Blue Belt Blues and Beyond

Finally!

Blue belt.

(Photo circa 2011)

There has been all that sweat and tears. Hours of training. Of learning a new language. Of learning to move your hips. You can shrimp now like nobodies business. Chokes are your new best friend. Your friends, family and co-workers are a little concerned how excited you are to show them your latest choke or shoulder lock.

And bam.

New belt. 

The weight is heavy. It’s thrilling and exciting and as adults we don’t often mark our achievements in this way. Sure there is a paper certificate when you complete some training at work that you are required to take. Maybe you even “win” a recognition award, or a plaque. And maybe it even went on your desk or wall.

But here, this belt - this inch and half wide colored piece of material that you wrap around twice, and knot one way or another (and hope it stops coming off, how DO the higher belts do that??) (. . . .they just tighten it when you aren’t looking . . . blackbelt secrets). 

But now you have this blue belt. And you enter this new club. You can strut around the dojo and tell white belts things with a knowledgeable look on your face. And you do have knowledge. And now maybe you can tap someone. Maybe you can get on top more often. Maybe you even know where you went wrong.

Blue belt is the belt you receive when you have learned the basics of the language of jiu-jitsu. You can form a sentence. You can communicate through technique and have a “jiu-jitsu” conversation with your partner during a roll. You aren’t just talking loudly waving your hands about hoping the other person can understand that you liked to buy a coffee and pastry (that’s essentially the first thing I need to know in any language.) You might even start to teach some.

But what comes next? Relson says a “Blue belt is a blackbelt on the street”. You have more knowledge and experience than the average person.  And yet - you see the higher belts roll, you feel how they roll, and you wonder, how do I get THERE? and then you roll with lower belts, and there isn’t some blue belt magic that appears with the belt so you can defeat anyone (big, small, young, farm strong). and then . . .

Sometimes the Blue Belt Blues set in.

Its natural actually. I love talking to one or two stripe white belts - THEY LOVE JIU-JITSU. They are in it for life, they want everyone to do it, and they want to talk about it all the time, especially how they love it, especially the lessons they are learning beyond straight up technique. I felt that way too. I mean I made my friends come do a self-defense workshop for my birthday celebration after a year of training.

Tori with white belt at her first Relson seminar.

White Belt Enthusiasm is not unlike what happens when you fall in love. Everything is brighter, sweeter, everything has potential, the future is coming up roses.  Live and love this phase of this new and important relationship in your life. 

But - these high flying emotions, just like in real life, are tempered with reality as time passes. The intensity of new love mellows a bit, to the comfort level that is no less enjoyable but different. It evolves into that companionable quiet over a cup of coffee across the table from your love.

There is the reality that every year we continue our journey and relationship with jiu-jitsu, our lives are also continuing to change. New relationships (with people) or end of relationships, kids get born, kids move away, financial changes (positive and negative), work opportunities, new things that peek your interest, moving, injuries and illness, and of course the natural aging process where you don’t recover as quickly, can’t go as hard perhaps, can’t train as often as when you had less responsibilities, or when you perhaps ignored everything else in life except for jiu-jitsu in the heydays of white belt life. 

But suddenly - your “stuff” - stuff being your go-to moves - might stop working. You’ve bought a ton of rash guards and gis. You’ve girl fanned over training with an IBJJ (or other type of) champion black belt. You might even feel like you’ve found your people, a community. And maybe you eat Acai on the regular.

Homemade Acai bowl with ALL the toppings.

The secret is - Blue belts aren’t the only one. Its just that by purple belt, brown belt, black belt - you’ve been down this road before. 

For a blue belt its the first time. Its a major milestone on the jiu-jitsu journey. You’ve showed up enough that most people know your name now. 🙂

And so our relationship with jiu-jitsu evolves as our lives evolve. Acceptance of this will keep you in the game and on the mats. There is no one way to be a person who “does” jiu-jitsu. 

One of the things I’ve experienced in training is that it really is an interactive, cyclic, living breathing thing. There isn’t a straight path. At times you have different lessons to learn. At times it’s something physical holding you back, others times something mental or emotional.

Sometimes someone excels at being a white belt, but then they hit a plateau. This is also not uncommon. It requires patience to move through and beyond the plateau. Sometimes the plateau is because what served you well at white belt training and sparring-wise, is no longer serving you. You might have to dismantle and rebuild a part of your game. You may have been using attributes to succeed and now your trying to apply timing, leverage, the game of millimeters and inches.

And somes times - life just gets in the way - which really is something to dive into. Because it’s not that life gets in the way - Life just is. Life is and always will be a factor - life outside of jiu-jitsu that is. But in our excitement about BJJ and the feeling it can bring, sometimes we let BJJ get in the way of life- the other aspects. Or we use BJJ to avoid dealing with other aspects of life that we need to spend some time and energy shoring up. We really do have to find a balance in order to play the long game. 

Sometimes someone excels at being a white belt and then life catches up and they are humbled when someone surpasses them who perhaps was an “average” white belt. Or a teenager that grew up and became an adult.

This is ego holding you back. Don’t let “losing” to someone you don’t think you should lose to keep you off the mat and continuing to learn. Comparing your journey to someone else’s is a sure fire way to not continue your training. And maybe one of the reasons there are more white belts than any other belt color on the mats. This might be a fundamental contributor to blue belts drifting away. 

The cure for this? Train for the experience and knowledge, not for the belt or the stripe. Or the tap. The next promotion will come. Train for the joy of it, the game of it, the community of it.  Keep trying to solve the neverending puzzle. Dive into one position and work it, knowing you may be tapping as you develop the specific skill you are working on - but its all a part of your strategy, just like you know you’ll be sore after a heavy lifting day.

Is that little voice saying, yah, but I’m different . . .I want to be the best. Then ask yourself, do you only want to train if you can be the best? Then, consider that maybe you’re more in love with being the best than with jiu-jitsu. Maybe you’re more in love with the ego boost it gives you than the ego loss (ego smashing?) it requires. 

Examine your blues and see if you can identify what is at the root for you. And then just like jiu-jitsu, focus your counter attack based on the actual problem at hand. What is “the immediate danger”?

Surviving the Blue Belt Blues may not feel like a technique that you can take into your game, but it is absolutely a lesson you can take into life.