For 6 months, we’ve been asking for people to inform us about the best of jiujitsu in Virginia, DC, North Carolina and South Carolina. Finally, our panel of judges has rendered their decisions — and for the first time, we’re proud to present 10 awards.

The purpose of this: to celebrate the people doing great things in the regional jiujitsu community, and to learn about some of the lesser-known folks out there that don’t always get the credit they deserve. This is why we had an open nomination process: so people could tell us who they thought the most deserving people are, and why, and to give them a chance, through emails and voicemails, to explain what makes the person they support so worthy of an award.

We wanted to release the podcast on the awards before this list for one reason: if you listen to the show, regardless of who won or who lost, you’ll hear voicemails representing every nominee for whom we got voicemails. Those voices deserve to be heard. Check out the podcast here:

We couldn’t play all the voicemails we received, or even read all the emails on the air — thanks to everyone for the powerful response — but we did get to most of them, so that nominees could hear from their supporters directly.

How did we decide who won after all the nominations were in? I’m glad you asked. The last thing I wanted was for this to be the “Jeff picks out the winners” awards. But I also didn’t want an Internet popularity contest or a system that could be gamed, and I did want to get diverse sets of people involves. So we picked 7 judges from three different states AND the District, training at 7 different gyms under 6 different associations. We let all of those judges see the emails and voicemails of support. Then we asked the judges to rank the candidates in order, with the top 3 getting points. You got three points for a first place vote, two for a second place vote, and one for a third place vote.

This is where the contest really opened some eyes, I think. I wound up voting for at least one person I’d never heard of before the contest, based purely on voicemails of support. We also, because so many people were convincing, wound up giving more awards than we planned on.

Here are the 10 2017 Dirty White Belt Awards, each with a traveling trophy that’s engraved with the name of the winner. If your favorite candidate didn’t win, don’t worry , that’s OK — they will still get a certificate as a finalist, and the chance to win next year, when the trophies will move along to new and deserving recipients. All of the categories you’re about to hear will be around next year. Will we add new categories? I don’t know — I really wish we’d had takedown of the year and submission of the year categories. So watch for those all year and keep them in mind.

Let’s start with the people who inspire us. Continue reading “The 2017 Dirty White Belt Awards For Jiujitsu in the Southeast”