For the past few years, Royce Gracie has been wearing a dark blue belt in honour of his father Grandmaster Helio Gracie.

After the death of Grandmaster 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).

In this video, Royce explains why he wears a blue belt. He said that since his father passed away, he doesn’t want to get promoted by anybody else: