#367 "Belt's Don't Matter" | 951-HOT-TAKE #1

Speaker 1: I suck at jiu-jitsu. Everybody, this is Josh McKinney and I just want to welcome you to the newest episode of the I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu show and the first ever episode of 951 Hot Take. And this is I'm so excited for this. If you don't know, you guys now as I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu show listeners get to participate in hot takes not just on my Instagram story anymore, but through the hot take hotline, which is 951 Hot Take. And some of these are absolute gold. I haven't listened to anything more than once. Everything was just thrown together so we could obviously we chose the best ones, but um I have these very fresh for me and we can just do them as in the same way we always do hot takes where we just let you guys rip whether you want to be anonymous or you want to tell people who you are. You get to share your favorite jiu-jitsu opinion and we all have to listen to it, but I get to share my opinion back and we get to talk about it. I have a few text message message hot take/questions we might get into, but I really wanted to keep the voicemail the star of the show. So let's see who gets to be our first ever 951 hot take and what opinion they're sharing. Speaker 2: Adam Piper, blue belt. Speaker 1: Adam. Speaker 2: Acting whatever. My hot take is normal-sized dudes who bitch and cry about rolling with a heavyweight are bitches and shouldn't be doing jiu-jitsu in the first place. Peace. Speaker 1: Adam, Adam, long-time I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu show listener, friend of the show. Adam Piper. Ladies and gentlemen, short, sweet, to the point. Should you avoid rolls with heavyweights? Especially if you're, you know, because he said normal-sized dude. He didn't say, hey, all these featherweight females avoid rounds with ultra-heavyweight males. This is ridiculous. He didn't say that. He said normal-sized dude, which I would say 170 to 190, right? That's a normal-sized dude in jiu-jitsu. You start to get bigger once you get above that medium heavyweight range, that's bigger dudes. You know, obviously if you're small, all those sound all those things sound bigger, but I would say, I don't know, maybe 160 to 180? I don't know what a small dude, medium dude is, regardless. In that range, should you avoid rolling with bigger guys? And I think there's two ways to look at it. One, you could easily just say, hey, it is riskier for me to roll with somebody who is that strong and especially if they muscle things, right? If you know the individual. But that's I think the biggest thing, is it's still a more individual basis thing. There are people my size that I won't roll with because they will hurt one of us in each round. They don't care which one, but someone is going to get hurt in the round just because, you know, they're stupid. And so if Adam, long-time friend of the show, if people are telling you by saying no, they don't want to roll with you, that they don't want to roll with you simply because you injure them too much, well then they have a great argument. But if you don't injure these people, right? Or they have a great argument, they should be able to say no. They should be able to, you know, not be down. But if that's not the case, if you feel like, you know, especially like Eric Heedner's a perfect example of this. Very, very few times have I ever seen him turn it up on anybody. He was 260 to 280 a lot of the time when he was coming up training and just so fast, so athletic and as high level of a wrestler as I'd ever grappled with, right? And so there was just he had the ability to just maul people and lay on them to get out of everything and and beat everything and it's not like he was just like, okay, now I'm going to be a small guy and play inverted guard. That wouldn't have made sense either. But he learned how to be a good training partner for every single round that he had. So even when it was smaller people, he just learned how to still perform jiu-jitsu but not do it with as much strength, right? Learned to not do it with as much of his weight and learned to control his weight a little better, learned to control his strength and explosiveness a little better. And then when like he would get to do a round with me, he was able to unleash all of those things and they were basically an extra part to his game. And that's what I think to me made him so good at jiu-jitsu so fast was that he was not just there to go hard, even though came up wrestling his whole time, right? He was there to get good at jiu-jitsu specifically. And one of the we talked about this recently, one of the best ways if you're struggling to get good at jiu-jitsu is to and you're saying like, man, I'm showing up, I'm beating the guys that I always beat and I'm losing to the guys that I always lose to. For a lot of people they go, well, maybe if I went harder and I trained a little bit more and I lifted more, maybe then I could beat the guys that I can't beat. And maybe you can, maybe you can't, usually that's not the case. What ends up happening though, is you end up just adding more focus of physicality to your game and those things diminish, right? And so instead, something that you can look at is you start to say, well, if I can beat this person below me and I beat them every single time, but I'm using 100% strength to do it, if I used, you know, 50% strength, how much better am I at jiu-jitsu if I could accomplish the exact same goals using 50% strength? Probably quite a bit better, right? What if it was 25% strength, right? What if I'm barely using any strength at all, but I'm still able to use my technique, my weight distribution and my timing to beat this person up without having to use that strength. One, for them, a lot of the times they're going to be like, this big dude is a great training partner, right? I love to train with somebody who one is bigger than me, but also more technical than me, one is stronger than me, but also more technical than me because not only are they able to beat me in the places that I, you know, like where they're more technical, but I can't muscle out because if we match strength, they typically have more, right? And so, yeah, a lot of random thoughts on that. The voicemail thing could be a problem. I don't even know where that went at all. That was a lot of time. Let's look at our next hot take. I wonder who we have. Speaker 2: Um, my name is Dustin, brown belt out of Steel Coast Jiu-Jitsu in Gulfport, Mississippi. Speaker 1: All right, Mississippi. Speaker 2: My hot take is that the omoplata fucking sucks. There's basically nobody that says this at a high level in no-gi anymore. Speaker 1: Okay, no-gi. Speaker 2: Except for that one time Joe Chen hit it on some schmuck. Um, we treat it like it's a day one move for white belts, but every time they use it, they get passed. Why is it a day one move? What's what's fundamental about it? Speaker 1: It's a great question. Speaker 2: It never fucking works. You have to specialize in this position for at least a few years before you hit it on somebody who's a mid. I mean, anybody can learn a rear-naked choke within a a couple of months. Speaker 1: Ooh. Speaker 2: An ankle lock, easy. But omoplatas, nah. Speaker 1: Okay, okay. I I I Okay. A lot of layers to that, Dustin. One, it sounds like you need to be calling in and giving more hot takes. That was the exact level of description that I needed for a great hot take right there. But as a guy who's well not this year, last year I finished an omoplata black belt competition. It was in the gi though. Great argument. I finished no-gi omoplatas in competition too. Um, but I would say this, the reason omoplata is typically regarded as such a high-level position, but also such a fundamental position, is because of how available it is. Okay? The setups for omoplata, there are some that are incredibly high-powered, uh, or overpowered, but what you'll notice is there is a size of guy that you just can't triangle choke, right? That's just too big for him. But if you cut your angle correctly, you can probably use the omoplata for your gain. It doesn't mean you can finish the omoplata. I think the problem is that we teach the omoplata like it is a submission. You know what I mean? Like, yes, the omoplata, you do this with your legs, you put him here, you knock him to his belly and then you just sit up and you get the finish. Like, nah. It works if this guy's terrible, but that's not just not how it works. A lot of the omoplata's effectiveness has to do with that it makes the person defend and you can counter those defenses with other submissions or you can counter those defenses by getting on top, which if you think about it in the smaller guy's perspective and the, you know, the idea of jiu-jitsu is about leverage and not as much about strength, right? It's not, you know, the whole goal is for a smaller person to be able to beat up a bigger person. One, being able to take your entire body and focus on one part of theirs is probably going to be your best bet if you're smaller than somebody, right? But also, getting gravity on your side if you are smaller than somebody. Even if you don't really know how to play top very well yet, having the mindset of I use things like omoplata, I use whatever I can to just simply get on top because the more reps I can learn to get on top of people as a smaller guy and be hard or girl and be hard to like knock off, to be hard to escape from, the more tired I can make big people. The more tired I make big people, well, the more I can start to style on them. The more I can start to stunt on them. And so that's my thought on why the omoplata is going like that's why I'll say this, I think the omoplata is incredibly, incredibly, I think I had it in the double S tier rank for the um submission tier list. But here's the thing. And for me, I finish a lot of omoplatas. I don't teach it a lot to my students. There are some students that want to go on the deep omoplata journey that Dustin talked about because he's right. I've never seen somebody get very, very good at finishing omoplatas in even a year. Like, you really it takes so long to get good at actually finishing the submission. It is very doable and the people that get good at it, it's just like it's just like closed guard. It's super overpowered if you're willing to spend the time to get good at all of the nuance, but it is so hard to get good at all the nuance. And it's also this thing because you made this reference of what about just a rear-naked choke or a straight ankle lock? One, I would make the argument, most people absolutely suck at rear-naked chokes. In the craziest way, most people like the most people hit rear-naked chokes simply because their partner just at some point decided to look up at the clock or let go with their hands, right? Um just to try something ignorant. But most people don't know how to actually set up and finish a rear-naked choke. And so I would argue that finishing rear-naked chokes and getting good at the hand fighting on the back and getting good at taking the back is going to require a similar amount of time, a similar amount of dedication. But I would also argue this, if we look at the straight ankle lock, you will definitely get more submissions earlier from that. There is no, I don't think anyone would debate, if you were taught a very good straight ankle lock and you were taught a very good omoplata, you're going to hit that straight ankle lock first, no doubt. But what about in the long run? What about five years in when you're really going with people that are your level then that are really good and they have they're not just getting straight ankle locked because they have no idea what it is. Because at white belt and even at blue belt, a lot of people are tapping to straight ankle locks without any real pressure on them just because they don't like the idea. They're like, well, what if my knee gets hurt? What if my ankle gets hurt? Right? So a lot of people are tapping really early to these submissions. And so you get away, it's like this low-hanging fruit, but you see it less and less at the higher levels. I'm not saying the straight ankle lock is not hit at the high levels anymore. It is definitely hit at black belt and at the the top tip of the top of black belt, but still I would argue to be able to do it like that requires a crazy amount of time dedication. And so that is the truth about any submission is some you get to hit sooner than later. You get success almost immediately. Some things you can add really quickly and get success from. But that doesn't always mean that you're going to get long-term success in that submission, right? Obviously, I think I had straight ankle locks as uh like S tier on the uh the submission tier list too. So I had those very high ranked too. But the idea is this, there are definitely some that are much lower that you may still get submissions on higher level guys at first just because maybe they don't understand it for a second. But you'll find you keep going for it on them, they will find a a way to defend it and then you'll find like, man, I I spent a lot of time mastering something that was a little too niche, right? It just was not it wasn't as good long-term. And so that's kind of my my argument, but honestly, it's hard to argue with anything that you said there, Dustin, you you you just painted us a word picture that was it was just accurate. Um, let's see who we have next. So, I'm going to let you in on a little secret that big cotton does not want you to know. Don't even get me started on big polyester. But right now, we are in the middle of a secret war. It is between hemp and cotton. One of them shrinks, isn't durable, and holds bacteria. The other is hemp. And the beauty of hemp, not just is how durable it is to make a gi out of, to make a backpack out of, to make a fanny pack out of. The beauty of hemp is that it is anti-microbial, meaning that things are not growing and living inside of your gi. And that is a beautiful thing to know because you can know that with your nose. Your gi doesn't stink, you are not the stinky guy. And our friends at Datsusara are the company for hemp jiu-jitsu. They have gis that are made of hemp. They have some of my favorite bags, they have some of my favorite fanny packs. Again, all made of hemp. They don't hold odor. They are super durable. They look really cool. You get all kinds of compliments