The debate around legitimate promotions in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu continues, with veteran black belt Nick “Chewy” Albin weighing in during a recent podcast. Albin addressed the infamous Moneyberg case of earning belts through private lessons and why that approach doesn’t hold up.
“I don’t really care one way or the other about his black belt being quote legitimate,” Albin said. “But I do think that getting your black belt from like private lessons only would totally suck.”
Albin made it clear that private lessons should supplement—not replace—group training.
“I think private lessons are great like sprinkled in with regular training because it’s good to have different feels and different situations that you have to solve,” he said.
He warned that without hard matches against a range of training partners, students miss essential development.
“If you’re not going with people of at least somewhat similar levels to where you can go hard and they can go hard,” he explained, progress gets limited.
Albin also pointed to the loss of community when students train only in isolated settings.
“There’s something about the camaraderie that exists in a wrestling room, in a grappling room that just feels different,” he said.
He recalled turning down a student who wanted promotion through private sessions alone.
“I said I’m not going to promote you if you don’t jump into the class,” Albin said. “If you don’t jump into the gym and we have a group, I don’t want to be giving this guy who’s not a part of the group the belt.”
Another concern was choreographed training leading to false confidence.
“At what point when you’re having private lessons with one or two people is it becoming choreographed?” he asked.
Still, Albin acknowledged the issue isn’t black and white.
“You have to really then get into the weeds of what is a legit black belt,” he noted.
While he respects personal paths, Albin stressed that BJJ relies on internal standards to keep things in check.
“We jiu jitsu has the self-regulatory nature where when we see someone doing something shady or fake, it’s very common that people would go call them out,” he said.
In the end, Albin supports private training when it’s paired with consistent group mat time. His message: growth, credibility and connection come from testing yourself with others—not in isolation.
