Martial Arts

Some of your students think you play favorites. 

When it comes to promotions, some students believe you promote others faster than them. While many think you're fair, most view promotions as a kind of black box—impossible to figure out and, for many, too difficult to achieve. 

Is that actually true? 

Not really. If you're like most coaches, you're excited to see your students progress. But it has to be genuine. You can't give students a promotion they haven't earned. 

Your students have to be able to carry the belt. 

This means you need a BJJ stripe system that's clear, well-thought-out, and durable enough to address this problem. Done well, your stripe system will boost student retention rates, keeping your team focused on growth. 

What Is the BJJ Stripe System? (Why It Exists, Why You Need It)

If you’re a gym owner or instructor, you know how belt stripes work. I know that you know how it works. 

Here’s the problem. 

In BJJ, stripes between belts are supposed to be progress indicators. They’re supposed to function as progress markers, regular encouragement that shows students they’re getting better. 

As your students improve, you wrap a piece of white athletic tape around the rank bar at the end of their belt. Four stripes to a belt, then students receive the next color belt. 

This isn’t actually how BJJ stripe promotions work. 

Instructors promote their students for a variety of reasons, and they don’t always follow a specific order or set of objective criteria when they do. 

Let’s take a look at the many (hidden) reasons behind stripe progressions in BJJ: 

1. The student has improved. This is the right reason. Your students have put in the work, and they’re progressing as expected. 
2. Instructors sense that students are losing interest, and they don’t want to lose students or revenue. They throw these students a stripe to keep them on the subscription hamster wheel.
3. Students are cross-training at other gyms; the academy owner gets nervous, so they give students a stripe or belt. This promotion is a defensive move that’s used to prevent student poaching.
4. Students provide instructors with benefits (e.g., resources, jobs, opportunities, income, and relationships), so stripes or promotion are unspoken rewards for their “support”.
5. The instructor depends on students for services or support (e.g., students are teaching for free or reduced memberships), and they need to keep their student-teachers invested and engaged.
6. Instructors work to keep their favorite or trusted students ahead of the rest of the gym in an effort to preserve their status.
7. Instructors play favorites, promoting friends, family members, or star pupils ahead of the rest of the gym.

But wait, there’s more. 

Instructors have their own reasons for not promoting deserving students (yeah, I said it): 

1. A-player students are outperforming the rest of the gym, and it’s hurting morale, their culture, and possibly affecting revenue.
2. Instructors are blatantly sandbagging. They hold their star students back; for example, coaches keep their purple belt competitors at blue belt (which is obviously cheating). These high-level students dominate the lower ranks in competition, racking up medals and awards for their gym.
3. The instructor dislikes the student. The decision to promote is completely subjective, so there’s nothing students can do. If coaches feel threatened or dislike their students, they’re much less likely to receive a stripe or promotion.
4. Students refused to support important events or decisions. If students refuse to attend a seminar that’s part of the gym's affiliation requirements, coaches may be angry or refuse to promote them.
5. Instructors are punishing the student. Maybe they injured another student, or they were publicly disrespectful. The coach may decide to withhold promotion until the student pays their penance or leaves.
6. Inconsistent payment. Some students refuse to pay for their membership on time. They pay when they want and whatever they can. Coaches in this scenario refuse to promote until student behavior changes. The last thing they want is to encourage bad behavior.
7. They keep forgetting. Their students are disciplined. They’re conscientious, agreeable, and focused on improving. They keep their heads down. No complaints. From their coaches' standpoint, they’re easy to forget. These students are taken for granted until they leave.

So what? It’s not like students know most of this is happening! 

Ah, but they do know. 

Your students talk to each other. They speak with students from other gyms. It’s something they’re aware of; the higher their rank, the more aware they are. 

What about fair promotions?  

That’s a problem too. It’s common for blue belts to spend 1.5 to 2 years at that rank. It’s a grind that can be discouraging for many students—the long belt gaps (at least 2 years) feel like they’ll last forever. 

Think about it from a white belt’s perspective:

• They worked really hard to get to blue.
• They’re promoted to blue.
• Then they figure out that it’ll be another 2 years of grinding before they can get to purple.

Can you see how these issues create retention issues?   

This is why it’s so important that you create a clear system (with tracking). Your students want to see that you’re tough, reasonable, and fair. With BJJ, stripe progressions shouldn’t be uniform. 

They’re academy-specific, culture-driven choices that need to be customized to your gym's needs.

Your task, should you accept it, is to make long belt gaps enjoyable and manageable for your students. 

How Many Stripes Between BJJ Belts?

So you know how the traditional approach to stripes works. 

It’s a five-step process—you receive a belt, you get four stripes over a period of time, then you get your next belt. 

The traditional stripe progression system looks like this:

• White belt » 4 stripes » Blue belt
• Blue belt » 4 stripes » Purple belt
• Purple belt » 4 stripes » Brown belt
• Brown belt » 4 stripes » Black belt

The four-stripe system in BJJ works because it breaks a multi-year process into small, bite-sized chunks. It’s a great way to keep student retention rates high, especially when students are working through plateaus. 

Do All BJJ Academies Use the Same Stripe System?

No, and they shouldn’t. 

It simply isn’t practical for every gym. There are simple logistical details that make things harder for some academies. Let’s take a closer look at this. 

BJJ stripe systems in academies

If you think about it, this makes sense. 

If your gym offers Gi and No-Gi instruction, you know that, at some point, your students will wear their belts to class. If your classes are exclusively No-Gi, students have no reason to wear their belts to class. 

The uniform doesn’t require it, so it’s simply not practical to hand out stripes in a No-Gi gym. They're optional and not a requirement for promotion. 

What about the no-belt approach? 

If the head instructor is a brown belt ronin, they’re not being ranked fairly (or at all). This means they won’t be able to promote students to black belt. Many of these brown belt ronins decide to forgo belts altogether. 

Many, many brown belts run into the same situation—it’s almost always due to money or drama.  

What about your academy? Should you implement a BJJ stripe system? 

It all depends on the unique details of your situation. Here’s a simple framework you can use. Customize it however you need to; if you’d like your students to participate in high-level competition, make sure your decision aligns with organizations like the IBJJF. 

Use stripes if you’re: 

• Running a kids' class
• Working with lots of beginners
• Dealing with a high student dropout rate (e.g., 6–12 months)
• Offering both Gi and No-Gi classes

Stripes are optional if you’re: 

• Running a No-Gi or MMA-focused gym
• Creating a competition-first culture that students use to test their skills
• Building a strong gym culture, or the number of dropouts in your gym is low
• Integrating lots of wrestlers or strikers into your grappling classes

Your choice is important, but rank/stripe tracking matters more. 

You’ll need a reliable method to track student performance. The method you choose should track several types of student data, including rank tracking, attendance, coach notes, etc. 

Strong gym management platforms do this, and they help you to avoid confusion as your academy grows. 

What Do BJJ Stripes Actually Measure?

That's unclear. 

There's no universal, agreed-upon answer to that question. In some academies, it's: 

• A reward, a progress indicator that's designed to be encouraging
• An indication of time-in-rank, at your current belt (e.g., 2 years at blue belt)
• An attendance marker, showing that students have attended the required number of classes
• A measurement of skill development, acknowledging that you move like a top performer at your rank
• Recognition and acknowledgement: You're a cultural fit for the gym. You have the right attitude and follow all of the etiquette requirements in your gym

Which option is best?

Most gyms use stripes to measure a combination of these. A BJJ stripe progression system that's curriculum-based, with specific lesson plans and objective metrics, gives instructors clarity on what “ready” looks like. 

The more objective your BJJ stripe system, the easier it will be to retain students. 

Stripe Testing vs Continuous Assessment

When it comes to testing, there are three ways to approach promotions. 

1. Formal stripe testing

In formal stripe testing, several elements make it special for students: an official ceremony, clear procedures and expectations, and a set structure or curriculum. 

The expectations are typically clearer than informal assessments, but that comes with the downside of performance anxiety. 

2. Continuous assessment

Continuous assessment costs less but lacks the ceremony and celebration of a formal test. 

There's less anxiety, but these informal assessments feel generic or arbitrary if students aren't aware of the standards and expectations beforehand. 

These assessments are cheaper, easier to manage, and less stressful, but they're not as satisfying as the formal tests. 

Why? 

With an informal assessment, there's no public recognition. Family and friends aren't invited, and there are no clear guidelines for students. Either they know the material, or they don't. 

3. Continuous assessment and formal testing

Most gyms use a mix of both—the most common approach is informal assessments for stripes and a ceremony/formal testing for belt promotions. 

Academies with high student retention typically use objective criteria to assess students. This is why attendance and skills tracking are so important. 

As your gym grows, you'll need a reliable system to track student performance. 

Kids vs Adults: Stripe Systems Should Not Match

Some gyms train kids and adults the same way, four stripes then a belt promotion. 

This is a disaster. 

Kids have short attention spans, so it's unreasonable to expect them to wait two years before they're promoted. 

A better approach? Give your kids quick wins. 

Give students stripes every 1–3 months or every 10–30 classes. Kids thrive with recognition and praise. Parents want to see that their kids are making progress—think stripes, belts, and medals.

