The Shintaro Higashi Show - Rethinking the Belt System

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

The primary purpose of the belt system in Judo is to help beginners with their progress. Does the current belt system in Judo, especially in America, work well for the intended purpose? In this episode, Shintaro and Peter discuss the status of the current Judo belt system in America, and suggest possible enhancements to serve the community better. Join our Discord server and start chatting with us and other grapplers by supporting us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Shintaro Higashi Show, Peter Yu. Today we're going to talk a little bit about rethinking the belt system. The whole system. All of it. Yeah, so we... One of the early step-by-steps we did was about the belt system. You know, what each of the belts means and everything. But now, you want to propose a whole new system?

Not that different. I want to rethink it. I want to kind of throw some ideas out there for people to kind of rethink it a little bit, you know, because the current, you know, every school has their own path, every way. Some schools do stripes,

some schools don't do stripes, you know, and I kind of have a lot of ideas about this. So let's start with the motivation. Like what prompted you to roofing the belt system? Is there some problems? There are always some kind of problems, right? Yeah. I think the most important thing,

whenever you read any martial arts business-related book, they say any dojo, every dojo should have a clear path to black belt. It's laid out how do you achieve a black belt in the school and i know for a fact in my dojo there is definitely not a clear path it's like oh you know just keep doing it and then one day it'll happen you know and some people don't operate that way you know what's uh what's a example of a clear path clear path for instance like if you have a curriculum that says hey after this many months of time, then you immediately promote up and then you could kind of extrapolate out.

Right. Okay. It takes three months for the first belt, three months of the second belt, six months of the third belt, six months of the fourth belt, et cetera, et cetera.

It's like, all right, theoretically, if I keep training for three years, I can get a belt, brown belt. Theoretically, if I train for five years,

I can get a black belt. Right. So does that include not just the time requirements, I keep training for three years, I can get a belt, brown belt. Theoretically, if I train for five years, I can get a black belt, right? So does that include not just the time requirements, but like skill requirements too? Like you should know what to do or you should be able to beat these people or something like that? So this is the thing, right? Every school has a different path, you know? And I know for a fact, like a lot of Taekwondo schools have attendance,

attendance-based, time-based, okay? So you have to have this many classes under your belt. You have to have this much time in the grade. And then there's a skills test, a skills requirement. So you have to demonstrate that you know the thing and then you could take that test and pass, right? It's really like a college degree. You take these courses

and then you specialize in one or two things. And then, you know, four years, 16 credits per semester, you got a degree. So why do we want them? I'm not saying we want it. I'm not saying we want it. I'm not like for that kind of a curriculum. But I think some people need that. And for those people who need that, your dojo should have it.

Right? So you can tip. And you know, you hear this all the time, right? There's a competition path and a non-competitive path. Some of these schools have that kind of idea. It's two separate paths going towards the same

goal. Mostly, the majority from my dojo is merit-based system. Who's better than what? It's kind of subjective. That has scaling issues too because after you have over 100 students, it's very difficult subjective but that has scaling issues too because after you have over 100 students it's very difficult to keep track of everyone's skills right you'll see somebody for a few weeks or a few months now you have no idea how good they are when did that guy

join like you know unless you keep like meticulous attendance so so what what's uh we kind of got sidetracked with the you know how a lot of books uh say dojos have to have a clear path to a black belt but yeah so what what is a problem you you particularly in particular see right now like why do you need why do you feel the need to rethink the system well so it depends on because every school is different yeah and i get it like yes there's a certain belt right judo it's like white yellow orange green purple brown black right that's for kids yeah and then for adults like white yellow green brown black yeah you know and that's kind of it it's sort of unified but it's not really unified everyone kind of does what they want to do they have yeah stripes this and that everybody's a little bit so there's no real problem that's

but the problem is there's certain people that kind of fall through the cracks within the system that doesn't make the martial arts sticky enough do you see a lot of them i mean yes right because if there's too much time between the ranks, people get discouraged. And some people are motivated by achieving those milestones. And some people don't care about it as much. Obviously, if you're taking a competitive path, you're sort of on that cusp. You know what I mean? Let's say you're doing jiu-jitsu and you're a blue belt. If you've been doing jiu-jitsu for 10 years and you're a blue belt, you're a candidate to win World Championships or Pan Ams.

Because people hold themselves back in order to achieve those accolades. So people are much more likely to not get promoted in order to gain these titles. Right.

But then in judo, you're saying there is but some people need this quick feedbacko you're saying there isn't one but some people need this quick like feedback you're saying yes so i'm kind of like proposing here right like just a scattered nature of judo's rank system and how a lot of it is unrelatable yeah from school to school it means completely different things and when you say i'm a jujitsu purple belt it means something when you say you're a jujitsu blue belt it kind of means you know when you say like i'm an orange belt in judo what does that even mean no one knows what that means does that mean for a year

does that mean you compete it literally means nothing because some schools have orange belts for adults some schools don't i guess in a way it's probably my take on that is that because judo cop competitive judo i guess in a way works in almost like uh i mean it is an olympic sport so there's no like a blue belt green belt world champion or anything like that everyone kind of everyone who can compete can compete and then. So the current system, the one that's designed to support competitive judo as well. Because like I said, in jiu-jitsu, there's white, blue, purple, black.

There's blue belt world championships, purple belt world championships, round belt pan ams, massive black belt, freaking M3, lightweight world championships, all these different things. And you kind of know where everything is. It falls into a nice neat structure. Judo, you never know, right?

You've been doing judo since you're a kid. You go through all the ranks, white, half white, half yellow, yellow, half yellow, half orange, orange, orange, green, all this stuff. And now all of a sudden you're like 16 years old. You've been doing judo since you're a little kid. You're a purple ball. You go into an adult novice tournament and smoke everyone right right you know what i mean like that brown belt that's been doing judo for 15 years versus you know a brown belt at a school that says okay three months to green belt a yellow belt you know six

months of green belt six months of brown belt and then the guy's been doing he's a brown belt another two years that brown belt versus that kid that's been doing judo of course it just doesn't match so i yeah okay i kind of see what you're saying so what's the let's hear let's hear about your proposed system yeah it's not even a solution it's just a fucking idea that sounds nothing i'm just throwing it out there for my people. Yeah, maybe we'll explore some discussion. And, you know, maybe we can come up with a better system together. Yes.

Okay, so my idea, right? Yeah. White belts to the next rank. White and yellow belts, stripes all the way. What does that mean? It's four stripes. White belts get stripes. Yellow belts get stripes yellow belt gets stripes uh a lot of schools are doing this now just to two white belts get stripes blue purple brown they don't get stripes some schools do that right some schools just do like stripes all across

right when you have four stripes oh i said so you're you're subdivide the white belt and the yellow belt yes but these. But these are quick. These are quick. Quick. Okay. It could be three months. It's just like straight up time. You get a strike or merit-based.

So you kind of have both of those things going on at the same time. You throw somebody, you do a technique really good. Hey, I just want to recognize that this person did an amazing job with a technique of the day. It's very advanced technique. He was able to do it. Here's a strike. Bang. Whoa.

You know, And it plays to human nature, right? The psychological reward system. If you're getting rewarded every single time on the clock, every week on Friday, it doesn't mean as much, right? And every single psychology textbook says, these random like rewards.

Sometimes you don't get it. These are the things that trigger that volvian response or something. I heard that a lot in dog training too. Randomize the reward. Yes. If they sit every time, you give them a treat every time. It's like, all right, you know.

Yeah. You got to randomize the reward. Anticipates. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's two components playing at once. There's time, of course.

Yeah. Right. And you can rush them too. You could do like two months, one month right and you can rush them too you could do like two months one month whatever you want to do you could do right but you could it's a quick stripe you're always getting stripes you blow them through white and yellow belt straight to green essentially that's the right right it's it's quick you're advancing really fast white yellow green it means something for the three initial ranks. Kick an orange out. Orange is the worst belt at all. We do not need orange.

Okay. So beginner Judo is white, yellow, green. And the white yellow, only white yellow have stripes. Okay. They do green also. Okay. But the key is to, it's quick stripes randomized. Quick stripes randomized between time and merit okay hey guys uh

you know this guy just lost his job he's but he's still coming every day hey this guy tweaked his shoulder he's still training he's still in the room he's engaged i gotta reward him here's a stripe right all right so now it's not just time it's not just showing up they show up maybe doing something good it shows the student shows the teachers watching, right? And everybody likes to be low recognition. We don't just do a belt ceremony. I freaking hate belt ceremony. We'll talk about that a little later.

White, yellow, green, big jujudo. Now after green, blue, purple, brown. Intermediate juju. Blue, purple, brown. And this is what we're going to juju. Okay. Blue purple brown. And this is what we're going to do here. Blue purple brown means something in jujitsu.

Yeah. Okay. White blue purple brown. Right? Uh-huh. And jujitsu did this. They're like, ah, yellow, orange, green, let's get rid of it. We'll just go right to blue. Uh-huh. And I know in Brazilian-jitsu they have kids ranks right they have white gray yellow orange right all this stuff right oh and

then it's blue white blue purple brown black so intermediate purple brown means okay right so when people are online say hey i'm a blue belt that means something i'm a blue belt in judo should have the same feel as a blue belt in jiu-jitsu. It's an intermediate rank. Okay. Purple belt. I'm a purple belt in judo. It means something. You're an intermediate rank. We don't need stripes at this point.

Then, we could have an intermediate division. I see. That encompasses blue, purple, brown. Yes. So there's branding with those colors on the belts. Okay. The ride back.

I think it's like a five to seven time multiplier in terms of sheer number of people who are doing jujitsu versus judo. In America. Five to seven times more if you take the average jujitsu school size versus the average judo school size you multiply it by five to seven that's approximately how it's going yeah number of competitors in competition number of people who are on reddit you know judo judo reddit versus jujitsu reddit is probably it's i think it's like seven times bigger seven times bigger in terms of number back to people who are on there. Yeah. Well, yeah.

Well, I don't know. I don't know exactly. But yeah, that sounds about right. BJJ is definitely bigger in English-speaking countries. What's happening? In America. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe even in England. I don't know what it's like in England. I'm not from there. I'm not British. So this is the thing, right? I mean, yeah, judo comes first and all this, but they're doing something right. They have a blue belt world championships,

purple belt Pan Am and all this stuff. So let's ride the coattails of their branding a little bit. You know what I mean? What belt are you in judo? I'm a blue belt. Okay, cool. That means something to the jiu-jitsu community. How many people do you know at work who,

if you do judo, who do Jiu-Jitsu? For every one guy that's doing Jiu-Jitsu in your workplace, there's probably four or five. Five to seven, based on my math. This is completely made up and not scientific, by the way. Let's say that for the sake of the argument. The point is

that there are more people who do BJJ than Jiu-Jitsu. That's intermediate. For the sake of the argument. I mean, the point is that there are more people who do BJJ than judo. Yes. So, okay. So that's intermediate. They all compete together. Okay.

What, and then what, what comes next? Black belt. Yeah. Right. But this is my next proposal with the USJF, USJ,

USJI is very, very difficult to do it through the organization. I'm going to propose like if you have a certain rank, you should be able to promote anybody up to that rank, at least minimum first-degree black belt. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, because dojo black belt should mean something.

You know, some people don't want to take that path of, like, doing the paperwork and this and that and all the, you know, dog and pony show, you know? I remember Korea was like that, and Shodan was just like whatever like the the gym owner would be like okay you're good enough and then he just files the paperwork and then you'll be approved yeah that's how it should be i think you know of course we don't want to like

water down the judo black belt you know yeah but if we're very consistent if everyone across the board is consistent about doing white yellow green with stripes in between and then blue purple brown is intermediate then a judo black belt is, you know, minimum timing grade or whatever it is, right? Now we're talking, okay, the average judo practitioner is going to be pretty good, right? Right. And then what else? I mean, that's the majority of it, you know, so we're sort of playing this path, you know, once you get to intermediate, I think you should be able to choose the path that you want as a student as well. Do you want to take a time-based path?

Do you want to take an attendance-based path? Do you want to take a merit-based path? Or do you want to take a competition-based path? Because some people have different ways to go about it. If you're like 50 years old and there is no master's division and you have knee injuries and you're just happy to be in the room and you don't really, you know, care much about the belt. Those just keep showing up anyway. You know what I mean? The idea is for these ranking systems to keep people in the sport long enough to achieve some level of proficiency. And that proficiency is represented by the black belt. You see what I mean? So we shouldn't have to jump through hoops

and sit in front of a committee, promotional committee even though i'm on that promotional hudson region you know what i mean but i think a lot of this stuff is pretty uh you know i mean it's the classic argument like in politics big government versus small government you know how i feel about you know small government writer versus right you know what i mean like meddle less with us let us do more i mean the power back to us we don't need to be part of this freaking i mean you know let me not get down that path because you know it's gonna get a little nuts in here because you know we all know where peter stands on these kinds of issues i would say anything about this well okay so okay i so i got a dead yeah so just to recap uh the it's like

three categories of belts i guess the beginner belts white yellow green or whatever quick succession stripe base like boom boom boom like you get quick awards randomized whatever intermediate belts blue purple brown um you're saying bring up it kind of like make them mean something just like how they are in BJJ and I think I have some questions about that and then black like at least the earlier black belts like Shoran

Shoran just like yeah that should be very easy especially if you're a sick degree like me I should have to give up to a certain rank without even having a deal with these people right right all right so I think I mostly agree with the beginner and black but I'm just curious what you mean by that like I wonder like how BJJ was able to establish some standards.

I guess I don't know. I don't even know. Like you said, if I hear someone's a blue belt, someone's a purple belt, someone's a brown belt in BJJ, I have an idea of how good the BJJ will be. Yes. But I don't know how that came about. And I also don't know how you would actually make that happen in judo what what would those mean i mean it's kind of similar you know like

once you for most jujitsu schools right they do stripes within the belt yeah that's why they got black bar on the belt i mean right you have a white belt you do four stripes and then you know to get a stripe what what do they do promotions? Every six months? I have no idea. They usually do it every six months. Some schools do it a little bit shorter period of time, but at least it takes a year or two to get the blue belt.

Yeah. It's another year or two to get the purple belt. And then so, you know, average amount of time in grade, and then the belt stripes comes intermittently enough to know, you know what color you're about to get one of them. I guess that's how I know. I know that it takes one or two years to get a blue belt.

Then what? After that two more, three more years to get a purple belt? I don't know. I think purple belt takes five years. Four to five. But this is the thing, right? Nuance is very easy to get prof five years, but this is the thing, right? Four to five. But this is the thing, right? Nuance is very easy to get proficient at. Yeah.

I mean, I shouldn't say easy, right? But you spend two, three years just training groundwork, you're pretty good on the ground. Right, right. So like, all right, I've been doing jujitsu for two years, you know, going three days a week. And then, you know, every school has sort of attendance-based system as well, right? How many classes does this person go in? And then you kind of really know, you know know and people don't really deviate right unless you're like really really unathletic where you're going every single day just terrible for for 10 years

straight or unless you're like a super athlete where you know yeah you just like can pick it up so much faster than most people fall in that bell curve yeah yeah two standard deviations. Is that right, Peter? Am I correct on the math? Usually, there's one standard deviation inside. You're a much better Asian than I am. It's like, what, 60-something percent falls within one standard.

67.5 or something. What about two standard deviations? Then it goes to like 90-something. I don't remember. Shame on you, Peter. I don't know it Shame on you, Peter. Shame on you for not knowing that. I don't know it, but shame on you. But so, okay.

So you're like, yeah. So I think that, yeah, that's how they do it. It's like if this type of athleticism follows the normal distribution, follows the normal distribution most people will get this become this proficient achieve this proficiency around one to two years which is a bluebell

so on and so forth if you have 20 guys in the room majority of those guys can just follow that path everyone kind of knows so then are you proposing something like that for judo? so this is the thing right if you follow the white yellow green path yeah get the blue yeah to that intermediate rank you

know you've already done enough time right because you have these stripes right these things there's a little bit more time in between the moment you get from white to blue right yeah you should know what a blue belt should kind of feel like. And this way, you know, divvy up the divisions a little bit more in competition. Some competitions have a brown belt only division. Some competitions have like a novice division, which is green and below and then advanced. That's it.

I feel like if every competition did this, white, yellow, green, purple, brown, and then black like this, then there's no risk of you going against a guy who's been doing judo for 10 years who's a green belt. Yeah, that's a, you know, that's a waste of time, I guess, for everyone. So, what then,

what would be the time for a blue belt in your scheme? I mean, around the same. Oh, like two years? I mean, it runs the same. Oh, like two years? I'm trying to align some of it. Because the rank system in Jiu-Jitsu is a lot cleaner, I feel like.

