Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
Discussions on improving your BJJ, navigating mat-politics and all aspects of the jiu jitsu lifestyle. Multiple weekly episodes for grapplers of any level. Hosted by JT and Joey - Australian jiu jitsu black belts, strength coaches, and creators of Bulletproof For BJJ App. Based out of Sydney, Australia
Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
Play The Hits: Why Blue Belts Quit & How You Can Stay On Track
Play The Hits! This is an excerpt from one of our episodes on why do blue belts quit. Listen to the whole thing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgkXHzNhYtA
Listen here as to why we think blue belts quit so often, and how you can manage your expectations.
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A good martial artist does not become tense but ready. Essentially, at this point the fight is over.
Speaker 1:So you pretty much flow with the goal. Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limitless power?
Speaker 2:I'm ready.
Speaker 1:And the truth is, when it comes to getting better and it's funny when you can see people doing things in their day-to-day lives which are very ordered and organized, but when they come to jujitsu it's just chaos. Like, yeah, it's my free time, I don't want to think, I don't want to be organized. But if you can be process-oriented, which is when I show up, I do my warm-up, I bring my water bottle, I do all these things, even though that seems boring, that builds to success. So if you actually want to be good at this thing, you get focused on the little things and the day in and day out and the process, and just know that winning and losing are either side of the coin, the yin and the yang of a process of development, and that losing to a white belt, even though you're a blue belt, that might suck. You've got to go.
Speaker 1:That white belt is on one and I'm having a bad day. And then on another day you might be kicking ass and you're a blue belt and you tap a purple belt day. And then on another day you might be kicking ass and you're a blue belt and you tap a purple belt. Well, maybe they were having a bad day, you weren't having a good day. There's so many variables there that you need to be able to step back from the emotion of it and the I'm a blue belt and the ego and the attainment, and go. What is this process? And understand that blue belt is just a step within the process of getting good at jujitsuitsu.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a. I'm trying to conceptualize it in my mind, but there's like a, when you start jiu-jitsu I've spoken about this before there's a short-term aspect to your like, a short-term perspective that you have, and that is oh, james and I started at the same time, like two months ago, so we're probably going to get our first stripe soon Together, and then that's happening and oh, but so-and-so was already here, so they've got three stripes and better you know.
Speaker 2:And then someone gets their blue belt and you're like, oh, fuck, you know, why didn't I or you get yours? And they're like, why not? And as a coach and I mean I don't catch a lot of jiu-jitsu, but I've had a lot of these conversations where people are like, fuck, I haven't been shown up, I need to get you know so and so got their stripe, I need to get my stripe or their blue belt. And it's like you. You're like you're looking at every single session and every minute of the day and like, how do I stay on par with these people? You get to my fucking level. 14, 13, 14 years of jiu-jitsu. I've seen people go from white belt to brown belt in the same amount of time that I've had my brown belt.
Speaker 1:Oh, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I just don't give a fuck. I'm like, I'm like, wow, how about that? Good for you? Cause I could. I mean, you know if I'm thinking about like well, I almost quit a few times and like, so you're like, as you get further down the path, you just, and all of a sudden, it just becomes about you and your journey. That's right. And I think that at that blue belt time, for most people not for the people who have been like 10 years of white belt, but for most people who it's pretty early on in the piece for them, they're still looking at that micro timeline, yes, and so you're expecting rapid, progressive growth and you're still comparing yourself to your training partners, like day in and day out, yeah, and I think kind of what you're getting at is like don't fucking worry about that, like you have to take this long-term view which is essentially looking at the process and applying yourself to that. I'm just going to show up, keep training, do my best you know be consistent.
Speaker 1:That's, that's the goal yeah, I definitely agree, but this is where I want to move from move from the something which I guess we, we all know in our hearts, but it's it is. It's not the sexiest thing, you know. We want rewards, we want dopamine, we want to feel like we're getting better all of these things. The difficult thing with this is, as you get better, others get better. And if you've trained at a hyper competitive gym and and I did, you know I was training at Absolute in St Kilda very intense environment with the pros If you take a week off, you come back and everyone's doing something new, you're like what's this new thing?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we were just talking about this and everyone drilled this, and now this is a new part of the paradigm. You're like God, I'm playing catch-up. And even if it's a month off, it can be like that you come back and people have gotten, but people that you were beating multiple times and now they're kicking your butt. And this is the difficult thing. It doesn't mean that you're that much worse, it just means they have improved, whatever. And the problem with this is the expectation versus the reality. We expect if we, as individuals, show up the same amount of time every week and I don't know what you're doing outside of training. You don't know what I'm doing. I mean for us we do, but when you're looking across the room at another person of the same rank, you're not built the same, you don't learn the same.
Speaker 2:There's going to be different outcomes They've got a kid.
Speaker 1:You don't have a kid. They're 21.
Speaker 1:You're 38 yeah whatever, whatever the situation might be, you need to understand that not all belts are the same and your expectation has nothing to do with the reality. So I think it's this is important that your expectation of what a blue belt is and then then you get it is very different to what the reality is. And the reality is the glory is short and the hard work is long. And I'm not trying to talk you guys out of this right, Because we all understand. If you're listening to this and you've done jujitsu, you've had your blue belt. Maybe you're creeping up on your purple and you're a blue belt who has not quit. You know what I'm talking about. You're in now. You know you want to take that next step to, to graduate towards the purple belt. You know that it's going to be similar. You get the purple. Now all the blue belts want to smoke you. Now all the white belts want to smoke you.
Speaker 2:Brown belts are a little bit fearful of you, so they're going harder I don't want this.
Speaker 1:I don't want this purple belt coming up on me and black belts are like there's no way I'm getting tapped by a purple belt, so you're stuck right in the middle. So if you're taking that step from blue to purple, it gets even harder. But, that said, if you have cultivated a process for just improving yourself, working on your own technique and not getting caught up in this expectation of oh, I should be better, I'm better than them, this comparison game, that is super important and it's like as soon as you're just focused more on how you're going and just, am I getting better? Am I learning? That's the key thing. Not, am I better than them, am I better than me six months ago? And if you can say yes, then you know you're on the right track.
