Is this Brown Belt in Judo a Sandbagging BJJ White Belt ?

I had the complete opposite experience while visiting a judo school. I was completely transparent with the head sensei and told him I have 23 years of experience doing BJJ and wanted to work on my takedowns. During practice they did ground work first and the head sensei sent all of his best guys to roll with me and he had a good laugh when they asked about my experience. During the stand up portion of the class I got rag dolled by the 12 year old kids that had been training since they could walk. 🤣 It was a mutually beneficial experience for all.

Thank you for the video, I am a 3-degree black belt in Judo, and at my BJJ gym, I started at white belt because I am a white belt in BJJ. I visit allot of gyms, and I tell about my background. BUT I also say, I am at the gym to learn BJJ not to practice my Judo. I also have a personal rule, no throwing people until they are blue belt or higher. I used only BJJ (mostly) until I hit purple belt, now I am trying to incorporate my Judo game. Hope this comment help out the community.

As a judo guy, I was submitting confused purple belts my first month in BJJ. My guard was trash but my top game was strong. I always told people I did Judo, and eventually became “Judo [name]”.

I am a blue belt in BJJ, I roll with another blue who is a Judo Black Belt. We started at the same time, and we rolled as white belts too. He has always been great to roll with. Every now and then I am reminded he is a Blackbelt in Judo but it is always fun. Great guy and one of my best partners.

My BJJ coach knew my background b4 my first class. Brown belt in stand up and crossed trained a lot in Judo. During warmups the entire class found out when my first front rollout shuck the room and coach yelled "JUDO GUY IN THE HOUSE". I got 2 nicknames from my coach in that school, Cem Quilos because I was 220lbs, and Gripzilla because he could hear me gripping someone's gi from across the room. Our blue belt loved it when I threw him around the floor like a rag doll during groundwork, but all in all we had a great time. When coach wanted me to compete as a 56 year old newbie in a tournament, I politely declined so as not to discourage the other players. I always wear a white belt when I enter a new school if that style is not mine. Unfortunately egos get bruised when skills manifest themselves.

Judoka here. I agree he’s better off tell people about his background. Where I train, some brown belts’ newaza are equal to someone years into their jiujitsu blue belt if not fresh into purple.

I personally think that it's a good idea to tell people if you have a back ground in Judo or Wrestling as a safety measure. There's a lot of BJJ guys who have shitty breakfalls and if the Judoka just launches into a hard harai Goshi or something, they can seriously injure their training partner, ESPECIALLY if they weren't expecting it. This literally happened to a training partner of mine a week ago. He was a white belt and started out in the stand up with a guy whoe was a BJJ white belt but a judo black belt. Not 10 seconds into the roll, the Judoka did a through, the white belt training partner didn'T know how to fall and wound up having to go to the hospital. This is even the reason Judo Black Belts have to start at Blue in Tournaments, to be sure the people have some breakfall skills.

I can definitely relate to this. In the early 2000's I started BJJ. Prior I was a Nidan (2d degree) in judo plus I wrestled in HS, college, and in the Army. (I had a lot of other martial arts experience as well.) I was stationed in Germany and entered my first BJJ tournament. At that time there wasn't a lot of advanced BJJ guys in Europe so most of the time it went by weight. I asked the organizer, who later became my professor, what should I enter as (he knew my background), he said white belt. So I had a white belt on and submitted everyone except the Brazilian black belt I eventually got matched up against. That ended in a tie. A few months later after being formally promoted, I win my blue belt division in Lisbon. I was accused of sandbagging. Fast forward I'm a black belt with my own modest school. I have two shit hot wrestlers. They've only been under me about a year and a half, with a pause because of COVID. I haven't promoted them to blue belts because they win most of their matches by take down and positional dominance. I was accused of sandbagging them. I said when they show me jiu jitsu I will promote them. I can go on an on about this but it stems from similar things I heard from Rodrigo Gracie and Xande Ribeiro to me, paraphrasing 'Just because you won doesn't mean you know jiu jitsu.' That is a discussion on it's own.

Brown belt, judo, 2 stripe blue, in Jiu Jitsu. Just stated at a 10th planet, first classes wore judo emblazoned rash guards. Opens up conversation, now people are asking about takedowns, and break fall technique. Be open, be cool, and when rolling, keep it playful.

I was in a bjj camp in Greece as a blue belt and got matched up with a Russian dude (also blue belt). He ragdolled me for about 10 minutes when we sparred before leglocking me. Turns out he was a youth national champion in Sambo that wanted to focus on grappling. He was a fun guy and even showed me how to transition from a failed single leg into a leg lock "the Russian way". Assuming you want to fight the best guys so you actually improve, sandbaggers aren't a problem

This reminds me of the story I’ve heard where my coach tapped a brown belt when my coach was a white belt. But my coach was a judo black belt at the time and used a traditional judo move. The brown belt was pretty upset about that.

