Forest Griffin gets his black belt from Robert Drydayle

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Originally Posted by AndyK5

So let me ask you guys this, a brown belt who has developed his own style of jiu-jitsu, who has been training all over the place with different coaches, goes to a gym and signs up, puts in the time on the mat, shows up to each practice, drills, rolls, spars, taps people out, does competitions, wins, helps the instructor teach and puts in his own teaching time. However during this time, his style does not change to his last coaches style. Does this guy not deserve a black belt in the sport? Should he wait 10 years under one coach and just then and there when his style changed to the coaches he should get his belt?

As far as I know and I heard this many times from black belts who trained their own blackbelts, belt shows the time and effort you put in the sport more than anything else. It shows your willingness, heart, teaching, dedication... there are blackbelts out there that have never competed and could be easily crushed by many athletic brown belts, or never really roll with their coaches style, that does not mean they don't deserve their belts or ranks.

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I don't know, I only know one black belt and not very well, but I know a brown and 4 purples. That said, every person that I've trained with that has a better rank than mine has taken things from their instructors, even from random people they've trained with. So their style may not necessarily change, but they learn things that they apply to their own game. It's absurd to think that people don't pick up on things. Instructors drill, so people learn things the instructor chooses to teach, whether they want to or not.

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Originally Posted by Pete Daly

I don't know, I only know one black belt and not very well, but I know a brown and 4 purples. That said, every person that I've trained with that has a better rank than mine has taken things from their instructors, even from random people they've trained with. So their style may not necessarily change, but they learn things that they apply to their own game. It's absurd to think that people don't pick up on things. Instructors drill, so people learn things the instructor chooses to teach, whether they want to or not.

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Well ofcourse many fighters do use their masters style, there is a select few who get to improves the sport and develop new techniques and even a smaller percentage of all fighters who make a big impact on the sport and come up with %100 original stuff, MG does that, Eddie did it, Gracie seniors (Anybody but rorion) etc...