sure. How could they have produced only 8 four-stripe Blue Belts that have not progressed to higher rank? That 8 number would have to include all currently active four-stripers, as well as all who have reached that level and then quit. Possible, but unlikely.

The list does include all CTC and Gracie University to have achieved a level, inactive or not.

The numbers do show a bit of a trend.

There are about a third as many two-stipers as ones, and about a third as many three-stripers as twos. The trend continues with roughly a third as many four-stripers as threes.

Everybody says the dropout rate lowers significantly above Blue Belt, but even so a single belt-color inference can be drawn from what we have. For every 243 students to attain a Blue Belt under this mix of routes, only one will continue training long enough to earn a Purple Belt.