Bjj black belts that visit Kron Gracie’s academy are not able to wear a black belt with the traditional red bar unless it was received from either Kron or Rickson Gracie.
Instead they’re given a black belt with a white bar – kind of like the black belt female judokas wore until recently in Japan.
This happened to BJJ black belt Brian Anthony Mendez a few years ago when he visited and trained at the Kron Gracie academy.
When prompted about the unusual black belt Brian Anthony Mendez (pictured above) responded:
Mendez has been a bjj black belt in the Ribeiro association and a judo black belt to boot:
To make things additionally interesting even Japan has dropped this tradition earlier in the month – internationally the black belt with white stripe in judo was dismissed some years ago because it was considered discriminatory. Rocket news 24 quotes:
In 1999, for example, the International Judo Federation put an end to the practice of female judoka having to wear black belts with a white stripe running lengthwise along the fabric, as opposed to the pure-black belts used by male competitors, on the grounds that the discrepancy was discriminatory.
A brown belt training under Kron clarified on reddit:
What do you think about it? Is it entirely off base for Kron Gracie to be asking black belts of other lineage to wear a different belt?
Kama Jiu-Jitsu which is under the same Rickson Gracie lineage (Dave Kama is a Rickson Gracie black belt), explained why they also inforce this rule in their academy:
