Although the first stripe on a BJJ white belt is almost meaningless in the big scheme of things. It really can mean a lot to a beginner who has recently started training. This is because when some people begin BJJ, they have not really done anything physical or competitive in their lives. Whilst they may be hugely successful in other areas of their lives, BJJ is literally the first thing they have ever achieved anything in (physically).
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How Long It Should Take To Get Your First Stripe As A White Belt
This really depends on the gym, but should certainly not be longer than 6 months and can be as fast as 1 month. Even if you were to train only 2 times per week, you would expect to have a stripe on your white belt by the time you reach 6 months of training. With that being said, some oldschool gyms do not award stripes, so if nobody else has any, you shouldn’t expect one either.
Although 6 months is at the end of the spectrum, some gyms will award one stripe after only 1 month. In Gracie Barra gyms it’s not uncommon to see a beginner earn a stripe after 1 month of training 4 times per week.
Even though this is fast, nobody is really concerned about stripes on a white belt other than people who have just begun BJJ.
If we were to compare a 1 stripe white belt to a 2 stripe white belt. The difference is really meaningless. There is almost nothing between the two of them. If one of them were to stop training for a month, you still might not see any difference as the fundamental movements would still not be set in your head after this short period of time.
What Is Your Instructor Looking For?
In all honesty, at the first stripe, not a lot. Really the instructor is only looking for some level of commitment. As soon as you’ve shown your face enough times, it doesn’t really matter how technical you are. You will still be awarded your first stripe for perseverance, which is really quite fair if you’ve put in 50~ hours of training time.
In general, you should be looking to understand all of the basic positions and movements, whilst trying to pick up things like submissions and frames. To be honest you’re not going to get close to understanding all of these things by the time you get your first stripe. But if you’ve made a good effort to get to grips with some of the basics, it eventually will be noticed and not go unrewarded.
Stripes On Colored Belts
Stripes on coloured belts are a little more serious as they begin to mean quite a lot more. This is because there is such a long timeframe on being at a particular belt. A blue belt will stay on this rank for usually at least 2 years and sometimes over double this amount of time. In addition to this, you generally aren’t going to be awarded a blue belt for your time spent on the mat. You must have shown some level of technical ability to get promoted to this rank.
As stripes on colored belts are handed out once every 6 months. You can see a massive difference between a 0 stripe blue belt and a 4 stripe blue belt. If you were to compare two people of a similar build and weight, one may have 2 years experience, whilst the other may have 5. This means the guy who has trained for 5 years has been a blue belt longer than the other guy has actually trained BJJ.
With all of this being said, belt colors don’t always mean what they show. You may have a competitive blue belt who is very athletic and a former wrestler. Even though he is a blue belt, he would still probably run circles around a lot of non-athletic brown belts who have regular day jobs and don’t train that often.
Stripes At Black Belt
Now you’re really in it for the long haul. Stripes on a black belt are usually awarded for every 3 years of training at the rank. So if you have been a black belt for 6 years, you would expect to see 2 stripes on your belt.
This can lead to even bigger discrepancies between practitioners since there are a lot of ultra-competitive black belts, as well as black belts who have trained far longer than other people of the same rank.
Once you are at black belt, people really do not care much about degrees on the belt. Generally people will be more respectful to those with a lot of degrees on the belt, since they are older people and have been in BJJ for a very long time.