on them. And if you use promo code I SUCK at DSgear.com when you check out, you get 10% off of your purchase because they love the I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu show just like you do. And so be sure to check them out at DSgear.com. Speaker 3: So, blue belt here. I'm going to stay anonymous just because. Speaker 1: Solid. Speaker 3: My thing is to do with stripes. This isn't against the gyms that give out stripes. This is more against the people who need stripes. If you're an adult and you need stripes on your belt to tell you how good you're doing, just just quit. That's for kids to keep them engaged. If you can't just stick it out, stay engaged and do the work, jiu-jitsu ain't right for you, my man. Find another sport. Speaker 1: Okay, okay. Okay, that's a hot take. I uh I mean, I don't do stripes at my gym, but I don't feel very passionately about it to be honest. It's not really something that I think too much about. Um, really, the reason I stopped doing it is just the same reason is like if you train at a gym that has more than 100 people, um, do you really think that every stripe is actually thought out? Think about it. Think about it. Go to a promotion night and look around the room. Do you think that every stripe was well thought out? There's a black belt secret. I'm not even going to tell you guys. I can't tell you guys. It's maybe if you ask, if you get on the 951 hot take line and you beg, maybe I would tell you guys, but there's a black belt secret that you can't understand about the stripes. But I'll give you this little hint. There are many times, many nights in many different cities and many different states that I have been around for belt promotions. And generally before belt promotions, it's what? It's stripe promotions. And I've seen many coaches be like, man, that white belt down there, what's his name? Crap, I don't remember his name. And then they'll be like, hey, you, come up and get your stripe. And that guy will get his fourth stripe on his white belt. And then he'll lean into the coach and he'll say, hey coach, I don't know if this is the right time or not. But I already had four stripes on my white belt. This is my fifth stripe. And then what does the coach do? I mean, your fifth stripe is probably your blue belt, right? If it was well thought out, if he deserved one more stripe of progression, why not? Why doesn't he get his blue belt there, bro? I don't understand. He's five-stripe white belt now? This is insane. I've also seen one time, this is hilarious. This is years and years and years ago. And so I can I'll I'll disclose some names. So, Kyle, my coach, this is 15 years ago. We are and man, we coveted stripes so much. We cared so much about who got the piece of tape back then when we were white and blue belts, right? And this is the first time it got a little shaky for me. Kyle was giving out stripes. He's like, Josh, and I come up and I get my stripe and I'm pumped, right? Finally, I've done it. Two-stripe blue belt. I've done it. Call my mom, so excited. But then he goes to the next stripe and he says, Brandon, and he looks at Brandon M in the eyes. And then he realized that Brandon U is standing right in front of him with his tab in hand, like, go ahead, coach, give me my stripe. What is Kyle to do? I don't want to spoil it for Brandon U, but he gave him the stripe. It was too awkward. It was too embarrassing, right? And you see these things and then you start to make this connection of maybe stripes don't matter. Maybe that maybe they do. Maybe they do. I don't know. I don't give them, so I don't know. People are really excited. When as a black belt, I just keep showing up and then whatever time in the the time uh my coach gives me another piece of tape on my black belt. People love it. People are like, oh, Josh, congratulations. You've done it. You've done it. And I'm always like, mhm. I don't even I don't even know what this means at this point. I didn't I didn't know that I was getting this. I didn't know why I'm getting this. I don't think I deserve this. I didn't haven't done anything differently, you know, I'm just doing the same stuff, bro. And who knows? Who knows? I won't I won't get too into the I like how this listener said, I'm not going to bash stripes and then he proceeded to bash stripes. And then I jumped right on the bandwagon for no good reason at all. And I said, you can do whatever you want. I don't care. And then I bashed stripes too. Let's move on. Let's change the subject. Speaker 4: What's up, Josh? I've listened to this. My hot take. It's Kelsey, Master One, purple belt phenom. Um, from Watson's. My hot take, are you ready? Speaker 1: WMA shout out. Speaker 4: Belt promotions on the podium. Promotions on the podium, dude. Promos on the freaking podo. You know what I'm saying? Speaker 1: Promos on the podo. I I get you, Kelsey. I feel you. Speaker 4: This is never I have rebuttals. I think they're a horrible idea. This has never happened to me. But when I see them, I don't like it. I don't feel good about it. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 4: Um, I think it would be super weird to be in second place and the person that just beat you gets their next belt right then and there. Speaker 1: For styling on you. I've seen it. Speaker 4: I think it sets a weird precedent. Uh, even if you are like a competitor, I don't know. I think they're weird. I don't even like when it happens in the UFC and you win a fight and they throw your belts and get that out of here. No place for that. Save it for later. I have rebuttals. Would love to chat with you about you about this with you. Speaker 1: You sound a little faded, Kelsey. Speaker 4: Get them out of here. If I still going. If I get second place and the person that got first place gets their next belt, I should get my money back. I think JTF should refund me my money. Anyways, that's my hot take. Have a great Friday. Speaker 1: Okay. A lot to unpack there. Kelsey, purple belt, Master One phenom from Watson's. I coached Kelsey at a tournament. I don't remember what tournament. Kyle Kyle Master Worlds. I coached her at Master Worlds. She was killing people. She placed at it. I don't remember, I know she didn't get first place and I don't know I don't know if somebody got promoted on the podium, but I know if they did, she would have been furious. She would have been furious. But also, yeah, I get it. I don't I don't know how I feel about the promotions on the podium either. I've done it before. I've participated in it before one time. And the only time I've done it is the only time you should do it was when a student won Master Worlds or Worlds of any sort. That's when you can promote somebody on the podium. But unless they're the best in the world at that belt and age group and weight class, I just I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it because it just gets taken too far, dude. Everybody's trying to do every promotion on the podium and then it leads to them leaving at these these white belts for six extra months in hopes that they can win their local 150 total competitor, you know, whatever small tournament in their town. And then they're like, man, if you can just beat up this day one white belt that somebody convinced to compete, I'm promoting you to blue belt on the podium. I see how it's fun, but I also see Kelsey's argument. It's kind of it is a little bit dancey on other people's graves, right? Don't you think? Here's the thing, is I've seen people promoted in second place. Why would you do that? They didn't even they weren't even the best in the in the division at white belt, right? Why would you give them their blue belt? And so, yeah, the promotion thing is so tough. You know what's crazy is, um, even these, a lot of these are promotion related. These hot takes that we're getting. We just did stripes. Okay, guys, so I lied to you. I am a liar. That's my bad. So, my friends at BJJ Mental Models, they were going to send us a new course, but they keep messaging me saying, hey, too many people keep downloading the Rob Bernacki course to move on. I mean, they're giving away an $80 course completely free just because they love the I Suck at I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu show, just because they love I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu show listeners. So if you go to BJJmentalmodels.com/suck, you get to get Rob Bernacki's seven-part course, Jiu-Jitsu for Imbeciles, completely free. This is a conceptual approach to jiu-jitsu learning and to all the things that make jiu-jitsu work. It'll take all those moves, all those random techniques that you know, and allow you to kind of systemize them into a format that has been proven. And again, this is completely free because the people at BJJ Mental Models love you guys. So if you go to BJJmentalmodels.com/I SUCK, you will be able to download this free course from Rob Bernacki and I am telling you, it is going to change the way that you look at jiu-jitsu. Now is a perfect time because I'm sure it can just all be thrown together. But now is a perfect time. Holy smokes. This one is so long. This is a text though. Um, you can also text 951 Hot Take. People have just been using it to like ask me random questions. I probably shouldn't like make a habit of not being a way to just contact me, but it was also really easy is that being a way to just contact me. And so, uh, yeah, who knows? But I like hot takes or questions. So, I'm going to go ahead and throw out I feel as though, not that I'm not that there's anything wrong with this, but this feels ChatGPT. And the reason I say that is because of the M-dash. You know what I'm saying? The super long dash. Show me on your keyboard where you are using that. Show me on your phone keyboard where you are using that. Tell me why you are using, you know, 37 M-dashes in this statement. That to me generally shows, if you want to hide that you're using AI, be sure to tell ChatGPT, if you're writing, don't use M-dashes because no human being has ever used that. You use like one time in an entire book if they, you know, if the writer's good. Don't throw those in, bro. Now people know. Anyway, sorry. Uh, so on the same note, um, this would question is on self-promotion in jiu-jitsu, especially after switching teams. Okay, so I'm going to kind of yeah, I think I'm just going to paraphrase it just because it is longer. Um, but I think that that statement is is what they mean by self-promoting. Hey, this team would be happy to promote me if I went and trained there, right? And so this listener, um, yeah, uh, like, okay, it's just, you know what, I should just read it. There's just too many things. They they really do, this is actually, even if it is ChatGPT, this is some solid points. Um, uh, so, self-promotion in jiu-jitsu, I looked down on a course, but I'm not a black belt, so what do I know? Um, and this is key. This is key for the biggest reveal on this episode. Um, I've spent years at lower belts waiting for my coaches to promote me. So it's wild to me when people start to just show up with a new belt and no clear coach promoting them. But I'm curious what people think when it happens and why nothing is ever said. Okay, this person is a St. Louis person too. So this is also, um, it's happening locally in the St. Louis area and I'm sure many, many other places where there are a ton of black belts and gyms, but I've seen people told they're close or allowed to compete up. Okay, so like a white belt allowed to compete at a tournament. Um, then later just show up at that belt at a new gym with a new team. Situations where a coach allows someone to compete up but still requires them to formally earn it with a test. Oh, belt testing. Where are we at? Then they switch team then they switch gyms before and start wearing it anyway. Oh, really? That's interesting. So I didn't know about this. You're telling me about this. You're saying I didn't I guess I I really didn't read this. I thought I knew this about belt promotion, but I didn't read it deeply. So, this person in the St. Louis area is hitting me with the, hey, Josh, maybe you should get to the bottom of this. There are people that leave their gym and when they switch gyms, they promote themself is how this listener is making it sound. That's interesting. Okay, still, man, there's so much to this. This is interesting. The the part that I don't get is, people notice. The coaches, black belts have to notice too. So why does nobody address it? Not worth the drama, gray area if they deserve it because other students do notice and it can change how they view that person, the gym and the coaches involved. Do people actually not care or does it quietly affect reputation more than we admit? Is silence basically acceptance here? Not calling anyone out, just seems like an unspoken issue people notice but don't talk about. And yes, see, okay. Okay, yes, if you use this, certain people will know what I'm talking about if they listen to your show. I don't know if this is a question or a rant, but I definitely love to hear other opinions. It would be so much more fun if I have no context at all to these because this is not having read this because it was so long, maybe this wasn't written by ChatGPT. This is wildness. They're saying is how it seems, this is the claim that there are people in the St. Louis jiu-jitsu scene that are that have switched teams and on their way out pretended as though maybe they got a promotion from a different gym and then they're there at their new gym with their new belt. And like, yeah, now I'm a purple belt here, even though they were a blue belt at the old gym and no one ever pushed them into purple belt. That's so interesting. Yeah, I've never heard of that, but here is I'm going to let you in on a little secret. This is important. This is the important reveal that I said I wasn't going to reveal. This is the important secret that I said I would never tell you guys. And this is a black belt coach secret if you've coached for a long time especially. If you've promoted a lot of people. This is a secret that no one else and people may disagree with me, but you're wrong and I'm right on this. This is 100% true. Belts don't matter. They don't matter. They are made up. They're pretend. If you really believe that these five belts represent all the jiu-jitsu that there is, you obviously are not a high-level black belt. When you start to get to that high level and you start to see, oh, yeah, there