A Breakdown of Popular Jiu-Jitsu Belt Ranks and Their Meanings

The term, Jiu-Jitsu, is the combining of two Japanese words: Jū, which stands for gentle, and jitsu, an art. So, the compound name translates to ‘gentle art’. Although not directly related to karate, another martial art known as Brazilian Jiu-jitsu—referred to as BJJ or simply Jiu-jitsu—can be defined as a martial art of intelligent, defensive movements that enables you to avoid injury from your opponent and, in turn, not harm your opponent.

Unlike martial arts of combat such as Muay Thaï (punches) or Kárate (kicks), Jiu-jitsu only allows grappling and floor positions with defensive maneuvering that includes the usage of a few holds, chokes, and joint locks in self-defense to escape safely while being in control of your partner.

1. White Belt:

In Jiu-Jitsu, the lowest jiu jitsu belt rank is known as the white belt. Literally, everyone who has ever started this sport is white-belt material. No prerequisite skills are necessary; Here, a practitioner is an absolute beginner, and for the first few months, is about as good as everyone else. Practitioner at this level is attempting to habituate into defensible positions by lurching against or backing away from very basic attacks.

At this rank, we’re going to assume that the person is learning firstly what good mechanics feel like and secondly how to perform the technically rudimentary movements against an equally rudimentary practitioner.

2. Blue Belt:

Then it is on to the Blue Belt—the second color given to beginners in Jiu-Jitsu. You’ll get the Blue Belt after typically one or three years of training, depending on what your progress is like, and at the Blue Belt you deepen, solidify, and continue to build your foundations or basics.

An average blue belt should have well-tuned timing for positions, escapes and transitions, transitions and combinations of techniques, and greater instinct for a larger range of submissions and strategies.

3. Purple Belt:

Third is the purple belt. The purple belt is a very short distance between the ranks that they label as lower colored belts and black belts. Those who have been around longer than that as a white or blue belt know that your purple belt is where all the requisite theatrics incidentally attach themselves to your purple-belted carcass.

Practitioners are probably very skilled with the elementary, archetypal dynamics of the Jiu-Jitsu arts. And can probably do pretty much everything that you know is now pretty much clean and flowing. They’re simply more creative at this point—proto-poetic, proto-philosophical, sorting out your style and doctrines in a more prototypical way. They are likely beginning to teach or at least demonstrate to white and blue belts.

4. Brown Belt:

The brown belt is the last belt before the black belt; the brown belt has been training for years and knows everything that needs to be known about being a pure ground fighter. Next to being in a class of their own, dominating the basics of the art—including all the strangling and joint-breaking fundamentals, the core escapes and holds, and how to apply and defend any position.

A brown belt usually teaches or ‘coaches’ other students, almost always students below the color belt of blue, on the cusp of a black belt, still developing technique and game but preparing itself for another round of testing of black belts.

5. Black Belt:

The last one is black belt, which means that you are an expert of the sport, and they are now an expert of the basics and cores. This means that they can deconstruct the fighter’s fighting style, you can see his fighting movements and his patterns, and you can put him in a fight and defeat him.

Nevertheless, even at such a level, you’re still a keeper of higher forms of the art and still a pupil. BJJ is an art of grappling and is, at its essence, an exploration of control, force, and resistance. Mastery in the full sense of this word can require years of training and practice, but such breadth isn’t actually necessary for learning—in some modest sense—to defend yourself and others against violence in a few short weeks.

You can find a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school near me by just typing on search engines and making your own path as a body- and mind-bending person.