Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Adult Ranks

    Black Belt

    As with many other martial arts, the black belt is the highest common belt within the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, denoting an expert level of technical and practical skill. Estimates vary on the time required to achieve the rank, with 10 years total (or more) an often heard estimate. No matter how many actual years are required, every Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt will have undoubtedly invested thousands of hours of mat time (randori) into the art and hold a skill-set that demonstrably reflects such.

    The IBJJF requires that a student be at least 19 years old and have spent a minimum of 1 year ranked as a brown belt to be eligible to receive a black belt.


    Brown Belt

    Aside from the exceptional belts awarded at the highest levels, brown belt is the highest “color” belt rank within the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, providing a transition between the intermediate purple belt rank and the elite black belt. Brown belt is arguably the beginning of the elite ranks in and of itself, typically taking at least 5–6 years of dedicated training to achieve.[3] As a transitional rank, it is often thought of as a time for refining rather than accumulation, where a practitioner hones already acquired technical and practical skills until they reach a black belt level.

    The IBJJF requires that a student be at least 18 years old and have spent a minimum of 1.5 years ranked as a purple belt to be eligible to receive a brown belt.


    Purple Belt

    Purple belt is the intermediate adult ranking within the art of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, coming after the rank of blue belt and before brown belt. It is often considered one of the longer held ranks, and typically takes at least 4–5 years of dedicated training to achieve.

    Even as an “intermediate” rank, the purple belt level practitioner holds a formidable amount of knowledge, and purple belts are generally considered qualified to instruct lower belts. In other martial arts, students with a similar amount of time and effort invested would often be ranked as a black (instructor) level belt.

    The IBJJF requires that a student be at least 16 years old and have spent a minimum of 2 years ranked as a blue belt to be eligible to receive a purple belt (with slightly different requirements for those transitioning straight from the youth belts).


    Blue Belt

    Blue belt is the second lowest adult rank within the most commonly accepted Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu grading system, bridging the way between the beginner rank of white belt and the intermediate rank of purple belt.

    To progress to a purple belt, a blue belt level student must acquire a vast technical knowledge regarding all aspects of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and hundreds of hours of mat-time to know how to implement these moves efficiently. Perhaps because of this, blue belt is often known as a rank where a student collects a large number of techniques.

    The IBJJF requires that a practitioner be at least 16 years old to receive a blue belt (thereby officially entering into the adult belt system).


    White Belt

    White belt is the lowest ranking belt within Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It is the rank held by any practitioner new to the art and does not require any special prerequisites to obtain. It is the rank immediately preceding the blue belt. Some instructors and other high-level practitioners feel that white belt is the rank where most of the student’s training emphasis should be placed on escaping and defensive positioning, as it can be argued that a white belt will do much of his or her fighting from inferior positions (especially when training with higher belts).

    While this may be largely true, and forms a solid training base for belts to come, most academies will require a prospective blue belt to show a well-rounded skill-set, with a knowledge of not only survival techniques, but basic offensive moves, such as common submissions and guard passes


Explanation and conditions:

  • Each block/period represents a stripe on the belt which represents the student's advancement through the belt system.
  • IMPORTANT: Advancement through the belt system requires a minimum of 2 days per week attendance. Stripes or belts will not be revoked for non-attendance but it will slow down the student's advancement.
  • IMPORTANT: Gi training (training with full uniform) is a mandatory requirement for promotion. The 2 days per week minimum requirement must be Gi training.