are purple belts that can beat almost any black belt. That's because most of these black belts actually aren't very good. They're black belts in like two moves. That's all it takes to actually be a black belt most of the time. That and showing up for 10 to 12 years. That is not to say that it is not an amazing accomplishment to get a black belt, but here is the thing, they don't matter except to you, the individual. And only your belt should matter to you. Because as soon as you start to get into the mindset of this person self-promoted and I'm working hard for it, you think that you guys are playing the same game and fighting for the same thing. No, if you're working hard for it, you are playing a totally different game than someone who is self-promoting. Let them. It makes no difference in their actual jiu-jitsu. And making decisions like that that avoid working hard, that avoid sticking out things, when you see people make those decisions, those are character flaws. Those are not just decisions in, oh, this person is, you know, just not cut out. Sometimes, obviously, it's not a good fit. But if you are specifically leaving to your gym that you love everything about and you get better at, but you're just mad that you're not getting promoted, and then you specifically go somewhere that will promote you, that's a character thing. That is a not being able to just go, hey, what is the what could be required of me? Right? What could I do better? Like this, uh, listener said, they're working hard for their belts. Most people won't do that. This is the world that we live in. And as long as jiu-jitsu costs money, there are going to be a lot of black belts one day that are absolutely terrible and there's literally nothing we can do about it. But that is the beauty of jiu-jitsu. That is what makes jiu-jitsu jiu-jitsu. They come to the competition and it shows. Their students come to the competition and it shows. You can't lie to yourself. It does not matter if you promote yourself. It doesn't make you any better. And I know that that's like when I say belts don't matter, it sounds like I'm saying, oh, just don't worry about belts, man. No, just worry about your belt. Just worry about, am I getting so good that I'm obviously that belt? If you need more help, if you are a blue belt trying to get to purple belt, here's what you need to ask yourself. Am I a purple belt level in at least one move? How many moves am I a purple belt level on? Meaning, can I consistently hit purple belts with this move? Right? If you're not hitting any purple belts with any moves, you're probably not a purple belt, dude. Maybe you'll get a time-based promotion because that is the other thing about belt promotions, is they are totally coach's opinions. And again, rightfully so, sometimes coach's opinions, sometimes coaches will give promotions not just based on skill. They will give promotions based on this person represents the things that I believe matter for our gym and the culture of our gym. And I want to show that their consistency, that their hard work, even though they're not the best athlete, even though they're not getting as good, even though they can't hit these moves yet on purple belts. They've been here so long and they've stayed so committed and they've had such a good attitude and done every single thing that they're supposed to do. Does that guy deserve a promotion? I think a lot of blue, purple and brown belts are like, no, that guy doesn't deserve a promotion. It should be the Wild West. But once you get to being a black belt coach for a long time, I've dealt with belt promotions for almost 11 years now. And I have three schools. So I've had to promote people that don't see me every day, right? And, you know, I have multiple coaches at my gym. I've promoted people that are like, okay, well, I have to trust my coach in this that they know what a blue belt is because they're saying, no, this guy is 100% ready. And I have never trained with the guy. And so I'm like, okay, well, I could get stressed about it and be like, oh, well, what if he sucks? He's this what if people are going, oh, well, Josh's blue belts must be terrible. Listen, I'm going to let you guys in on a secret. I have a lot of very tough blue belts, a lot of very tough purple belts, brown belts and black belts. But I've also got some blue belts and some purple belts that are very good. But I guarantee you if you're rolling with one of my blue belts or purple belts and they're absolutely terrible and they've been under me for a long time, that you better not hurt them because I obviously very much like that person, right? Because sometimes I will even give promotions based on this person shows up. Does it say, do I mean like, hey, everybody that shows up 25 times gets a stripe? No. I like this person is consistent. That's one of my biggest things for, um, uh, for belt promotions is is this person being consistent? I put consistency over skill because some people are so gifted that they can show up occasionally and just get better and better. And I don't want to promote that. I want I care again, more about consistency than skill when it comes to me promoting somebody. And it's different per coach. And that's okay because here is the other kicker, we don't all need to be selling the same product. It's okay if you don't want to do jiu-jitsu my way. If you don't want to do the Head Nod American Jiu-Jitsu thing. That's cool, bro. Do the jiu-jitsu that you want to do. And that's when I mean when I say don't worry about their promotions. You guys promote, you guys do thousands of stripes. Give a stripe every night. I hope it is fun for you and it's helpful for you. I hope you guys get better at jiu-jitsu. I don't care. Don't come to my gym though and expect me to do it. I don't care. You know what I'm saying? I'm going to focus on what I care about at my gym. And I think that so many non-coaches, so many just hobbyists could understand that message and it would make jiu-jitsu more fun for them. It them just going, oh, it's just about me consistently showing up. I promise you anyone who's mentally weak enough to need to promote themself in jiu-jitsu, to need to have a fake accomplishment, they're not going to be in it for the long run. If they ever decide to come back after they quit, you're going to thrash them and it won't matter. Great, great, great text then. Um, let's go back to the callers. Okay, so you only have one to two days per week to train jiu-jitsu. Can you still be a competitor and win? Well, with Zero to Hero, you can. Oh, that's not what you have. You have three or four days a week to train. Oh, well then you would just need Hero in Hiding. That is easy. You can be a great competitor. Oh, you want to try to be the best competitor in the world? You want a professional level? You need to go Hero Mode. Well, the beauty of all three of these is all three of these six-week jiu-jitsu camps that will teach you exactly how to prepare for your next tournament. All three of them are free and included in my new ebook, The Competitor's Journey. This is where I take everything that I have learned from the last 18 years of competing in jiu-jitsu, the last 10 years of coaching competitors and I apply it into three very simple