Purple Belt Changed Everything: Coaching, Ego, Real Progress

Anyway, at Purple Belt, I started coaching. I was probably the heaviest I've ever been, but at this point in time, I was teaching and coaching and doing a lot of that. This was a lot of fun for me in the jiu-jitsu realm, but there was a lot of stuff, a lot of personal life stuff. We moved at a certain point during Purple Belt, and I thought the move would end up causing me to lose all the weight, and that didn't happen. It didn't magically come back off, and that's where you'll see the one video where I went through that whole struggle to lose all the weight, and so that was all done at Purple Belt. It was definitely awesome to get to coach, and I was teaching the kids' class for a little while during that. I would say my role at Purple Belt expanded massively, so that is when you saw me do the most coaching, do the most teaching, and really dedicate myself in terms of jiu-jitsu. And you can see it in the belt. I mean, literally, the belt's all mangled, and this is the only one where I don't have a spare belt, so I never lost my Purple Belt. So it's the only belt that I didn't lose at a period of time, probably just because I was spending a lot more time at the gym, and I was really having fun with it. It was probably the highlight of a lot of my days. It was definitely a stressful time at home, so it definitely made all my time at the gym more meaningful when I was there. And in terms of what I was working on at Purple Belt, I would say I was just working on the students that I had. So I put a lot of time into... I remember I had a student that I took to a competition. You know, he was one of our... He was our best competitor, in my opinion, best competitor ever at our gym, and I used to train him. And the funny thing is, people don't remember why I told them the first time I saw him, you should compete, right? So it's pretty funny. Like, I walk in the gym, and I see this guy, and I'm like, what the heck did you do before you came here? And he's like, what are you talking about? Because he's like extremely muscle -bound, you know what I mean? You can tell he's a real athlete, unlike me. Like, I'm not a real athlete. You know, I know jiu -jitsu, and I obviously lift now, and that kind of stuff. And I run a little bit, but I'm not a real athlete. Like, you can tell the difference when someone has a real athletic nature, a real competitive nature. He's like, oh, I did a CrossFit Games competition before. So he's a CrossFitter, he does a CrossFit Games. It's so funny. My coach used to talk crap about CrossFit before he met this guy, and then meets a real CrossFit athlete and realizes, oh, I can't. Because it's working out for the sake of working out, and not to be good at any one thing, right? It is literally just the definition of insane workouts. You know, I did some CrossFit stuff before in the past, too, that was all bodyweight related. So back before I moved here to PA, they had a program that was at a CrossFit gym that was all bodyweight. So, but it was still really intense. And they had wads just like you'd have in CrossFit. And I think that that was extremely fun. But it was just funny to, you know, once you meet a CrossFitter that can do that kind of stuff. But yeah, I started taking him to tournaments. And his first tournament, before the tournament, it was so funny, because in the lead up to the tournament, I have the ability to set dials of how hard I go. So each person gets a different version of me. No two people get the same difficult. And at Purple Belt, I had already learned this. So, and in fact, at Purple Belt, I would say I had the best version of this I have in general, right? In terms of not making mistakes and giving too much, too much difficulty to someone or too easy difficulty to someone. I would say I've gotten worse at it somehow at Brown Belt than I was at Purple Belt, probably because I was working with the kids a lot. And so I had to make sure that I had that dialed exactly perfect so that I didn't waste their time. But I also didn't just kill them, you know, especially at 250 pounds. Like I was the heaviest I've ever been. So I was not weak by any standard measure. You know, I was just fat. You know, I was just fat. And that was the worst part is at 250 pounds, I was dominant in jiu-jitsu. And I had just absolutely dominant performances when I would train at the gym. I didn't compete. So I didn't have that like, hey, buddy, you need to lose the weight moment from competing. And so, you know, I had this delusion that it was acceptable for me to be at that weight. And so I finally kind of caught up in my mind, like, you can't stay this heavy. And this is fat. You're not more muscular. You need to get this weight off. And that finally did happen. But it took like two years for that to catch up and for that to become absolutely necessary for me. And but anyways, he so my competitor before his first tournament, we did a lot of training. And my favorite thing is I had him beating me every match, like every match he beat me, right? Going into this competition. And the funny thing is he's like, he talked to me afterwards. And he's like, I still thought I was beating a purple belt. Because you didn't just let like I didn't just let him win. I made it a real struggle for him. I made it really difficult. And then in the end of the day, he won every match within the five minute frame. And so he went and did that first thing, like in his first match, he did that exact same thing he was doing to me to the first opponent. And then in his second match, he got belly-down armbar. And I was so mad because I saw it in training. And I just didn't think anyone would I mean, this guy only had three months of training. And he already knew the belly-down armbar. I didn't expect anyone to even know it at white belt. Because whenever I was first starting at white belt, there's no way I would have had someone hit a belly-down armbar on me from my you know, from guard, right? So that's how they spun into it from from like a from a modified loose guard. And I just I never expected I saw it in there whenever I was rolling with him, he'd leave himself open with it. He would have his what he what he would have is he'd have his hand dug really deep, like near your collar on the cross side, which which sets that up. But you have to, you have to be quick with