How do you teach gray belts humility when there's no yellow belts?

[HighKick]

In my BJJ gym, gray belt is the "highest belt". At least for now. It's still a relatively new gym. So far we have plenty of gray-and-black belts and solid gray belts, but we don't really have any active yellow belts. I do think we'll have quite a few in a month, as our first official belt day is next month. We have promoted 3 kids to yellow belt, but one of them has quit and the other two are so irregular that they might as well have quit.

The issue we're running into right now is many of the gray and gray-and-black belts think they're the Gracie's Gift to Jiu-Jitsu. They're obviously top of their class, so they feel like there's nothing more for them to learn. Instead, they're just there to goof off and to show off. The problem is that we don't really have anyone to prove them wrong. There's the coaches, but the coaches are so much bigger (and play with kids gloves when rolling with someone half our size and a quarter our age). There aren't any yellow belts to beat them into submission.

Most of our white belts drill better than our gray belts at this point. They pay attention during technique and do what was instructed (at least, to the best of their ability). A few of the gray belts get to the drill and don't even know what technique was demonstrated. They only pay attention to the broadest strokes. For example, yesterday we were drilling a setup which starts as a flower sweep, transitions to an armbar from guard, and then you push them over and finish the armbar from on top. One of the gray belts simply did a flower sweep into mount, and then S-mount transition into an armbar.

Instead of treating rolls as an opportunity to learn, they either treat it as an opportunity to show off, or as an opportunity to smash someone with the same sequence over and over. Even worse, some of them have learned some tricks from the adult class that aren't appropriate in the kid's class (such as jackhammering your thigh on your opponent's face to convince them to give up an armbar).

My Professor made a comment at the end of class yesterday that the white belts are doing great because they're trying to learn, but that the gray belts need to learn humility. That gray might be in front of the line in our gym, but it's one of the lowest belts in jiu-jitsu and they still have a lot to learn. I think he made a good point. But knowing these kids it probably fell on deaf ears.

I realize this is going to be a very niche question, but for those who have found themselves in a similar situation, where you have a newer school and the highest ranking kids (relative to your school) think they're too good for instruction, how do you approach it? How do you teach kids humility when there really isn't anyone who can humble them (without a big asterisk such as "you're twice my size and an adult")?

Tournaments or inter-school sparring events? Gotta get them with someone or something they are not accustomed to.

 

[skribs113 133]

There's one kid in particular that is the worst offender of the group. I talked with one of the other coaches about him. He did do a competition a while back, and he lost.

The reason I was talking with the coach is yesterday we're getting ready for the last round in the kid's class. I told this kid to find a new partner. He told me flat out, "There's nobody good enough for me to go with."

Going back to last week's comment:

My Professor made a comment at the end of class yesterday that the white belts are doing great because they're trying to learn, but that the gray belts need to learn humility. That gray might be in front of the line in our gym, but it's one of the lowest belts in jiu-jitsu and they still have a lot to learn. I think he made a good point. But knowing these kids it probably fell on deaf ears.

My Professor is at our 2nd location Mondays/Tuesdays, so I'll see him again tomorrow. He's usually a very patient man, but I wonder if that will be different tomorrow.

 

[wab25]

There's one kid in particular that is the worst offender of the group. I talked with one of the other coaches about him. He did do a competition a while back, and he lost.

Reinforce that he needs to train with better partners to do better in his next competition.

The reason I was talking with the coach is yesterday we're getting ready for the last round in the kid's class. I told this kid to find a new partner. He told me flat out, "There's nobody good enough for me to go with."

Introduce him to the idea that these are the training partners we have... he needs to help these improve in order to get better training partners. The more he helps the, get better, the faster he will have better training partners.

If he doesn't want to help, find him a nice comfortable chair....

