"No-gi belts are frauds."

[Brian Tupper]

http://breakingmuscle.com/martial-ar...-or-black-belt

[rickdawson]

The IBJJF only recognizes Spider-Man, the Hulk, and Captain Insane-o as ranks other than blue, purple, brown, black. Sorry Ric

However you can probably still do NAGA.

Man... I'll never make it out the ghetto

[Mario Lopez Alvarez]

Ironically Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, came up with the idea of a colored belt system from watching swimmers at a swim meet. The swimmers had colored patches on their shorts to designate their experience divisions. The concept of the colored belt system was orginally No-Gi.

That is awesome! hahah

[Joachim Hoff]

Look, if Jiu jitsu practitioners don't wear ō-yoroi it's not Jiu jitsu. Everyone knows this.
armor_drawing.jpg

[Jack Hanley]

Joachim Hoff's post highlights an important aspect of this discussion.

The historical record on gi and belt wearing actually supports belts for no-gi.

In fact, it looks like Jigoro Kano, founder of Judo and thus progenitor of Bjj through Mitsuyo Maeda, was giving out black belts for 11 years before the modern gi was even introduced. He just had them training in whatever was convenient which included some outfits that will be very familiar to no-gi grapplers.

Articles on Judo history talk about Kano giving out black belts around 1886 and students wearing loin clothes and shorts cut off above the knee with sleeves cut off above the elbow.

The actual gi, as we know it today, was not introduced until 1907.

"It was not until three years later in 1886, that Kano saw the need to distinguish between beginning and advanced students and began the custom of his Yudansha wearing black belts, to signify the difference. "

"The “Keikogi” or “uniform for practice”, known as the “Judogi” in Judo, was not introduced until much later. At this time, all practises were carried out in formal kimono’s, loin cloths or more commonly shorts cut off above the knee and sleeves above the elbow. The formal “Keikogi” full uniform with trousers and the smaller width Kuro Obi, (Kuro – black, Obi – belt), as we know them both today, were first introduced in 1907."

http://www.shiseiryu.com/originsofju...dingsystem.htm

This article at www.judoinfo.com basically confirms much of the information above and goes on to say the following about colored belts:

"Other colored belts for students who had not yet achieved black belt originated later, when Judo began being practiced outside of Japan. Mikonosuke Kawaishi is generally regarded as the first to introduce various colored belts in Europe in 1935 when he started to teach Judo in Paris. He felt that western students would show greater progress if they had a visible system of many colored belts recognizing achievement and providing regular incentives. This system included white, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple belts before the more traditional brown and black belts."

http://judoinfo.com/alphabetical-lis...neil-ohlenkamp

[Dylan Ehrnreiter]

Hey guys, I am Brian Jones the person in the video about no-gi black belts.

There is quite a bit of hate directed here at me for making the video at the beginning of this post.

First, I think the title of this thread was a bit misleading. Second, most of the comments seem to be just personal insults rather than arguments against my points. Did anyone bother to watch the follow-up video?

I mean, Kurzy above, who I'm sure is a great grappler and thoughtful person admitted that he didn't even watch the whole video. I think this is a topic for discussion rather than name calling. After all, I'm just stating my opinion. If you don't agree with it then put forth an argument rather than just calling me a douchebag.

Here is the video response in case you haven't seen it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky7AgEJfrvg

Brian

Brian, would you care to answer some of the points brough up by others in this thread?

[Brent Smith]

It seems like the whole reason he's mad is because of the fact that 10th Planet guys use belts as their way to rank people..It would be ok if it was something else but not belts because thats part of the gi! hmmm kind of a weird thing to stress about if that in fact is the case.

[Mike Dewitt Jr]

He should tell the IBJJF to stop making us use the belt system and make all their nogi tournies novice, beginner, intermediate, and advanced or we should all begin signing up as white belts.
In all seriousness, he probably has a purple belt who got beat by a nogi only not ranked competitor who said I guess Im a purple belt now.

[nathan cybul]

i even like to rank my girlfriends

[Dylan Ehrnreiter]

i even like to rank my girlfriends

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-t5ElYyZ6Hl...gapore-zoo.JPG

Purple Belt?