Promotion conversations with parents are easier when student progress isn't centered around stripes and belts. Focus on attendance, knowledge, skills achieved, and performance, so conversations aren't obsessed with stripes and belts. 

What about adults? 

They want recognition, but they want to feel that they've earned it. Offer objective criteria as a promotion benchmark that adults can use to self-assess. 

The cadence for regular attendance would be every 2-3 months, or 20–40 classes. 

If you're using a gym management platform, account visibility and automated updates are a key part of retention strategies. 

Stripe Ceremony Ideas That Actually Work

There are several ways you can approach stripes and belt promotions. This isn't an exhaustive list, but it's a starting point for creating the right culture in your gym:

• You can recognize students at the end of class before you wrap things up. Individual students are brought front and center, where they receive their stripes at the end of class
• Creating a monthly ceremony allows family and friends to attend and support their loved ones
• Instructors can coordinate with each other to promote students at the end of their roll during Gi class 

The way you promote isn't as important as matching promotions to your academy's culture. 

If your culture dictates that recognition, ceremony, and praise are more important, structure belt-and-stripe progressions around that. 

Whatever you decide, keep recognition as a central part of your promotions. When student progress is ignored, their motivation takes a hit. 

How to Track BJJ Stripes Without Spreadsheet Chaos

Manual tracking fails because:

• It's subjective and inconsistent. In this system, tracking gets done when everyone remembers to do it
• Attendance, time, and skills aren't in sync. Students don't progress at the same pace 
• Students are easy to forget. Manual tracking is dependent on the instructor's memory. 
• There's no single source of truth. Multiple instructors means there’s no final authority on which students are ready and which ones are not. 
• Promotion criteria are unclear. As a result, students are constantly asking, “When am I eligible for my next stripe?”

This is why you need a digital tracking system.

The ideal system combines student attendance, rankings, and instructor notes. This means you can:

• Run reports, identifying which students are ready for their next stripe or belt
• See an exact tally of the number of classes each student has attended since their last stripe
• Store instructor notes and collect feedback from multiple instructors in a centralized location. 

Old-school academies still use clipboards and notecards. 

There’s a better way. Integrated systems rely on automations, using systems to manage payments, track promotions, and improve student retention. 

Eliminating Favoritism, Stripe and Belt Promotion Drama

There’s a simple solution to this problem. 

Build stripes and belt promotions around objective standards. Are you transparent about what’s expected? If you’ve laid out the criteria for promotions ahead of time, you avoid accusations of favoritism or bias. 

That’s the real problem. 

Publishing your stripe criteria, training instructors, and tracking objective data (e.g., attendance, progress, time, etc.) gives you the tools you need to improve student retention. 

Want to take it a step further? Communicate proactively—reach out to students when they’re close to a promotion. 

Give them what they need to prepare. 

Treat your promotions like an open-book test—you’ll find you’re able to improve retention without creating drama. 

When stripe systems stop working

The red flags I’ve mentioned above are a great place to start. If you’re looking to take things further and increase student retention, watch for these warning signs: 

• Students are all promoted on the same timeline (e.g., 1.5 years at white, 2 years for blue, etc.).
• Students become obsessed with their status (e.g., stripes, belts, hierarchy) instead of skills and performance.
• Students are fixated on the stripes between belts.
• Stripe tracking is dependent on failure points like instructor memory, stamps, clipboards, or spreadsheets.
• Stripe tracking eats admin hours.

What does this look like? 

The head instructor at my old gym taught Gi classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. A student teacher, the assistant wrestling coach at a local university, taught wrestling on Tuesday. 

Students admitted that they needed wrestling, the instruction was good, and they would benefit from the class. Almost all the students at that gym refused to wrestle. The head instructor wasn’t there on Tuesday, so they wouldn’t get “credit” for their attendance. 

It wouldn’t count towards their next stripe or belt. 

That’s a big problem. 

Your BJJ Stripe System is All About Growth and Retention

Many students view BJJ stripe systems and promotions as a kind of black box—impossible to figure out and too difficult to achieve. 

You're excited to see your students grow. But it has to be a promotion they’ve earned; they have to be able to carry the belt. 

The four-stripe system in BJJ works because it breaks a multi-year process into small, bite-sized chunks. It keeps student retention rates high, carrying students through plateaus and struggles. 

This means you need a BJJ stripe system that's clear, well-thought-out, and durable enough to address this problem. When you set objective criteria, your stripe system is clear, trackable, and meaningful; it does what your marketing can’t. 

Done right, stripes maximize student growth and retention, keeping your team on the mats and working toward their true potential.

You can do this all within Gymdesk super easily and your students can see their progress along the way. Try it for free for 30 days to see for yourself.