Sandbagging in BJJ Competion

[toshiro]

Quick question for anyone with BJJ tournament experience.

Should folks competing by BJJ rules compete in tournaments ranked by belt or experience? If a guy has as much or more mat time in as a blue belt, but doesn't hold any rank in BJJ, still compete at a white belt level or should he be in the blue belt catagorie? Is he sandbagging if he goes in with the white belts? Or should we rate people by the number of competions they've had? I know sometimes people do really well in the gym but really flake when the pressure is on in a competion situation.

thanks folks

[wardancer]

Quick question for anyone with BJJ tournament experience.

Should folks competing by BJJ rules compete in tournaments ranked by belt or experience? If a guy has as much or more mat time in as a blue belt, but doesn't hold any rank in BJJ, still compete at a white belt level or should he be in the blue belt catagorie? Is he sandbagging if he goes in with the white belts? Or should we rate people by the number of competions they've had? I know sometimes people do really well in the gym but really flake when the pressure is on in a competion situation.

thanks folks

Hum, I am a bit confused.
Are you saying a person has a BBJ Blue belt but fight in the white belt section because he is no good at competition?
Belt ranking ideally represents experience.
If somebody get graded BJJ blue belt therefore he has to compete in the BJJ blue belt section. If he compete in the white belt because he think he has no chance to win and decide to fight in the white belt section so he could get a chance to win.
Well shame on him and his instructor for ranking blue belt while he clearly does not deserve it.
The reason of the 'slow' progress in BJJ belt advancement is exactly because a BJJ instructor will be 'reluctant' to rank their students in a higher belt level in case they lose badly at BJJ competition. It will relflect badly on his teaching capabilities/team.
Now I have seen Judokas fighting in lower belt ranks that they have in Judo when they participate in BJJ competition.
Simply because they either have a lower rank in BJJ or do not want to fight in the equivalent belt level in BJJ.
e.g. like a Judo BB fighting in the blue belt BJJ section. I frowned at it but so be it, at least the judoka is willing to test his skills in a different competition format!

[doubleouch]

Belt ranking doesn't denote experience. It denotes skill level. When you can hang effectively using good technique with blue belts then you are one. When you can handle all the blue belts and hang with the purple belts, then you are one.

[JaredExtreme]

Belt ranking doesn't denote experience. It denotes skill level.

Precisely.

In response to the original poster: BJJ instructors, if legit, will not promote someone to blue belt if they are not of blue belt skill. A blue belt needs to be able beat white belts and be able to challenge other blue belts as well.

[TylerDurden]

I think the point he is making is, if someone wrestles or takes say 5 years of Judo or Sambo, they can technically compete as a BJJ white belt since they have not been given a blue belt. I don't know why someone would want to sandbag, the point of competition is to see how good you are. Beating much less skilled people is no test at all. Better to lose in a higher level than to dominate the beginners.

[toshiro]

Yeah that was what I was trying to say. If someone has 5 years of grappling in another art, should they be competing as a blue belt or higher if they don't hold any rank in BJJ?

[CKD]

Most people want to get used to the rules by competing in the lower belt division. But there are people that go all the way up. For example a sambo person won the heavyweight open san frasisco bjj tournament. Here is a website of a sambo club that has there people compete high levels in bjj and grappling. http://samboubc.tripod.com/clubpics1.htm There are more around the site. But most judoka do not go high up because they have less experience in groundfighting, wrestlers do not know the guard or submissions, but the sambo people know the same groundfighting as the BJJ practicioners so they tend to compete at higher levels.

[wardancer]

Yeah that was what I was trying to say. If someone has 5 years of grappling in another art, should they be competing as a blue belt or higher if they don't hold any rank in BJJ?

No they should not have to compete inthe blue belt for exemple if they do not want to.
Bjj competition format is popular and will attract many other MA (with grapling or not)
So be it.
It will only make it harder for the BJJ dudes but I am always keen for harder competition.

[MrPoopy]

If they don't require a rank in BJJ, then you're going to get some ppl with more skill than the rank they are trying to compete in.

It's the same way in Judo. I went to a tournament once where there were only 2 adult white belts. Myself, and another guy that had been wrestling and teaching wrestling for 10 years. It didn't matter that he could hang with brown and black belts. He still competed as a white belt. This guy eventually traveled to Texas and won a large Judo competition there. Even tho he had minimal Judo training and was only a white belt.