Daniel Burzotta receives a 3rd degree black belt

TSG Head Coach Daniel Burzotta received a 3rd degree on his black belt from Royce Gracie on 19th of April 2016, making him the highest ranking BJJ black belt in Europe under Royce Gracie.

Interestingly Royce Gracie gave Daniel a new belt with a blue colour tab as opposed to the traditional red tab. The new tab colour is being used to represent BJJ grading under Grandmaster Helio Gracie’s system for people who train BJJ for real self defense situations as opposed to being graded based on scoring points at tournaments.

After the death of Grand Master Helio Gracie, Royce Gracie removed his coral belt (Royce is a 7th degree black belt which is black and red belt) and started wearing a dark blue belt, which was the old belt system of the Gracie family before the creation of the Jiu Jitsu federation in 1969. In those days, Jiu Jitsu had three colours, white (for students), light blue (for instructors) and dark blue (masters).

Sources: Facebook, BJJ Eastern Europe (https://www.bjjee.com/videos/royce-gracie-weighs-in-wearing-a-blue-belt-a-gi/)