six-week jiu-jitsu camps that you can take and apply to your jiu-jitsu training right now for better success at your next tournament, less injuries and even a better mindset. All you need to do is go to simplifyingjiujitsu.com/comp and you can download The Competitor's Journey absolutely free. Let's get back to the episode. Speaker 5: My name is Stu. I'm a blue belt. I train at Alton Elite and Inertia MMA. Speaker 1: What's up? Oh, no-gi. And Inertia MMA. Speaker 5: Here's my hot take. Speaker 1: Tell me, Stu. Speaker 5: You get guys come in who are high-level wrestlers or a green belt in judo. Just let those guys train for a little six months or a year, smash every white belt at some competition and give them their blue belt. Just save the rest of us a headache of having to deal with these white belts that are not white belts. Way I look at it is, this is either a grappling meritocracy or it's not. Either you get your ranking off of how good you are or it's a Mick Jojo and you get your ranking because you show up. And there's no two ways in between it. Myself, to be honest with you, I am 42. If I grapple until I'm 60, I probably won't make it past you know, a purple belt. But I'm okay with that because I will have earned every bit of that purple belt. All right, that's it. Thanks. Speaker 1: Hmm. Okay. So a few places we can start. Um, it's not a meritocracy, right? It's meritocracy. What does that even mean? Alexa, what is meritocracy mean? Speaker 6: Meritocracy is a system where success comes from your abilities and hard work, not your background or connections. Speaker 1: Oh, okay. So like merit-based. Speaker 6: Sounds good. Catch you later. Speaker 1: Okay, chill, Alexa. So it's like a merit-based thing, right? Okay. Um, yeah, Stu, I'm sorry. I should have clicked on your hot take a second ago because I just went on a huge long rant about it. They don't matter. Belts don't matter. But also, let's go back to something else. Um, you just threw in wrestlers with judo green belts. Come on, bro. I don't think those are the same thing, right? Like if you had said a judo black belt should be a blue belt in jiu-jitsu, yes, I agree. But a judo green belt? Maybe judo's gotten better and I just don't maybe it's just like a back in my day thing, but yeah, wrestling tends to be a better base for jiu-jitsu. You typically when you have a judo green belt, especially one that started judo and now is doing jiu-jitsu. If you have a guy that's done jiu-jitsu and like, I'm going to add to my jiu-jitsu by doing judo, more power to you. I'm not saying don't do that. But typically the guys that are green belts that then come over to jiu-jitsu, all they come over to do is tell you about how cool judo is. Like, yeah, but imagine imagine if like a judo guy was doing this with how strong his grips are. He would probably be able to do this easier than everything. I'm like, hey, bro. Listen, you I'm not trying to be I'm not trying to be that guy. I don't want to throw in my own hot take into this episode, but you know that judo is useless, right? Like, right? We know that that's judo by itself is fake, right? Not without I mean, not saying to add to your wrestling to your jiu-jitsu is not amazing. It's great. It's in the gi. You learn to grip fight judo. They have the grip fighting figured out. But like the whole not being able to grab your legs thing is more fake than how in wrestling you can't do submissions. Like it's more transferable to just learn to control people's hips like you do in wrestling, I think. Totally off-topic, Stu. Um, but yeah, I don't know, dude. It's not that's the thing is there is no way to look at the million people to do that do jiu-jitsu and rank them all. And that is the more you can start to make belts be this internal thing, like you were doing. Stu, you said, you know, I don't care. I will I'm willing to just train hard and stay consistent, um, and stay at my purple belt. I promise you, Stu, if you make it to 60 and you keep that attitude, you'll be a black belt. Right now, yes, you only have the capacity to maybe even think about being a purple belt. But by the time you get four or five years of being that consistent, wrestlers are going to come in off the street. Judo guys, you will roll with judo black belts as a jiu-jitsu purple belt and you will thrash them on the ground. Yeah, they'll probably throw you on your head. It'll be cool though. It'll be fine. You'll be like, oh, wow, I've gotten good. These things, these little bases that you had that helps you a little bit on me. They really don't matter anymore, right? And so that is why it just has to stay so self-focused is because the more self-focused we keep it, the better it's going to be for you in the long run. As long as you keep showing up. I promise you, Stu. I have had more gifted athletes that I have trained with than I can count. Way more gifted than me. Times a thousand. But so many of them just aren't here anymore, bro. So many of them just didn't commit for the long run. And that was it. There is no other super secret. You know, yes, I'm always trying something new. I'm always trying to learn. All these different secrets I give you guys on the podcast, of course. But those came from just being there. Being there every night, occasionally a new guy comes in, occasionally you get a visitor that shows you something new, occasionally your coach gives you a new perspective, occasionally you get to a 7R and you get a new perspective there, you get a new training partner, whatever, but you just keep showing up. And then you get these guys that used to thrash you when you were a white belt and you get three or four years down the road and then they come back and they assume, well, I beat Stu down all the time. I'm going to keep he's older. I'm going to keep beating Stu down. And you're going to start to roll with him and you're going to go, hey, he's being so nice to me because I'm older. He's like not even trying at all. And then it'll click to you, like, oh, he's trying really hard. He just he's just terrible. He doesn't know what he's doing. And you will win in the long run, right? That has to do with the best way to do that, I think to get that mindset shift is to not be focused on the belt itself. Be focused on becoming that thing, not getting that thing. You be focused on becoming the belt, not getting the belt. I referenced Eric Heedner for the the big guy thing. When he was a brown belt, I was still having to basically I was like, it used to be harder to get black belts even then, bro. Um, but when he was a brown belt, he uh, um, I wanted to promote him to black belt and Kyle was like, I want him to win something else first, right? Because time-wise he wasn't super long at brown belt. Skill-wise he was incredible. But it was just time-wise. And I was having these conversations, but he never asked. And at one point I was like, hey, man, I really do want to promote you. It's just, you know, I'm I this is where I'm at with it. And he's like, okay, cool. And I'm like, do you not think about it? He goes, oh, no, I do. He goes, but my thought is always like, Josh is going to get annoyed with people telling him that I should be a black belt. People are going to be like, hey, what what is wrong with