Lower ranks and instructional videos?

Hey there.

I've been surfing the web and I notice that there are, relative to judo, a lot of non-black belts making instructional videos. The overwhelming majority of them seem to American (just an observation).

Is this something that is encouraged in BJJ culture? I am aware of the high standing of brown belts, but is it the case that blue and purple belts are also assumed to have enough expertise to teach independently? Most of these videos are of basic technique with maybe one thing that they do differently to make it work, as in they don't really serve a purpose when compared the high quality supplemental material out there. Teaching others is an excellent tool for learning when done under proper supervision, but I wonder what the point is other than self-promotion. It's usually harmless, but sometimes when non-experts are given the mic this happens:



Or worse, this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMCwtyDjbd0 Even the Submissions101 guy was a blue belt for the majority of his video-making time...

Anyway, if anyone could shed some light on the subject that would be awesome. I'm gathering ideas for an article on how martial arts schools/bands promote themselves through media.

-Ben

looking forward to seeing how this thread develops. as I understand it a purple belt can promote someone up to blue, and I've seen a few schools out there with a purple belt head instructor (even seen one MMA school with a blue belt head grappling instructor, but in all fairness that guy is amazing for only being a blue belt)

even in judo, there's nothing stopping a white belt from putting together an 'instructional' video about what he learned about ogoshi in his first day of class. the internet is a free place. it's just a question of whether it would be worth watching.

osato gari, hmm. I don't know that it's bjj so much as it's MMA. MMA fighters strive to present a good show (oh, yeah, at to win). A good throw gets a lot of attention for a fighter, and suddenly everybody in MMA wants to know that throw. As a result, you get people who have no experience with judo or jujitsu teaching throws that they "learned" somewhere from somebody (maybe even from another YouTube video).

There's a time lag between judo and MMA. In judo, the only people who've "learned" a throw are white belts who've been shown and done a bit of uchi komi and maybe some nage komi on a throw. The rest of us know that it takes a lifetime to learn a throw. In MMA, they can't give a lifetime to a throw, so you can run into a lot of people who have that white belt, "I know a throw" mentality based on what we would consider very minimal or no training.

Different standards - different people - different arts.

scary. But perhaps it's only scary to me, a judoka, and not to an MMA fighter who just wants to do something flashy while winning.

FWIW, Ronda Rousey teaches how to actually do Osoto for MMA in the video embedded here:
http://riddum.com/nouvelles/news-strikeforce/17217-la-technique-du-jour-o-soto-gari-avec-ronda-rousey-video

Some of the problem is like "seminar syndrome"--people go to seminars, "learn" a technique and then bring it back to their home club minus the key details.

seminar syndrome - that's a good way of stating it

A BJJ purple belt can take up to 4 or 5 years for a competitive practisioner to reach and for a recreative player up to 8 years. So its not like a kyu grade in judo which are more easy to attain. Having done competition for over 4 years, you have to know at least a couple of techniques, because at that time you have created a `game` for yourself in Judo it would be called tokui waza.

Btw, most if not all below black belt instructors are under supervision of a black belt. So if you hear of a purple belt teaching there and there, you should inform about where he trains and if he receives guidance from this black belt.

Paredes has no BJJ rank and neither did Ari Bolden when he made the vast majority of his shitty videos (and the rank he has now is purchased, not earned).

As Dutch says, purple is roughly Judo shodan equivalent, lots of purples, especially in outlying areas where opportunities to get graded are thinner on the ground, are extremely good and have interesting things to show. Having a wide variety of material out there, regardless of whether it's all at the highest attainable peak of quality, is interesting to me, for one, because it can all spark ideas or conversations.

Posting something on YouTube is just talking on the internet, it's not some claim to speak for the style or a warrant of absolute authority. Unless, like Paredes and Bolden, you're pretending to be something you're not.

lol Paredes what a character. I feel bad for his students though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMCwtyDjbd0

Dutch Budo wrote:lol Paredes what a character. I feel bad for his students though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMCwtyDjbd0

Never seen that one before. Made me smile

Many of these instructionals serve as cheap advertising for the schools that make them.

Frauds like Paraedes and Bolden will show up were ever there is money to be made. At the moment, it's BJJ/MMA. in earlier decades it would have been karate or kung fu or whatever the 'in' martial art was at the time.

Its really just so nice to see money being spent on physical and mental exercise; it's hard to b*tch.