I moved to a new place, trying to pick a bjj school. One place nearby is pretty hardcore, lots of mma fighters and good bjj guys train there. The other place has some good bjj guys and some fighters too, but way more beginners like me. I have trained for a little while, been to one tournament, definitely a white belt.

Do yall think its better to seek my own level so to speak, or go for the school with the most badasses? thanks

I don't know if there is a right answer here, but if you go to the "beginner" school, you may find yourself wanting to go to the more extreme school later, but not doing so because of the friends you made at the first. Then again, the beginners at the "beginner" school would also be improving with you, so it's not like they would be beginners forever.

Is MMA competition, or even just training, one of your goals? If so then definately go with the more hardcore one.

thanks for the advice. nope, i don't want to fight mma. I just want to learn bjj and do some tournaments. And the "beginner" school isn't all white belts, they have some good guys, just seems like they have a higher number of beginners, while the other school is skewed the opposite. I got tapped out by the people I rolled with at both schools.

I think white belts are more dangerous to train with.

I'd think this is completely dependent on your goals, your age/athleticism/relative toughness, and your attitude and personality. From the tone of your first post, I'd hazard a guess that the "badass" school intimidates you a bit, in which case you can probably answer your own question--but that's just a guess.

While the "badass" school may be more intimidating, having a bunch of serious, motivated guys around will be a great boon to your training. The MMA place I'm at is like that and the difference between it and the Judo club I'm involved with (mostly n00bs) is like night and day as far as the quality of training partners go.

Go with the badasses.

But if you were to provide a location and names of these instructors we could help you more.

In general, your skill level will be hindered, not helped, by having less experienced partners to train with. You will get by with bullshit, simply because they are whites; this will create bad habits that will have to be corrected eventually. Barring a school with a bad additude (they do exist), go to the one with the better students.

And Yrkoon9 is correct... which specific schools, so we can stop talking in generalities?

one school is marinmma, the other is norcal fighting alliance. nobody had any bad attitude from what i could tell, i was just real impressed with the reputation of the norcal instructor. "rolling" with him felt like peewee vs jaws.
anyway, thanks for the opinions

Then your next step would be to try a class at both and see which one fits you better. When you have, what did you think?

Terell is obviously a stud, but Ralph Gracie produces good guys as well.

Be sure to read the introduction to Dave Camarillo's book, Guerilla Jiu-Jitsu, and its section on training with Ralph.

What does that book say about it, since I don't own it? I guess those guys had a falling out or something? I'm too far away from ralph gracie's school to train there anyway.

In short, he has great BJJ if you're able to get over him being batshit insane and likely to attack and seriously injure you for no reason.

Osiander and Stewart are complete studs as well and from what I've seen not crazy.
Looking at your choices, if you're interested in bjj comps, marinmma looks like a better choice.
If you're any good you'll also probably get to be a bluebelt for a decade and get 5-6 US Open titles as a blue before reaching purple. That'll be nice for you.

does one school fit your schedule better than the other?