What is the BJJ Belt System and How Does It Work?

Leveling up in BJJ is hard, and the BJJ belt timeline is excessively long compared to other martial arts. In fact, it takes decades before you can even get to the highest belt. 

In contrast, would you believe that the youngest black belt in the world is a young girl barely out of preschool? The year 2009 saw the then five-year-old Varsha Vinod captured the attention of the world. She began training at two years old and earned her black belt after only three years. She earned her second dan black belt later at 7.5 years old.

How was she able to do that at such a young age? How much students learn and how fast they climb the ranks depends on both the students and the instructors. Most mainstream martial arts schools have grading systems that can see students earn their black belt under five years. Now, little Vinod is undeniably an exceptional case for being so young. However, it isn’t all that uncommon to see kids earn their black belts before hitting their teens.

Photo grabbed from AFMA

But that is if we’re talking about other martial arts systems. It’s a different conversation altogether when it comes to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. BJJ is one of the few schools of martial art that has preserved the prestige of its belt ranking system. 

So how does the BJJ belt system work? Before we get into that, we’ve mentioned in this article that there is no single unifying organization in BJJ. That works fantastically for diversifying grappling styles and strategies. However, the downside is that there’s no universal competition ruleset. Similarly, there is no unified belt system that applies across all BJJ schools and organizations.

In this article, we’ll go over the graduation system recommended by the largest Jiu Jitsu organization in the world: the IBJJF.