FOR BJJ ACADEMIES
Every academy has a blue belt who stopped coming
They stop coming weeks before they stop paying, and the academy usually finds out from the cancellation rather than from the mats. By then the conversation that would have worked, the one where you tell them they are two positions off their next stripe, is six weeks too late.
The other half of the same problem is promotion. Stripe night runs on somebody's memory, three people are quietly overdue, and the syllabus that decides any of it exists in the head coach's head. When they leave to open their own academy, it goes with them.
BELTS AND STRIPES
White to black, with each belt requiring what sits beneath it
The BJJ template ships as belts and stripes over guard retention, sweeps, passing, positional control, escapes and submissions, with each grade requiring the positions below it, so a coach looking at a blue belt sees exactly what is still open. It arrives as a sensible default and becomes your syllabus: no two academies grade alike, and published versions never change, so a student's recorded history cannot move under them when you edit it.
What that changes for an academy
Who is due a stripe
Every student against the curriculum, so promotion is a list rather than a recollection. For a lot of academies it is the retention moment that matters most, and the easiest one to miss.
Where a game is stuck
Eleven submissions and no guard retention shows up as a shape, before the student tells you they keep getting smashed.
Gi and no-gi on one timetable
Fundamentals, advanced, competition class and open mat, with capacity on each, and one member record whichever they train.
The at-risk list
Students whose attendance has fallen away, ranked, while a message still works.
SEE IT AS THEY WOULD
Step into a BJJ academy
Four seats in a 180-member academy, mid-syllabus, with a competition team in it. It is Riverstone Jiu-Jitsu, Providence, RI, an invented gym in a sandbox that resets every night, not a customer.
Ana Ferreira
Owner — a 180-member BJJ academy
Runs Riverstone and still teaches the Tuesday fundamentals class. Start here: the belt curriculum, who is due a stripe, and the dues that pay for the mats.
Marcus Oyelaran
Head coach — brown belt, competition team
Runs the competition class and every grading. Look at his roster, the stripe evaluations, and how a student's game shows up as a shape rather than a list.
Priya Raman
Front desk — check-in, dues, trial classes
Works the desk on the busy evenings and books every trial. Look at the check-in screen and at how little of the academy's business she can actually reach.
Tom Whitaker
Member — blue belt, two stripes
Trains three times a week and is chasing his third stripe. His progress page is the one a prospect should look at — it is the reason people stay for years.