It's more consistent. Every single Jiu-Jitsu school has white, blue, purple, brown, black, dark. Yeah. And yes, purple belts from this school, that school, they're different. But if you say I'm a purple belt, purple belts from this school, that school, they're different. They're different. Yeah, yeah.

But if you say I'm a purple belt, okay, he has a freaking purple. You know where he is. Yeah. You don't fucking. Right, right. I mean. Well, okay. So then. But then that means like it'll take like 10 years to get a black belt just like in bjj

not necessarily because like i said before right white yellow green getting those stripes sometimes it's time sometimes it's marriage like that inconsistent random rewarding system right right so there is a bare minimum within this time period the most amount of time that it'll take within getting, by getting these sort of, not multipliers, but like extra stripes. It reduces the overall time for you to get to. Right.

And then if you follow this path, you should be able to beat and do well at some of these competitions. It's a truly beginner division. If it's unified across the globe. Just like there's safety. People are much

more likely to go. And then if you go to a competition, hey man, I know it was very scary for Joe to go to this competition. So I reward him. He's an extra stripe. He won this thing. Even if he didn't win, he fought with a lot of heart. I just want to recognize that here's a stripe you know no jimmy pedro system had this like actual excellent stripe goal setting stripes you know there's all this stuff you know yeah different

patches whatever everything and then you get this many stripes you get patches and that's what an extrinsic reward system i think if you overdo it it's silly that's too gimmicky but some people love that shit yeah you know it's like collecting it, it's silly. It's too gimmicky. But some people love that shit. Yeah. You know, it's like collecting little awards. It's like boy scouts. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I sold this many cookies.

I get this freaking stripe. You know, everyone shows it. Right. Even in football. When I played football in high school, it was like, all right, if you get a tackle, you get a little sticker on your head, on your helmet. If you get a sack, you get like a skull sticker on your head. What? Really?

Yeah, yeah. I didn't know that. A QB or something like that, you know? Oh. And even like in my high school for wrestling yeah if you got a pin if you pin someone in wrestling you get a physical safety pin under your name on your letterman's jacket oh dude i had 27 in one season one time knock it i didn't get any of those yeah you mean you never pinned anybody yeah I did pin people but I never got those pins

yeah if you tech someone you gotta tech like a tech a pin safety pin oh I would like I think the tech

pin I would want the tech pin more than 27 pins in one season one time nice alright and girls would come

and like run their fingers up and down wow you have so many pins. We should have pins for judo too. No, but some people love that shit. Some people love it. And then, you know, if they do, this is more proud to them.

I'm just trying to like divide the system to make judo more sticky for the beginner. Really. I see. I think the key point is the beginner stripes. And the guy does judo for six months. He loves it. He's like, I want to compete. It's like, you know, when you go into a novice division, you don't know who you're going

to get, man. I'm telling you, you might get a guy that's been doing judo for seven years. Yeah. But in this way, you know, if everyone follows the system, white, yellow, green, bank, you know, like then now all of a sudden everyone's in the same field. Right. So you don't really have an idea on how many years it would take for a person to get a blue bell or purple bell like BJJ yet.

This is the thing, right? If someone's a super athlete coming in. Yeah. Or like I'm talking about on average like the average joe right smack in the middle of the bell curve right smack in the middle of the curve i don't know man two years till below same as jiu-jitsu man just copying jiu-jitsu now that's what we gotta do that's what we gotta do jiu-jitsu's doing good let's copy them let's do what they're doing. But then it takes a long

time to get a black belt, Ben. Because my sense is that black belt in BJJ would be almost like the teaching degree in Judo. Usually, I know in Korea and Japan, fourth degree is a teaching degree. How about this? Five to ten years to black belt. That's it.

Five to ten years. If you're a super athlete, you get five. Five? You think I would've gotten it in five because showdown was like pretty easy to get i mean yeah this is the thing right every place is different in japan yeah they give it out to middle school kids yeah yeah middle school kids that are competing high high comp like yeah it's a middle school kid you know what i mean so compared to like a brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt completely different you know right right so you know so more calibration i mean i i was just uh my the point of confusion for me was that like oh how what's the your like the for average person what would what would it take i'm just curious people ask me this all the time like hey how long is it going

to take until you get a black belt and you know the answer is it freaking depends on you man you know what i mean there's a huge range you know i think the shortest ever in my dojo was like three years so i got a black belt my dad would give out white yellow green to brown them like three month intervals boom boom boom and then when you got the brown belt, you had to compete for your rank. We had a promotional tournament. Remember that. And it happened every six months. So you go out there and you beat a certain number of guys in a row, you get an immediate promotion.