you? And eventually that's literally just what happened, right? Like, and Kyle too, people were just telling both of us, like, hey, this guy should be a black belt, right? And it came from that mindset of, I am just here to become that thing, not to get that thing, right? Let's see another hot take. Speaker 7: Hey, I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu show. It's Bionic Rob. Speaker 1: All right. Speaker 7: Black belt, Head Nod HQ. Hey guys, if you're out there wondering if you're getting better, if you're hitting moves on guys that you weren't, maybe you're getting better. Maybe they're having a bad day. Maybe they let you have it. We all suck. Keep training. Speaker 1: Great hot take, Rob. And that is what a good what a good setup to finish that promotion rant. I know I think we have maybe one or two more, but I know they're not about promotions. Um, cuz that is the truth. That is here is a great argument that I could pose is should anybody besides Gordon Ryan be a black belt? Should shouldn't he just be the gatekeeper of what a black belt is? That's like the tip of the top of jiu-jitsu. Should we all all like all of us just be brown belts besides that? Right? Where do we draw the line? What if you can if you can't beat me, do you deserve a black belt? I don't know. I don't know. Here's the thing. You can keep drawing that line and keep making it like, oh, no, the line has to do with if this person can beat this person, it's not that. It is a self-progression thing. That's what you focus on. Let's move on and thank you, Bionic Rob, for getting us to the hot take that of course, everyone sucks. That's why people like the name of the show because it hits for all of us. Speaker 8: So, I'm going to stay 100% anonymous on this one. Uh, probably a little too hot to put in thing that trace it down. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 8: So a lot of guys, you know, they get ringworm, they get sick, they get a flu. They stay home, they don't train. Nah, you'll got that wrong. Use that to your advantage. Find your competition. See when they got an open mat. Go there and get all them sick. They ain't competing next competition. You got to use big brain moves. Use that to your advantage, bud. All right. Speaker 1: Um, I think they call that biological warfare. I think that is isn't that can't you not do that? Is like in the Geneva Convention, bro. You can't go and biologically warfare people, can't you? I don't Alexa, is biological warfare illegal? Speaker 6: Biological warfare is illegal under international law. The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention bans the development, production, and use of biological weapons. In the US, 18 U.S.C. 175 criminalizes activities related to biological agents and toxins for use as weapons. Speaker 1: Hmm. Yeah, I mean, there you Alexa, stop listening to me, please. Yeah, there you have it. You can't do that. That's illegal. But that's pretty funny. You know, that's a pretty funny I don't know. Has enough time passed that I can give the name of this? Um, once one of my buddies competed at Pans and this was like deep COVID time. And he got to the venue and he had been training and been healthy and not had the virus. And then he got to the venue like that night before and he had like 100 and something degree fever. And he was like, uh, maybe I got the virus. And he went and competed and he won Pans. But you really think about it, he double won because all those dudes probably got it too. Biological warfare against the Geneva Convention. I mean, it said the biological convention. I don't know what that's about. I don't know what that's about. Um, but here is we'll finish. I know I have one more. Dude, I can't even I really don't want to even grace the biological thing with anything uh biological warfare thing with any serious joke or or response at all. But I thought that we would finish with this because it was a genuine question and this is also for me, um, how we can use the hot take line. Uh, is a lot of times, yeah, we're doing hot takes and then I can talk to you guys about my opinion on them. But sometimes it is that you have a question and you want it to be anonymous. And like I said, these things if you want them to be anonymous, they stay anonymous. Um, but you have that and you're just like, man, I want somebody's advice on this. And it's hard to talk to people at your gym. It's hard to talk to people, you know, if you post anything on Reddit, they will just roast you for no reason. Trust me. No one gets roasted on Reddit like me. But here's some people do, but I get roasted pretty good. Uh, but here is the thing, we will finish with this question hot take. Um, hey, Josh, I have an open-ended hot take. I want people's opinion on. So be sure you can drop this in the comments if you want. Um, I don't know this person's name. We will call him Brad. Um, no, that's a mean name to give somebody. Uh, what about we will call him Nigel. Nigel, that's a good that's a that's solid. We'll call him Nigel. Okay, so Nigel says, hey, Josh, I have an open-ended hot take. I want people's opinion on. A couple weeks ago, a lower belt asked me to drill from lasso and said he wanted some resistance following his moves. We're a couple minutes in and all of a sudden he throws up a triangle and proceeds to try to break my arm over his hip without letting off of the pressure. I turned my back and sit to throw the leg to throw the leg over his, um, for saddle and finish a knee bar. He then decided on the next drill to try to go for an inside heel hook. Holy smokes from lasso. Holy cow. And I counter with the bread cutter foot lock. Ooh, that's a good one. The lens lock. I didn't put that in the submission tier list. Dang it. I've hit that in competition too. I didn't put it in the Darn it. Uh, so, we're going to have to do an updated version of that at some point, a year, two years from now. Um, but anyway, he throws then get counter. Okay, he got pretty emotional and said I was throwing my submissions too tight and I needed to take it easy. I responded with why was it your why is why was it that your attempt in breaking my arm wasn't exactly friendly, nor was the heel hook attempt. Am I the jerk for submitting this lower belt with a tight technique? Should it have been my responsibility to stop and lecture him about how we should drill? Mind you, this is kind the kind of guy who knee bars white belts, injures white belts in submissions and overall rips submissions to win rounds in class. Well, let me start with this, Nigel. I hate this guy too. You don't have to tell me, bro. I get it. I hate him. Um, but let me also throw it at you like this. What if you just tapped to the arm bar? Right? What would he have done? I mean, you're just drilling things anyway or like and when you say drilling, is drilling positional sparring at your gym or are you supposed to just be giving a certain amount of feedback and he's supposed to be winning or is he trying to get a realistic response, right? Here is why I'm asking these questions. Is because these things like so many relationship problems have more to do with lack of communication and unmet expectations than anything else. If you had said, if he had said to you, hey, I want to do designated winner, do lasso guard, give me 20% resistance. Like, if you started to go too hard, he could always just say, hey, uh, just lower your intensity because that is the point of designated winner. We chose one guy to win, one guy to get the reps. The other guy's just there to help and help that guy get better. And then we can switch top to bottom and then it can be my turn to be the designated winner. And if he's not getting enough out of it, he can say, hey, give me 40%. 