Are blue belts capable of being good instructors and successful business owners? Many may answer no, and that they don’t have sufficient experience. This was not the case for Johnny Vasquez a Gracie Jiu-Jitsu purple belt who back when he was a blue belt opened his academy ‘Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Apple Valley’ and was able to enroll 350 students in just 3 years Johnny was even surrounded by many BJJ black belt instructors…
Johnny was offered all the support from the Gracie University from how to run the class, exactly which techniques to teach and how to teach them.
But just how common is it for Gracie Jiu-Jitsu blue belts to run and operate academies?
Back in 2016, BJJEE did some reseach and found out that all the affiliates listed on the Gracie university map, accredited schools tab, results indicated that 60% of all affiliate academies are led by blue belts. Exact stats for USA are 60% of academies are owned by blue belts, 20% by purple belts, 5.3% by brown ones and finally 14.6% by black belts.
When we go worldwide, the numbers don’t really change, they are as follows: 60.57% blue, 20% purple, 4.8% brown, and 14.4% black.
Who remembers this famous case:
16 Year Old Blue Belt is a Head Instructor of Gracie Academy in Mississippi
&
Blue Belt Opens First Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy in China
Some BJJ black belts said “only a black belt can teach jiu-jitsu.” Today, Gracie University has 159 Certified Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Training Centers worldwide, over 90% of which were started by blue belt instructors – Johnny Vasquez was one of them:
