Things We Don’t Do at Sabre: #4 Belt Whipping

At Sabre, we don’t whip people with our belts when they’re promoted.

I know. We’re obviously ruining BJJ.

For anyone unfamiliar with the tradition, belt whipping, sometimes called the gauntlet or corredor polonês (“Polish corridor”), is a promotion ritual found in some BJJ academies. The newly promoted student takes off their gi jacket, walks between two lines of teammates and gets hit with their belts.

Sometimes it’s lighthearted. Sometimes it isn’t. And sometimes the person being promoted is given the option to participate.

I don’t do it.

I understand the argument in favour of it. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s a rite of passage. It’s a way of celebrating someone’s promotion and creating a sense of camaraderie within the team. And I’m sure that, for plenty of people, it is exactly that.It wasn’t for me.

At my previous academy, I went through the gauntlet for each of my three coloured belt promotions. It doesn’t happen for black belt. I didn’t enjoy it.

In fact, after one of the promotions I was covered in bruises for days. I came across a photo of my back the other day. But I went through with it anyway.

Why?

Because it didn’t really feel like I had a choice.

Technically, perhaps I did. But I felt that choosing not to participate would somehow be weak. Not masculine enough. I was part of the team, everyone else was doing it, and this was simply what happened when you got promoted. So I did it.

Years later, when I was a black belt at the same academy, my feelings about the ritual had changed considerably. I had reached a position where I could decide how I participated in it.

So when someone was promoted, I started giving them little more than a light tap on the back with my belt. Eventually, even that started to feel wrong.

One day, while everyone was lining up for the whipping, I simply walked off the mat. I don’t think anyone noticed.

I’d had enough.

I remember feeling genuinely disgusted by the whole thing.

That experience is probably the biggest reason I don’t do belt whipping at Sabre. And it’s why I’m not convinced that making it “optional” solves the problem.

Imagine you’ve trained with the same group of people for years. They’re your friends. They’re your teammates. You’ve just been promoted. Everyone is excited. Your instructor is enthusiastic about the tradition.

“Do you want to do the gauntlet?”

Technically, you can say no. But everyone else is doing it. The club clearly has a culture that is enthusiastic about it. You don’t want to be the awkward person who refuses. You don’t want to look like you can’t take a joke. You don’t want to appear weak.You don’t want to disappoint the people you’ve trained with for years.

That’s not necessarily coercion in the strict sense. But it’s certainly pressure. And I don’t think that’s a particularly good position to put a student in.

I’m not alone in thinking that.

Caio Terra is one of my role models in BJJ, and I was pleased to discover that he had taken a similar position. At a belt promotion in 2021, Caio chose not to do the gauntlet at his academy. He said that we shouldn’t condone hazing or impose it on people who don’t want to participate. His position was that if people genuinely want to do the gauntlet, it should be their choice.

I agree with Caio. But I’d actually go one step further. I’m not convinced that “optional” is enough.

There’s another consideration. I doubt I’m alone in having grown up in a time when belts were occasionally used as a form of physical punishment. For some people, being surrounded by a group of people enthusiastically hitting them with belts might not feel quite as funny as it does to everyone else. I don’t need to know who those people are. I don’t need them to explain themselves.

And I don’t want someone who has just been promoted, surrounded by their friends and teammates, to have to make that decision in front of everyone.

So we simply don’t do it.

The thing is, I don’t really understand what we’re losing.

A promotion is already a celebration. You’ve trained for years. You’ve been tested. You’ve improved. Your instructor has decided that you’ve earned the next belt. Your teammates are proud of you. The belt itself is the rite of passage.

You’ve earned it.

We don’t need to hit you afterwards.

And this is perhaps the broader philosophy behind a lot of the things we don’t do at Sabre.

I’m not particularly interested in preserving a tradition simply because it’s a tradition. If something serves a useful purpose, great. If it’s fun and everyone genuinely wants to do it, great.

But if the benefit is essentially “this is what BJJ clubs sometimes do” and there’s a reasonable chance that one of my students might have a genuinely unpleasant experience because of it, I’m happy to leave it behind.

There are plenty of ways to celebrate a promotion.

Fortunately, Sabre has one right next door.

The pub.

That’s where we celebrate.

Much better tradition.

No belts required.