Three levels of brown at this thing. Three levels of brown. Takes a long time. But if you win, it was two in a row, three in a row, three in a row, within 18 months, you could go from lowest brown to black so theoretically under the system you could get a judo black belt in other three years yeah and we had a guy that he was a greek athlete yeah savage he was like he's a

monster and he just came in you know loved martial arts did it as many times as possible just came to the dojo every day you know and just so you you're also proposing that we do away with this

promotional tournaments right you know the Q grade system gets confusing I think yeah first you this that then you get the

shodown all this stuff kind of get a little bit confusing you kind of like keep that yeah I think so no but within the tournaments we can keep the tournaments Shodan, Nidan, Sanda, all this stuff kind of get a little bit confusing. You kind of like keep that. Yeah. I think so.

No, but within the tournaments, we can keep the tournament, you mean? I don't even want to say Q's anymore, man. It's just too confusing for most people. There's too much Japanese jargon, you know, and I'm not, I'm a little bit of a traditionalist. I want to keep a lot of this terminology for sure. Yeah. But, you know, like you should know what Q is, what belt. Oh, no, I'm talking about promotional tournaments yeah it's all intermediate getting to oh you could do this you could have a blue purple brown division you could do that sakyo niikyu ikyu like that too you could do that as well oh i see i see Competition, all blue belts compete in it. If you win two in a row, like, in a row back to back, you immediately, you got purple.

Purple. Okay. I think that's can be doable too. I see. I think we amend to that, but, you know, it really needs like sort of the cooperation of everybody. Yeah. Everyone buying into the system to do it, you know?

So if you guys listen to this, if you have ideas, let me know. I know a lot of you guys are watching on YouTube. So comment below what you think, how we can do it. You know, I'm sure there are gaps in my ideas because it's something I literally came up with 20 minutes before you record this, but the ideas I've always had, and you know, little by little, I'm kind of doing this thing now, right? I don't like this promotional ceremony where everybody comes up one at a time and I'm like handing out belts and this and that and this and that, you know, I don't like that. So I've been doing kind of like just walking around with stripes.

All right. June is promotion month. You know, you got to come in June. And then, you know, if you're kind of up for it, I'll just walk over and give it to you. Right. I've been doing that. Pulling guys and say, hey, you know, can you go put this on? I see.

I like that better than like lining everyone up, one by one calling everyone, like, is it going to be my turn? Is it going to call my name? And it's just like a huge letdown component. Yeah, like if you don't get called up. Get called up. You know, this way, it's like white, yellow, green. Stripes, Stripe City.

Walking around with stripes, bang, bang, bang, bang. Just putting on people's belts, putting on people's belts. People are very excited about it. And the intermediate level guys get, you bang, bang, bang, bang. Just putting on people's belts, putting on people's belts. People are very excited about it. And the intermediate level guys get, you know, blue, purple, brown. Those belts mean something in the greater scope of martial arts. Yeah. Right? I see.

I don't really know what karate does, you know. But like, yeah, it's blue, purple. Judo and Jiu-Jitsu, they're very similar grappling sports. Right. It's okay to have some crossover you know branding it's completely fine more and more yeah i start cross training yeah if it works you know works well bjj work is doing well in in america so yeah why not right like i would love to do that with like uh hey you join the dojo you can't do either or. You have to be proficient standing in ground.

Yeah. And the ranking system is designed in a way where, you know, you have to be, in order to be a blue belt, you have to be proficient in jujitsu and judo. It's a dual belt. Purple belt. It's a dual belt. Judo purple belt and jujitsu purple belt.

Like, I would love that. You know, that's kind of, like, ideal for me. I see. Because then your nirwansu is good your tachiwansu is good and then you could do muay thai at another gym

somewhere and just pump off some UFC yeah yeah you know do you think okay this is totally random

so we we talked we talked about judo and BJJ but you know wrestling doesn't have this no like so like would it help?

I know there were those I remember in high school they had JV tournaments. But like, I guess they have JV varsity. But that's kind of like what judo is right now, in a way. Maybe it doesn't make sense. Because I always wonder, because maybe then we would have more hobbyist wrestlers.

Because right now you have to go through the school system. Kind of, yeah. Hobbyist wrestling gyms, huh? Yeah. I mean, it'll definitely make it more sticky, right? If you're like Peewee Wrestling, you're in middle school, you just go in there and just get your head spiked into the floor. As opposed to like having a belt structure that you can look forward to.

Like, Oh, if I did something good, the coach will recognize, give me a stripe. If I stayed at long enough, I'll give her water with a yellow belt or whatever it is. Like definitely make wrestling more sticky. I think, you know, keep kids in it. Yeah. You know, I, I didn't do the fine line. Like I said, you know, like getting a dragon patch or a tiger patch, like embroidered onto your jacket lapel because you went to this many classes, you know, I think that's a fine line. Like I said, you know, like getting a dragon patch or a tiger patch, like embroidered onto your jacket lapel because you went to this many classes.

You know, I think that's a little bit, you know. Right. Yeah. But like having sort of this belt structure that kind of denotes, hey, this is your rank. And, you know, I'm more of a skill based guy, right? Like I want to, you know, come from a guy that has a red and white belt, right? And that's on all the bureaucratic things. Yeah.

This rank also, but I could have easily neglected that and still have been a first-degree black. Right, right. So then where is the validation? And then it's just like me doing it. It's like, show me that you're really good and you can show it.

But after a certain age, you can't really show it anymore. You can't do it anymore. Two knee replacements or whatever, now you're incapable of actually doing it. And after a certain age, you can't really show it anymore. You can't do it anymore. Two knee replacements or whatever. Now you're incapable of actually doing it. And now all you got left is nothing. I mean, you just got your shirt on. Oh, I used to be really good.

Maybe there's footage of you. I mean, I'm telling you, one of the things that my dad said when we're talking about like Red Belt, you know, it's like, Yeah, oof. Yeah, it's like, what is that? He's like, yeah, you know, I was a Harai Goshi guy. Harai Goshi's gone. And we're talking about like red belt you know it's like yeah oof yeah it's like what is that he's like yeah you know your harai i was a harai goshi guy your harai goshi is gone and it's

left over so grim i was like oh yeah it's what's left over after you can't do this shit anymore yeah i remember yeah i remember that i remember it's when your harai is gone he said when my harai is gone that's what's left oh man it's a fucking red belt yeah wrapped around my gi some poetic elements to it yeah

it was kind of poetic it was kind of deep too yeah well alright so these are since I proposed some things

and I would love to hear your thoughts on how to improve judo's belt system to make it sticky for beginners so that we can grow the sport. Yeah. Cool. And there's a place for intermediates and such.

Yeah. I love how you were like, what problem are you solving? I'm like, there is a problem. I mean, I guess. There's a problem. Yeah. There's a problem. Judo is not people about doing.

Yeah. More people need to be doing Drew. And through this dialogue, maybe we'll zero in on the specifics of the problems better. Comment on YouTube, guys, please. Because that's where we, you know, get these ideas and have a discussion.

Maybe on Reddit, you know, people. Yeah, post on Reddit. And then if you want to have a more direct conversation with us, you know, support us on Patreon and join our discord. Yeah. A lot of people have active debates about the,

a lot of things, judo BJJ and everything else. So. All right. You know how you post on the Reddit sometimes? Yeah. Can we like devise like critical thinking, discussion-based questions at the top?

People will immediately start. Oh, that could be a good way to like critical thinking discussion based questions at the top people will immediately start oh yeah that could be a good way like yeah some engagement yeah i'll i'll start doing it that way all right good that way it's like uh and then maybe i'll chime in but you have to chime in you know this is the thing right i made like i might have like made weird comments on on other people's shit on reddit so i don't want to like out myself on Reddit. You know what I mean? Well, you make a new account then. Yeah.

For this part. All right. All right. Well, that's about it for Rethinking the Bell System. And anything else? That's it. Thank you guys. All right. Thanks for listening.

And we'll see you guys in the next episode.