What really matters?

What is important in BJJ Training?

The more time you spend training in a martial art, the more opinions and thoughts seem to emerge amongst your peers on what is really important. In Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, there are as wide a variety of these opinions as any other. I find myself thinking again and again though, “how much of it really matters?”

One of the topics that seems to generate the strongest opinions in my gym is what side of the body the ranking tab of a BJJ belt should sit. Opinions are divided and often forcefully argued on this subject, at this point I should probably mention that not everybody in my school even has a ranking tab on their belt still manage to attach stripes to their belt without a problem.

The opinion that I lean more and more toward is that it really doesn’t matter what side of their body the stripes are on. In my case I have never had my arm bar work more effectively one way or the other, and I have never had better resilience to the bow and arrow choke one way or the other. The only factor involved that matters in my opinion is practice.

Mind you, I still hear a lot of views on this (often quite aggressively) from some of the more forceful members of the academy, usually to the tune of “the belt must be be worn with the tab on the left side because that is how (insert famous gracie name here) did it”. After hearing this for the millionth time I thought perhaps I should look into it. My initial thought was to google some grandmasters and see what they do, but I thought better of that and thought I would try to prove my point that it really doesn’t matter.

With that in mind I have assembled some pictures of notable BJJ practitioners below with the ranking bars on either side.

First of all here is Masters Alvero Barretto and Oswaldo Fadda with Grand Master Helio Gracie, as youcan see both Barretto and Fadda are wearing their bars on the left and Helio has his on the right.

These next too images show Master Fadda and Grand Master Helio wearing their belts the opposite way from the picture above.

 

Below is two images of Carlson Sr one with the bar tothe left nad one to the right.

 

My opinion after seeing that all of these Masters of our Art don't care one way or the other is that maybe we shouldn't either. Perhaps like them we should all focus on what is important and that is training and more importantly improving.

Just my thoughts...


I have thought that today (the 25th of July 2013) might be a good day for an update to this article. As this whole discussion was originally based on the way Rickson supposedly wore his belt, I have found a pic of Rickson wearing his belt with the rank tab on both the left and the right.

Rickson with the tab on the left

Rickson awarding the Red and Black Belt to Jean Jacques Machado, tab on the right.

And look at this collection of Gracies, tabs left, tabs right, it is chaos....