American Open X Gi

IBJJF has three promotion timelines, and even the slowest one moves a white belt to grey in under 12 months. Their fastest system? Five months. An active competitor who is regularly entering tournaments and winning should be promoted significantly faster — not held back to medal farm off noobs.

There is no legitimate reason for a competitive athlete with 15+ wins and multiple gold medals to still be at white belt after a year. None. If they’re good enough to win that consistently, they’re good enough to be promoted. Every gold medal they continue to win at white belt is taken from an athlete actually competing at their real level.

This is killing youth BJJ.

A kid who shows up to their first tournament and gets smashed by someone more experienced doesn’t sign up for a second one. They quit. Their parents pull them out. And the sport shrinks so that a handful of people can pad their medal counts for Instagram.

The IBJJF recognized this exact problem at the adult level in 2022 and eliminated minimum time-at-belt for dominant competitors. Youth brackets — where the damage falls on kids — have zero protection.

What you can do: If a flagged competitor is in your child’s bracket, contact the tournament organizer before the event.