 

[skribs113 133]

We had a big promotion day yesterday. That one kid (I'll call him Alan) got promoted from solid gray to gray-and-black. He felt incredibly insulted by this. He saw a yellow-and-white belt on the table and thought it was his. Another kid (already gray-and-black) got promoted to yellow-and-white. Alan thought he was the one to deserve it.

After the ceremony, we took pictures. All of the other kids were super happy with their new stripes or belts. They all wanted pictures with Professor, with the coaches. Even the couple of kids that were too new to get a stripe, they had a good attitude about it.

But Alan...Alan took his belt off right away. Didn't want to hang out with the other kids. His Dad was waiting for the adult promotion ceremony (and even got his blue belt). But Alan's Mom had to come pick him up because he was absolutely miserable that he only got one promotion yesterday.

I've never seen that happen in someone over 4 years old. I've seen 4 year olds cry because they got a stripe instead of a black belt. But I've never seen someone old enough to understand how belts work this upset because the promotion wasn't good enough for them.

 

[drop bear114 53]

One option.

Facebook

www.facebook.com

 

[skribs113 133]

One option.

Facebook

www.facebook.com

I just got some random reels, I don't know what you're trying to say.

 

[HighKick]

We had a big promotion day yesterday. That one kid (I'll call him Alan) got promoted from solid gray to gray-and-black. He felt incredibly insulted by this. He saw a yellow-and-white belt on the table and thought it was his. Another kid (already gray-and-black) got promoted to yellow-and-white. Alan thought he was the one to deserve it.

After the ceremony, we took pictures. All of the other kids were super happy with their new stripes or belts. They all wanted pictures with Professor, with the coaches. Even the couple of kids that were too new to get a stripe, they had a good attitude about it.

But Alan...Alan took his belt off right away. Didn't want to hang out with the other kids. His Dad was waiting for the adult promotion ceremony (and even got his blue belt). But Alan's Mom had to come pick him up because he was absolutely miserable that he only got one promotion yesterday.

I've never seen that happen in someone over 4 years old. I've seen 4 year olds cry because they got a stripe instead of a black belt. But I've never seen someone old enough to understand how belts work this upset because the promotion wasn't good enough for them.

Kids are kids. But I am not familiar with any program where it could be expected to jump a rank in a normal scenario. The only exception where I have ever done this is when someone has previous experience, has worked hard to get back to their previous rank and eithers skipped a single belt of done a skip-test.
This starts with setting the right expectation with the students And their parents.

 

[skribs113 133]

Kids are kids. But I am not familiar with any program where it could be expected to jump a rank in a normal scenario. The only exception where I have ever done this is when someone has previous experience, has worked hard to get back to their previous rank and eithers skipped a single belt of done a skip-test.
This starts with setting the right expectation with the students And their parents.

We've done it a few times. In fact, the kid who just got his yellow-and white had a couple:

• He had previously skipped straight from gray-and-white to gray-and-black (skipped over solid gray).
• This weekend he went from gray-and-black with 3 stripe, instead of getting his 4th stripe he got his yellow-and-white.

The thing is, in BJJ, the official ranks for kids are: white, gray, yellow, orange, green. Officially within the IBJJF system, you don't have color-and-white or color-and-black, you don't have stripes. Those are done within the school. IBJJF heavily encourages a system where kids will get rewards very quickly, whether it's 4 stripes per belt and 3 belts per color, or a system where your stripes change color (white stripes replaced with yellow and then red, for example), but there should be a ton of promotions to keep kids engaged.

So what happened in both of these cases above is within our school he skipped from gray-and-white to gray-and-black, and he skipped his 4th stripe at gray-and-black to jump to yellow-and-white. Within the organization, he went from one iteration of gray to another iteration of gray to eventually yellow.

 

[drop bear114 53]

I just got some random reels, I don't know what you're trying to say.

Just some of our kids beating on each other.

 

[Darren1]

In my BJJ gym, gray belt is the "highest belt". At least for now. It's still a relatively new gym. So far we have plenty of gray-and-black belts and solid gray belts, but we don't really have any active yellow belts. I do think we'll have quite a few in a month, as our first official belt day is next month. We have promoted 3 kids to yellow belt, but one of them has quit and the other two are so irregular that they might as well have quit.

The issue we're running into right now is many of the gray and gray-and-black belts think they're the Gracie's Gift to Jiu-Jitsu. They're obviously top of their class, so they feel like there's nothing more for them to learn. Instead, they're just there to goof off and to show off. The problem is that we don't really have anyone to prove them wrong. There's the coaches, but the coaches are so much bigger (and play with kids gloves when rolling with someone half our size and a quarter our age). There aren't any yellow belts to beat them into submission.

Most of our white belts drill better than our gray belts at this point. They pay attention during technique and do what was instructed (at least, to the best of their ability). A few of the gray belts get to the drill and don't even know what technique was demonstrated. They only pay attention to the broadest strokes. For example, yesterday we were drilling a setup which starts as a flower sweep, transitions to an armbar from guard, and then you push them over and finish the armbar from on top. One of the gray belts simply did a flower sweep into mount, and then S-mount transition into an armbar.

Instead of treating rolls as an opportunity to learn, they either treat it as an opportunity to show off, or as an opportunity to smash someone with the same sequence over and over. Even worse, some of them have learned some tricks from the adult class that aren't appropriate in the kid's class (such as jackhammering your thigh on your opponent's face to convince them to give up an armbar).

My Professor made a comment at the end of class yesterday that the white belts are doing great because they're trying to learn, but that the gray belts need to learn humility. That gray might be in front of the line in our gym, but it's one of the lowest belts in jiu-jitsu and they still have a lot to learn. I think he made a good point. But knowing these kids it probably fell on deaf ears.

I realize this is going to be a very niche question, but for those who have found themselves in a similar situation, where you have a newer school and the highest ranking kids (relative to your school) think they're too good for instruction, how do you approach it? How do you teach kids humility when there really isn't anyone who can humble them (without a big asterisk such as "you're twice my size and an adult")?

wqs in for three years once got pretty good i guess, then i started getting paired with black belts,the one guy big as a house,this other guy had to be at least 7 foot tall and his arms and legs were even longer, i went in on the black belt he been in 13 years i knew i had him i could feel it next thing i knew is he hit me so hard and then i knew nothing at all at least i learned something(the dragon need to do the talking first) don't ever ever rush in never! and don't be jumpy! the house guy you could maybe hit him all day long and he would not feel a thing! the 7 footer threw me around like a rag doll i hit the ground at least 19 times got in on him once. there will be some that you can`t wipe and must find some other way. find that way.

 

[skribs113 133]

We had a big promotion day yesterday. That one kid (I'll call him Alan) got promoted from solid gray to gray-and-black. He felt incredibly insulted by this. He saw a yellow-and-white belt on the table and thought it was his. Another kid (already gray-and-black) got promoted to yellow-and-white. Alan thought he was the one to deserve it.

After the ceremony, we took pictures. All of the other kids were super happy with their new stripes or belts. They all wanted pictures with Professor, with the coaches. Even the couple of kids that were too new to get a stripe, they had a good attitude about it.

But Alan...Alan took his belt off right away. Didn't want to hang out with the other kids. His Dad was waiting for the adult promotion ceremony (and even got his blue belt). But Alan's Mom had to come pick him up because he was absolutely miserable that he only got one promotion yesterday.

I've never seen that happen in someone over 4 years old. I've seen 4 year olds cry because they got a stripe instead of a black belt. But I've never seen someone old enough to understand how belts work this upset because the promotion wasn't good enough for them.

And now I find out this kid is ducking our Saturday classes because there's an orange belt from one of our branch schools that goes to our primary location on Saturdays. (Saturdays are when our branch locations are closed so everyone meets at our primary location).

I guess he just wants to be seen as the best.