Self-Defence Belt

Ryron and Rener Gracie are always thinking, and willing to bend.

They have done two huge things regarding Jiu-Jitsu instruction. First, they have created a program for beginners that focuses totally on self-defence. There is nothing in it at all on how to roll with another Jiu-Jitsu person. They insist that their students all go through this program before moving on to the larger Jiu-Jitsu world. They call this beginner system Combatives.

This is a hugely successful program. The injury rate is almost non-existent, especially in comparison to other schools where students are thrown into the lions cage (free-rolling) right from day one. Class numbers have exploded at their Gracie Academy.

They have been greatly commended by Jiu-Jitsu people around the world for creating their Combatives program.

It was so successful, that they decided to make it available online to students everywhere, and also installed it in all of their satellite schools around the world.

The second thing they did was to make this course mandatory at The Gracie Academy and all the satellite schools for promotion to Blue Belt. Still no problem.

They also made the program, with a video testing system, available online. It became possible to pay for the online lessons, train with a partner for a number of months, and then record and submit a number of videos detailing one's ability. Do well enough, and you would receive a Blue Belt from The Gracie Academy. Thousands signed up.

This freaked out the Jiu-Jitsu world. Even members of their own family treated this as some kind of betrayal.

To most Jiu-Jitsu people, a Blue Belt is supposed to be a person who is pretty good at rolling. To Rener and Ryron it did not. For their students it represented a student who had completed the Combatives course. Nobody much cared when it was just The Gracie Academy and it's affiliated schools, but when many, many more people started doing it online it was just too much.

Now, they have silenced a great many of their detractors by making one small modification. Everything else remains exactly the same.

At the end of the Combatives program, there is no longer an examination for Blue Belt. It doesn't matter if the student is online, or at a certified school, or at The Gracie Academy itself, successful completion of the Combatives test will gain a Combatives Belt. It will be white in colour, and have a thick navy-blue band running from end-to-end down the middle. They seem to be calling it a, "Self-Defence Belt."

Earning such a belt, gains one access to advanced training. This is where students are introduced to the concepts of free-rolling, and learn to do so on a daily basis.

The Gracies say that after, "six months to a year," in the advanced class, students will be evaluated by their instructors, and if their rolling ability has progressed sufficiently, they will be awarded a Blue Belt.

An elegant solution.

Do students of the Combatives program still get to test for and receive an official belt? Yes, a Self-Defence Belt.

Are students of all Ryron and Rener's programs who earn Blue Belts going to be proficient in free-rolling? Yes, as Blue Belts will be awarded after a short period of training in the advanced program.

It doesn't wreck anything, and will do much to silence their critics.