Belt Balance

I usually claim that getting a Purple Belt in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is more-or-less the same as getting a Black Belt in most other martial arts.

This tends to upset Black Belts from other martial arts.

Let's look at three of my friends; Elizabeth, Tobias, and Rob. They all started training in Jiu-Jitsu at the same time that they started doing Hapkido.

All three will be testing for their Hapkido Black Belts about four months from now with every expectation of success. At that time, they should all have reached the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu rank of Blue Belt Stripe Three. For the most senior of them, Elizabeth, a Gracie Purple Belt will still be 3-12 months in the future.

When they get their Hapkido Black Belts, they will have done about 3.5 years training in both arts.

This, however, is only part of the picture. They also train twice as many hours per week in Gracie Jiu-Jitsu as they do in Hapkido.

If I pass for my own Purple Belt when I take my test in 2016, I will have done 4.5 years of Jiu-Jitsu training. I earned my Shotokan Karate Black Belt in just over 4 years.

I have already trained longer in Jiu-Jitsu that I did to earn my Shotokan Black Belt, and I am only a Blue Belt Stripe Four. Like my friends, I train more hours per week in Jiu-Jitsu than I did in Karate, but not twice as much.

If anything, a Gracie Purple Belt is a bigger deal than getting a Black Belt in either Shotokan Karate or Hapkido.

If that is true, what does it mean to get a get a Gracie Brown Belt, or even a Black one?

A Shotokan student keen to progress can take the test for Second Degree Black Belt after two years. Two years after earning a Gracie Purple Belt, a student can reasonably expect to receive their third stripe. The fastest they can get a Third Degree Black Belt would be three years after that, at which time a Gracie student would have reached a Brown Belt with three stripes.

Best to just round these things, and say that a Brown Belt is about the equivalent of a Second Degree Karate Black Belt, and a Gracie Black Belt is about the same as a Karate Third Degree.