40% is going to be closer to like live rolling, but I'm still not actually finishing any passes. I'm not finishing any submissions. But since that wasn't the pre-conversation and it's this generic term that we use in jiu-jitsu, which is like drill. Like, well, you know, or people will say, oh, let's play. Like, what does that mean? Are we going to roll? Are we not going to roll? Like, the, um, Andy Sabin's on the show not too long ago and he was talking about that. Just having that conversation of we're going, I think they had a code word at their gym that was basically like, hey, let's roll this way and it mean, yeah, we're just trying to win. Like, that's how we're rolling and that's cool. But if not, we might roll this way. And you have different ways of getting reps because that's what getting better is, is understanding things in a better way and then getting reps of that understanding, right? The more times you can accomplish that task, whatever it is and however deeply you can understand accomplishing it, the better you're going to be at understanding that task and accomplishing that task. And you break it down per position. There are these little tasks that you're trying to accomplish over and over and over. And the more the better that you can get at it, the more reps you can get of doing it, the better it's going to be for you. And so you ask yourself, can I get some rehearsed reps? Not drill where you're giving me nothing because that doesn't make sense. Lasso is a whole position, right? I need you to give me feedback from one side, try to throw my legs to one side. I need you to try to fall back and see if I have that in my head to to pop up from there, right? And so to me, I don't think either one of you, and I made the joke earlier, Nigel, that I hated this guy. I actually don't think and I I don't know, maybe you both are the bad guy. But I don't think either one of you is actually the bad guy in this. I think that you just don't communicate well with your training partners. It's probably a habit at the at your gym that nobody communicates well for what they want out of their training session they're about to do. And then you end up with all kinds of hurt feelings. And this is again, lack of communication and unmet expectations. You expected the roll to be a certain thing. The guy expected it to be his certain thing. It got out of hand and then you both start going back and forth, right? And the next thing you know, you're both doing live round. You see it with flow rolls so much. Hey, just let's roll light. And then they don't roll light, right? It starts light and then they just go hard. You need to one, you need to have the discipline if you say, hey, let's roll light, to just roll light. Oh, but he was going harder. He was going harder and that then I had to go, no, you didn't have to. You could have just not went as hard. You could have passed your guard and tapped you. And then you could have said, hey, let's let's just slow down a little bit. And if he doesn't want to roll that way, then he won't train with you. But instead, you want to post about it on Facebook and and be sad about it. And I see this at every belt level. I see this all over, but it could be solved by just really communicating well what you're wanting out of your training with each individual partner. And just having that open communication. Some people you'll notice, no matter how well you try to communicate, they can't comprehend it. Maybe this person is that. The other solution then for you, Nigel, don't ever roll with this person. That is the and okay, because here's the other thing, is you made a throw in at the end of like, hey, this person injures white belts, is known for doing dumb stuff. A lot of us don't like him. It's kind of the hint that you gave me. So to me, that means if you just decided, well, I'm not going to train with this person anymore. That's my right. I'm not going to do it. And then they they're going to be like, oh, well, no one will train with me. And then they won't have any training partners. And that's on them, right? We referenced it in the beginning is like, um, I was trying to throw it on Adam and say he was rolling like a jerk. And uh, I don't think that's true. I think Adam, I've rolled with Adam many times. I always beat him down, bro. I always bring the heat on my boy Adam. Shout out Adam. Thanks for giving us that hot take at the beginning. But Nigel, this is what I'm saying, maybe this guy is an actual jerk. And maybe the coach isn't going to deal with it, isn't going to kick him out. Just don't roll with him. Maybe there are some people that actually like rolling with this dude, right? But yeah, my thing is, um, the the two ways to solve it are to communicate better or to not communicate at all. And um, those are probably the two best ways to solve a lot of those those like I would I I they're not a lot of times, they're these on the mat things. There are people that yes, like we make this thing of like, oh, there's all these evil people that are on the mats in jiu-jitsu and they're getting to positions of hierarchy and that's and they're doing all these evil things, right? And that's this this thing that you're hearing pushed. But when it comes to when it comes to it, a lot of it is just like there are people that are actually really good people and are really fun people to be around except at jiu-jitsu. Except when you train jiu-jitsu with them, you're like, I don't like this person. And then it causes you to have a really negative viewpoint of this person. Sometimes it is a window to their soul and they are actually a jerk, right? But sometimes and we have friends like this that I'm like, man, I love this guy that I know from jiu-jitsu anywhere but jiu-jitsu. I just don't want to train with him because he's crazy, you know? And so, uh, yeah, that is I think those are all of that's all I have for you, Nigel. I don't know. I don't think I have anything else. This is the first ever episode of 951 Hot Take. Thank you guys so much for participating. This is to me going to be a fun thing. I think that people are going to kind of grasp the concept now and leave some crazy good hot takes and I can't wait to hear them for the next one. I'm sure we'll wait a while before we do the next one. We'll just wait till we have enough hot takes to make a really good episode. But thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you guys for all the support, all the comments that we've been getting recently on the show. And, um, yeah, I just I hope that we can keep bringing you content that you guys keep enjoying. You guys keep wanting to listen to. And I really hope that this content helps you guys suck just a little bit less at jiu-jitsu. Have a great day, guys.