Whilst stripes may not mean a whole lot to veteran practitioners, the reality is that for newcomers at least, they can mean a pretty big deal. Not only are they a physical indication of progress, they also keep people motivated – especially in the earlier stages of their Jiu Jitsu journey. With this in mind, a common question often asked is how many stripes are there in BJJ? The answer to this question is straightforward for the most part, but after black belt it gets a bit tricky.
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How many stripes are there for each regular belt? (white to brown belt)
A white belt will start off with an empty tab, then after several months they may get a stripe. After a while they’ll end up with 4 stripes on their belt, then after that they’ll eventually get promoted to blue belt. Once at blue, the process repeats itself until purple, then the same again at brown belt until black.
It should be noted that some gyms don’t hand out stripes as that’s their interpretation, but most do. Anyway, usually this means that there’s 4 stripes for every belt from white to brown.
How many stripes are there on a BJJ black belt?
As the BJJ black belt is quite unique, it has its own set of rules that are different from those found with other colored belts. Firstly, each stripe at this belt comes after three years for the first 3 stripes. In other words, you could be a one stripe black belt 3 years after your promotion. Usually, this is longer that it takes to go from white to blue belt for most people so each stripe at black belt takes time and is hard earned.
In total, a black belt has six stripes, or in other terms you may call someone a sixth degree black belt. As you may have noticed, the stripes at black belt differ compared to the previously used system. In short, the first three stripes should take 3 years each to get (or 9 years in total). After this, the final three stripes take 5 years each. That means from your third to fourth stripe, it’s a 5 year wait…which is typically how long it takes to get from a beginner white belt to a purple belt. As you can imagine, this is a truly long process that represents mastery.
After the sixth stripe on the black belt, you’re then promoted to a new belt again. Confused? You probably are at this point.
The stripe system beyond black belt
As mentioned, the last stripe on the black belt is the sixth degree. However, after this you’ll be given your coral belt which yet again has a unique system. With the previous belts, the stripes would reset and disappear after each promotion – effectively starting a fresh. However, with your red and black coral belt, you’ll start with your previous 6 stripes from the black belt.
This time, you’ll wait 7 years for your next stripe which is the only stripe on your red and black coral belt. If you’ve made it this far, then the next promotion is even longer. At this point, you’ll be given a new coral belt that is white and red, and your next stripe that takes 10 years to achieve. This means, you’ll be an 8th degree coral belt at this point.
Lastly, if you then get promoted to red belt (which usually happens for most people well into their 60s), you’ll then get a new stripe, making you 9th degree red belt. For most, this is the final stripe on the belt and the tab literally struggles to fit any more stripes on it anyway.
Doing the math
For any BJJ nerds out there, let’s imagine someone goes from a white belt through to a red belt. During this time, they should amass a total of 25 stripe promotions. If you’ve read correctly, then you’ll also realize that each stripe from black belt gets progressively slower and more difficult to achieve. That’s also a lot of time spent on the mats.
Conclusion
The likelihood is, you’ll never reach red or coral belt unless you’re truly committed and these lists are literally in double figures, such is the rarity of the achievement. So, it’s not wise to get bogged down in the stripe system from black belt and beyond.
Instead, a simplistic way to think of it is that each belt has 4 stripes each, up until black that has 6, then the other belts keep adding a stripe until you get to red belt. For most regular people though, the thought of coral or red belt is merely a pipe dream.