it, you have to get your hips underneath them. And you have to extend and I just didn't expect someone to be able to do it at white belt. And they hit it on them. And I was so mad at myself because I saw it. And I didn't correct it. And I let it go. And so I chalked that one up. That's not the only time he lost a match because of me. But that one especially, it made me so mad that after after after he went home, I think he did much, much better in no-gi because you can't hit that. I can't remember how he placed in no-gi. Like, you know, that's insignificant to me. But I think he might have actually gotten the gold medal in no-gi. But either way, like his first tournament, amazing performance, medaled, you know, so proud of him. But for a month straight, he got hit with belly-down armbars. And he's like, wait, you could have done this this whole time. Like, you could have beaten me every single one of those matches with this move. You just hit it on me four rolls in a row. And you didn't hit it on me once before the tournament. And he's like, yeah, I saw it. I just didn't expect someone to be able to execute it. So I was dialing myself back to the white belt version of me. The white belt version of me wasn't hitting belly-down armbars, like just wasn't, you know. And I think that that's important to realize you don't have to learn every technique at white belt. You don't have to be the best on the mat at white belt. You don't even have to be the best of the mat on blue belt. You just have to be getting better. And even at purple belt, but at purple belt, you better know how to hit a belly-down arm bar. Like you, you just have to know how to hit that move and, and execute it with precision. And, and so, you know, he, he was, he was shocked like that I was able to do that, that I was dialing it back so that he could have that confidence to think that he would be able to win these white belt matches. And that confidence I think did help him. Right. Uh, I think having that mental edge helped him take out his first opponent. And whenever he got lost by a belly-down armbar, I was like, that was a fluke just dusted off. I wasn't expecting someone to be able to do that. I didn't explain and go into detail that, you know, it was a flaw that he had in his game, but there's no time for that then. Right. The, the focus is on trying to, cause he had more matches. So purple belt, I really enjoyed, you know, I miss teaching the kids class. Uh, I just, I just can't commit to it with my schedule, with my girls. Uh, our, our life is too crazy. I don't make it inconsistently. I would like to be able to make it one day a week consistently to be able to at least coach that one day again, but I can't even make that consistently. Uh, that would, you know, it just like, it's not going to happen tomorrow night, which would be the night that I would prefer to go. And I can tell you there's going to be too much going on, but purple belt was a lot of fun for me. Uh, purple belt, you better know a belly-down armbar. I think you should be starting on your coaching journey. Uh, I, I think in terms of techniques, you should at least know what you're good at, what you're not good at. You know, I know now, you know, I'm moderately okay with leg locks. I'm actually, you know, I would say decent and working on them. You know, it's something that I'm actually been actively working on again. Uh, but I wasn't that good at them at purple belt, but that's one of the additions with brown belt that I've been, been adding, just tightening them up. And I would say, you know, constantly be trying to improve. Uh, I would not stress out about it. I've seen purple belts at our gym, especially stress out about like learning more moves. They don't feel like they know enough moves. And I had one come up to me and, uh, it was actually one of my favorite moments at the gym because, you know, I'm a brown belt now, but, uh, you know, this person just got their purple belt and, you know, they were talking to their, their husband about their purple belt and how they need to learn all these moves. And they were looking up different moves that they don't know and trying to learn them. And I'm like, stop wasting your time with that. You know? And she's like, what, you know, I can't believe you'd say that. And it's like, and then her husband's like, yeah, Toby only knows one move. He knows how to hit a triangle and he can hit you with a triangle from anywhere. And that's his one move. Right. And, uh, he's not wrong. You know, most of the time I do hit people with triangles. Uh, I do have other moves, right? I, I, I, but I prefer that triangle in a lot of situations, you know, that is, that is the go-to move for me. I also feel really safe with it. So if I don't want to injure someone, uh, you know, a sloppy arm bar from me can, can shatter someone's arm, like a belly-down armbar for me, if I do it sloppily and without a lot of control and without a, well, if I over rotate, I can snap it. You know, I can snap something like something's going to break either the wrist or the elbow, like I'm going to torque some or your shoulder, right. I have enough rotation ability to really jack something up in your arm as I'm rotating through the thing. And, uh, if you don't roll with me. And so that's always a concern with that belly-down arm bar for me, if they don't roll, um, you know, if they don't roll properly, I'm going to just break it in transition. And, uh, because I, I, I rotate while I'm, while I'm hitting the thing. So there's, there's a lot of moves that I'm a little cautious with, with people, uh, and the triangle, I don't have to be because the way you land in my triangle, you're, you're completely safe. I mean, other than the fact that it's going to hurt and you're going to tap, you know what I mean? It's kind of painful, but it's not going to hurt something unless you have a really bad shoulder. Uh, then I like to know ahead of time and I will actually take out my triangle just because I pull the arm across and I don't want to risk injuring your shoulder any further than it already is. If your shoulder is messed up on one side. Oh, by the way, if you tell me your shoulder is messed up on either side, I'm not going to try for my triangle or an arm bar, uh, or a normal plot. All three of those get removed from my game. Uh, and I just go down to some basics. You know, I'll still