Promotion... When?

"The first and most important criteria for promotion is performance. Can you successfully apply your moves in live training in the gym against people in the belt category above yours? Or, for those who like to compete, have you consistently excelled in local compeitions within your current rank? To this fundamental demand I add some other considerations. There may be some handicaps that a student has that soften my demand for performance. The age of the student, for example. I don't expect a 55 year old blue belt student to tap out 22 year old purple belts. I also look at the breadth and precision of the student's technique. If he consistently wins in class with only a few sloppy moves from a limited number of positions due mostly to advantages in strength and size, I will be reluctant to promote him until he improves his technical repertoire. In general I am fairly easy in giving out belts as I do not attach great importance to them. If you make jiu jitsu a lifetime study (as I hope all my students do), the vast majority of your training years will be at black belt level and beyond, so the amount of time taken to acquire the various early belts is not a significant issue. In all truth, you do most of your learning over a life time post-black belt. Accordingly I see people growing into their belts over time, so I don't like to hold people back in rank forever. " - John Danaher