Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Globetrotters BJJ community has released a limited edition Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu rainbow belt for its members attending its next BJJ camp.
Globetrotters founder Christian Graugart announced the news to its members on their Facebook group. The belts will not be for sale at least not for the moment.
Rainbow flag is a multicolored flag consisting of the colors of the rainbow. The designs differ, but many of the colors are based on the spectral colors of the visible light spectrum. The LGBT flag introduced in 1978 is the most recognized use of a rainbow flag.
There are actual 6 distinct belt systems used in BJJ and each one is different.
Tony Pacenski in this article came up with a very interesting diagram showing the belt ranking system used by the 5 main BJJ federations:
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Globetrotters offer a de-centralized alternative to the traditional affiliation system of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. They have a fundamental emphasis on promoting a non-political approach to Jiu Jitsu and treating everyone equal, on and off the mats. Affiliated academies around the world pay no affiliation fees but offer one week of free training for visiting members, are not allowed to deny their students to train elsewhere and encourage training with anyone. BJJ Globetrotters are also hosting popular training camps where members meet, train, teach, surf, snowboard and occasionally have a beer or ten.
Starting out as a small affiliation of Jiu Jitsu practitioners who had trouble signing up for IBJJF competitions due to issues with politics, it is now turning into a world wide community of Jiu Jitsu travelers, a gi brand, couchsurfing service and one of the most active organizers of exotic training camps around the world.
They are also the biggest Jiu-Jitsu affiliation network with close to 980 affiliated teams worldwide. They do not charge any money for their affiliation, unlike the big associations like Gracie Barra, Alliance or Checkmat etc…
This is the first time that we have heard of rainbow BJJ belt. Two years ago, a video in which Zenilton “BRANCO”Marcelino, a BJJ black belt from Bahia, Brazil said he would implement a rainbow colored belt for his LGBT+ movement, went viral in the jiu-jitsu world.
Since then, several more opinions have been expressed, showing how important it is to debate the issue in the environment in which we live. A survey conducted in 2019 by the Homosexual Group of Bahia, Brazil showed that, last year, Brazil recorded 329 deaths from homotransphobia. This amounts to one death every 26 hours.
To clarify the fact, the Youtube channel ‘Jiu-Jitsu in Frames’ got in touch with Professor Branco, the black belt of the video, and published an interview in which he explains the reason why he decided to create the belt, symbolically, not serving as graduation or gender distinction within the mat.
Branco highlights something important:
“Jiu-jitsu is not separate from society. Jiu-jitsu is part of that society and that society needs to be debated in jiu-jitsu. How many people will mostly train jiu-jitsu not to be an athlete, but for lifestyle, to form some personality that he has there because he thinks it is interesting, because he thinks that the tradition of jiu-jitsu will give a social personality. I think it is important for us to discuss it there, because it ends up reflecting on future generations. If we think it is traditional and it cannot be discussed and debated, it will remain traditional and we do not see much. We will only see what we want to see ”.
He also made it clear that he has no power to change a graduation system, much less in relation to the jiu-jitsu federations and that the belt was just to show that everyone is welcome in the sport.
