Judokas outside of Japan and Korea need to admit that they have completely overblown notions/expectations about "black belts" and shodans, and start applying the same standards that Japanese and Koreans have for the dan grades / black belts. A black belt was never meant to signify mastery.
Uchimatty has mentioned the origins of this overblown expectations of a black belt in Western countries before, but sadly I'm not hopeful on the old guard in most countries choosing to fall in line with the correct shodan promotion requirements, since most of them will have a "Well I grinded my way through 8 years to shodan, so you've gotta grind that long too." And goes on this dumb cycle of wilfull ignorance...
Unfortunately, the marketing of BJJ has basically screwed everyone on this.
And somehow, while cross-training is great, I find that people who do and achieve their BJJ Black belt then let it affect the timing of anything else they teach.
85
u/EchoingUnion Jul 06 '25
Judokas outside of Japan and Korea need to admit that they have completely overblown notions/expectations about "black belts" and shodans, and start applying the same standards that Japanese and Koreans have for the dan grades / black belts. A black belt was never meant to signify mastery.
Uchimatty has mentioned the origins of this overblown expectations of a black belt in Western countries before, but sadly I'm not hopeful on the old guard in most countries choosing to fall in line with the correct shodan promotion requirements, since most of them will have a "Well I grinded my way through 8 years to shodan, so you've gotta grind that long too." And goes on this dumb cycle of wilfull ignorance...