I was a OK-ish Judo Brown Belt (10 years) when I got into BJJ. On the top of that, in my school we did A LOT of ground work(ne-waza), so I was familiar with many submissions, some transitions(a few half guard passes, back takes and attacks to the turtle position) and beyond that I had a SOLID base on top, really hard to sweep, and if I had you in side control, or any other pin(ossae komi), you wasn't coming out of that fast, you'd have to work for it. Of course, BJJ is a totally different beast when i comes to ground work, but I wasn't a novice, far from it. I talked to the professor about my background and that I really wanted to learn and respect the sport, and he welcomed me with open arms. I remember that my first row was with him, and he was really playful, even allowing me to tap him twice. He was surely trying to asses my skill level. However, a few white belts got frustrated with me, and Blue and Purple belts were straight out mad at me. I wasn't trying to be a dick, I was really applying the techniques we were learning in class, but still...I mean, in Judo we do A LOT of drilling and repetition, so I was really fast in picking up and applying techniques...never tried to go extra hard or prove a point, I did what I was taught to do, no ego, no extra/unnecessary roughness, and I was cathiching people here and there. IDK if it was a ego thing or not, but some of them, after get caugth, turned the heat on and tried(and some succeed) to destroy me during the first 2 weeks or so, but I took it on the chin It only stopped when the professor invited me to teach a takedown class, and then asked me to train with the black and brown belt competitors...It was only then that the lower rank guys started to respect and tried to help and teach me instead of beating me up. That was 12 years ago. Still a novice in BJJ, as, due to several injuries and some other stuff, I was never able to practice for a extensive period of time, rarely more than 6 months consecutive... so I stayed a white belt for a LONG TIME...and still today some people get mad at me. I just try to be as friendly as possible, and I'm aways playfulin my rolls. If I get beat up, so be it...I have nothing to prove, I'm there to learn and have a good time

This happened to me at my new gym. Hahaha. I wrestled in high school and people started questioning me. I was also a twenty year white belt(long story), joined military and a lot of deployments and on/off training. Now I’m training consistently and I love my gym and everyone there has been welcoming and pleasantly surprised. Great video.

Judo BB BJJ blue belt. I tried to hide my judo experience but as soon as I grip anybody my cover is blown. I love how if you have any judo training in a BJJ club you become the new world representative of judo. You are the "judo guy." The name sticks no matter how many BJJ patches you put on your gi. There are advantages though. You can enjoy the look of terror in their eyes during the 3 seconds of stand up before they jump to their butts. You can clear a room full of killers by suggesting we do some "randori" or the even more scary "uchikomi.". Then there are the insecure comments from the teachers "that is not how we do it in Jiu Jitsu etc." I usually assure them I will bring the issue up at my next meeting at the Kodokan. The irony is that since nobody will stand with me my judo actually sucks. I have nobody to practice with. Please don't tell them as I might have to start pulling guard.

It's a lesson for the salty blue belt not to underestimate people

We have a guy that's a black belt in judo but a blue belt in BJJ and everyone knows that during takedowns you're probably going flying but once you hit the ground things level out. We love him. He is really nice and helps us improve takedowns if asked.

I trained at a gym in Colorado because I was on vacation, I saw a white belt having an incredibly intense close roll with a one stripe black belt, found out after the white belt was a black belt in judo and was a former high level college wrestler. Before I heard that it blew my mind,lol

I love when I meet guys with judo experience while visiting other gyms or while they visit ours, I just love how they move and the cool throws/ foot sweeps. I find most are more then willing to show off and teach those skills to those who are interested in it.

Nice video. I had the opposite experience. I have over 50 years experience at Judo, known as a bit of a newaza expert. I attended a BJJ class whilst working away. I explained to the sensei who was very short with me. Told me to wear a white belt, and didn't inform the class of my background. After some very rudimentary demonstrations of Waki gatame and some time to practice, we went into some "free fighting" . I was still a little wound up. I threw a lad who was considerably younger than me (I was around 55) with a big kata guruma (firemans lift type) and rolled him into an arm lock. I was the paired with a brown belt, who i threw and rolled him into my favourite strangle that he decided not to tap out. I bowed to the instructor, but "he was injured". I calmed down for the remainder of the session and enjoyed myself immensely. Whenever we get a visitor to our Dojo we always welcome them, introduce them to the class and allow them to wear their grade if applicable. I hope all you folks enjoy your art as much as I do.

The grip discussion reminds me of a gentleman in his 50ies who was a white belt I used to roll with. This man had never done any type of martial arts, however his profession was a welder. I don’t know if I had ever met anyone before or since that had a grip like him. If grabbed your collar, even if the technique wasn’t great, his grip and leverage made you tap.