hit you with a rear naked choke. I'll be working on top position. I'll be working on control positions. Uh, I will, I will avoid a lot of my bottom submissions and maybe some leg locks. I might hit you with that, but I'm, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go after that shoulder anymore. What about me might've actually still going after it because he was not a nice person, but, um, you know, I'll bet purple belt at brown belt. You tell me something's hurt and I'm gonna, I'm gonna dial it back too. And if I lose because I dialed it back, so be it. And you notice I said the word lose. Uh, that's another pet peeve that I see in online communities. And I saw it at my old school. I don't even let anyone say it at my current school. If you say that, I'm going to call you all kinds of things. Um, you know, if you're one of the guys, if you're one of the guys that I know, I'm going to, I'm just going to tear you apart and make fun of you. But people, people say they don't lose, they learn. And you know, I saw it all the time at the old gym and I see it all the time online. Uh, no, you lost. Like I get in the training room. We're not going a hundred percent. You don't know what the person was doing ahead of time. Uh, but I can assure you every time I've lost a match, every time I've lost a role, I go back and I look at what went wrong and I try to figure out how to fix it. And I think this, I don't lose. I learned mentality actually doesn't place enough emphasis on the loss. Uh, losses should sting. You know, I had one where I lost to a purple ball, uh, because, and I lost, uh, I definitively lost. I forgot how fast he was. Uh, I was on my back and he just spun into a knee bar and he hit it so quickly and so beautifully that I had to tap. And like, I don't, it's not to say I'm going to let him crank that thing and blow out my, my ankle or my knee in that case. We're going to blow both by the way, the way he had it applied, it was going to shatter everything in my right side of my body if I didn't tap. And it's like, no, you tap and I tap quickly and then you figure out what went wrong and you try to not make the same mistake again. And I lost, you know, it is okay to lose. Like, uh, but I think it should sting. You know, I think, I think every loss should sting at any belt level, uh, white belt. You're going to be doing a lot of it. So maybe a white belt, you get kind of used to the sting of loss a little bit, but you know, that that's my mentality on it. It's not, I mean, yes, you learn, but the learning is driven through the desire to not lose again. Uh, now the other thing that I do agree with is that there's no winning in the gym unless like I would consider it a small victory. Like for example, one of the guys got me in this, uh, cross collar choke where they just like, they wrap my gear around me and locked me in this choke. And I had to tap to the thing at a certain point. And then he got me in the same choke. And this time I'd been working on it for two weeks straight, letting people put this thing on me. And then, which is really hard to get in the situation where they can wrap your gear around. So you kind of have to like give it to them and bait them with the thing, which really sucks because it's hard to get out of. I had to tap numerous times to like, I had to tap to a female white belt because she went the other direction. So I was trying to counter what he did specifically. And then she let go of it and rear naked choked me, took my back and rear naked choked me from it. And I'm like, well, that was unexpected, but that like, he could have done that to me. So I have to not go the direction that like, it helped me a lot, believe it or not, getting hit with that rear naked choke. Cause like, that's, that's an embarrassing loss, you know, to, to, and she legitimately tapped me out. And it's like, what do you do? You know, next time, uh, don't get in that situation. Right. The whole, like I made so many mistakes and it, and, and, and I allow myself to do that in training. Right. I, I let her get into the situation that he was in where he had my gear wrapped around my head, which is already a really bad spot to be. And then I wanted to try to work out of it. And I thought maybe picking a lighter opponent would give me a better chance of working out of it. But I picked a lighter, faster opponent. And so she was actually able to spin around me as she let go and hit a rear naked choke. And I, and he's also good enough to do that, which is what I was protecting against the whole time with all of my movements is not letting him get up on my back because I knew he could end the match very quickly from there. And it turns out, yes, that was, that was the correct assumption to make. And, uh, and so anyways, the next time he went to hit me with that, I got out, but it was because I'd put in that work because that loss bothered me. And it bothered me not to, to just the point of, oh, okay, you lost chalk it up. I didn't lose. I learned whatever BS. No, no, no. I had to put myself back in that situation with other people, which really sucks. So have someone to have your own gi wrapped around your neck and, uh, and also do it in live roles where they don't know I'm doing that. Right. Uh, and then try to get out of those situations. And the next time I was able to get out, it was still tough, but I was able to recognize it quickly enough and, and pull the gi basically back around so that he didn't have it anymore. And then go from there and sit out and in, and out of that position. Uh, still didn't put me in a great position. It took a lot of effort, but I would say at purple belt, you're starting to hone those skills, right? You need the ability to put yourself in bad situations and get out of them. You have to have that ability. If you're going to make it from purple belt up, up through you, you have to be prepared to put yourself in bad situations in live roles and try to work through them. So in general, at purple belt, you should be teaching, you should be doing the most learning of, of anything because you're learning from other people. You're learning your entire time on the mats. So you're watching other people. You're really emphasizing, you know, becoming better at jiu-jitsu and all in all ways. So that was my time at purple belt. I would say it was the most impactful time of all of the time that I had.