Gauntlet/tunnel is where you take your gi jacket off and get whipped by your teammates with their belts. When a student graduates from one belt to another, some academies mark the accomplishment by making the new belt walk the belt whipping gauntlet.
Now a BJJ academy in Brazil, has developed a new even more hardcore initiation: ‘The circle of death’, where the ones who are to get promoted are on their knees and are wiped by higher belts in a rotating circle. Watch the video below.
The gauntlet is similar to a gang initiation, where the new gang member gets beat up by all the other gang members, to pass the ‘test’.
Many major BJJ instructors are against the gauntlet, including Caio Terra who shared his opinion:
Tonight we had belt promotions and for the first time we did NOT do the gauntlet.
In this day in age we should not condone hazing or impose it on people who don’t want to do it IMO, we are too smart for that.
If people want to do the gauntlet it’s their choice. Congrats to every one who got promoted, for those who did not keep training and keep working hard. Your time will come!
