Are Gracie Belt rankings recognized family wide?

**scscribbler** · Posted On: 8/07/2009 9:14am

The Gracie family has several different Jiu-Jitsu organizations (Gracie Barra, Gracie University, Gracie _______, etc.) all going on at the same time. Some are big International organizations and some look to be smaller, family ran, local gyms. Do they all recognize the same ranking system? For example, would a Carlos Gracie Jr, Gracie Barra purple belt be considered a purple belt at Ryron and Rener's Gracie University? Would a Machado ranked purple belt be recognized at a Gracie Barra school and vice-versa?

Just curious, is it one-big-happy (but slightly different shaped) ..."G"?

**v1y** · Posted On: 8/07/2009 9:54am

For the vast majority of the BJJ world: as long as you can show where your belt came from, it'll be 'recognized'. Although at the end of the day the best way to have your belt recognized is to back it up on the mat.

For the small minority (primarily Rorion and his kind): anything taught that deviates from the way helio gracie taught it is not real bjj, but a 'watered down form' teaching 'sport jiujitsu' rather than 'real gracie jiujitsu'. Most people here would strongly disagree with rorion.

**Lebell** · Posted On: 8/07/2009 10:12am

scscribbler, don't worry so much.
if you for example have a blue belt, just go up to some other school and simply state you earned it at your own gracie school.
they'll take it from there.

**2Many** · Posted On: 8/07/2009 6:28pm

I don't train BJJ, but from what I've heard, it goes something like this:

Neo: "I know BJJ"

Morpheus: "Show me"

* A large mat area materialises around the two, and an epic duel ensues. *

**UpaLumpa** · Posted On: 8/07/2009 7:07pm

There are a lot of people who don't recognize Carley Gracie's belts. Saulo apparently makes guys that join his school wear a white belt with a colored tab signifying their former rank until he decides they're at a standard sufficient to be recognized _____ belt at his school. I don't know if he ever down grades people though.

Those are the two cases I know of where ranks aren't recognized but there may be more.
Everyone at a school knows where you stand pretty quickly anyway so it isn't too big of a deal. We've had guys from other schools that were, by our standards, way overranked but our coach didn't make them wear a belt or two lower.

**bjjgame** · Posted On: 8/07/2009 7:24pm

I really think it all depends on how you roll.
I received a blue belt at a Gracie seminar a couple of years ago. I didn't know it at the time, but I guess Royce is kind of loose in handing belts out. I'm now training under a BB (and the training, btw, is way more intense there than where I used to train). He told me that he will "re-give" me a blue belt at the next promotion so that I have a certificate and everything (I never got anything like that from Royce).

**scscribbler** · Posted On: 8/07/2009 8:28pm

I live really close to a US Army base and I was thinking there has to be a ton of military folks who train at local BJJ schools while stationed in town, but when they get redeployed they'd have to start rank over again? ...that would suck.