How I Avoided Blue Belt Blues in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

This is an interesting one for me because this involves switching gyms. So at Blue Belt, when I started I was at Gym A and when I got my Purple Belt I was at Gym B. So I was promoted, and you'll see this correctly, this is actually, this one has five stripes on it, right, from the three years and this one only has two stripes and I don't have the dates on it but it was still over quite a bit of time because this was during the COVID time. So this was during COVID and that was my, one of my major reasons for switching gyms to be honest with you. Gym, the gym that I was originally training at closed down during COVID and the new gym didn't. I don't know if you can say, I think you can say that now, it's been a long enough time but yeah, so I was still training once I found out that the other gym, because they opened right before, you know, right before the COVID shutdowns and they couldn't, you know, for a while there I was actually training one-on-one with the head coach once I came over a lot of the time because most of the world is shut down and it was just a huge opportunity for me. And by the way, at White Belt, I really had only a bottom jiu-jitsu game and what's funny is my head coach doesn't even remember it but he had to fix my entire top position game to where now people are way more afraid of me from top position than they are from bottom position. They're afraid of not just my guard, he spent so much time on guard passing when I first came over, but not just my ability to pass your guard, right, but my ability to once I take an advanced position and establish it. I have so many attacks and it's just so dangerous from top position that I would say my top position game is actually more scary than my bottom position game because of my ability to control, my ability to move from position to position to position in advance. You know, with my limited cardio that I have now, this top position game that he gave me at Blue Belt really, really, you know, really cemented what I was able to do. But yeah, what happened is I went from gym A, I got my Blue Belt at my first gym and then, you know, I switched over and for a while there, I trained at both gyms, which you're not supposed to do at all. The original gym that I was at did not allow and does not allow people to cross train. And I actually got to hear about it from a White Belt who, because I live really close to my original gym now, and there was a White Belt who ended up going not to our gym, but another gym in the area that's not affiliated, but has some coaches from, because, you know, it's a small area, so you have coaches from gym, from the original gym at this new gym. And he actually got a phone call from one of the owners of the original gym. And that's the way he said it to me too, which is even funnier, because then I'm like, was it this person? And he's like, yeah, how'd you know? And I'm like, I just know their personality. They would be the one to call you and say, hey, you have to pick a gym. And I think that's, by the way, that's every right of the gym owner. I just made it clear to my current head coach that that's not something that I agree with him doing, right? Like, so I get that, like, you know, I didn't have a leg to stand on at White or Blue Belt, you know what I mean, to say anything like that. But now at Brown Belt, I'm willing to say that kind of stuff where it's like, hey, and he actually, we had to bounce this around because I'm one of the upper belts in my current gym. Like, what do you do in these situations? And I'm like, it's all about transparency, because we've had a lot of people come through that are at two gyms. And it's like, do I belt them? Do I not belt them? And I'm like, for, so for the one situation, I said, no, absolutely not, right? You're not responsible for any of their belting because their other gym is still their main gym. And when they go to tournaments, their other coaches coach them. So that is completely on their responsibility to belt them, right? In my opinion. And he, he agreed with me, like that's on them. Like he comes, he trains and he trains with us two, three times a week. He's great, great training partner. So like, I would be very mad. Like if my coach said, this guy's not allowed to train here, I'd be furious. You know, you'd, you'd see me as angry as I could be, which he'll never say, because he's just such a great training partner for all of us. But there was another guy who was in and he spent nine months of the year at our gym and three months of the year at his other gym. So, but, and he wasn't splitting time. He was going back and forth based upon being in school and out of school, which is super awkward. Right. And I'm like, you actually have to have a conversation with that head coach and ask the coach from the other gym. Luckily they were on good terms and he could do that. Cause I'm like, I don't know what you do in that situation because this person's not splitting time between two gyms. He's actually at two different gyms, depending on whether or not he's in school. And it's like, you guys kind of have to talk this one out, you know, and I can't remember where he landed. I believe he was able, I think at the end of the day, he was able to give him a belt. And I think he did give him one belt. You know what I mean? He ended up going up one belt, but, uh, he's not at our gym anymore. Um, my guess would be he finished school. You know what I mean? He was in college. Uh, so that would be my guess as to what happened to him. But I just didn't even think to ask, but blue belts like a wild time. I mean, it really is a lot of people get the blue belt blues. I didn't get it at all, but that's because at blue belt at my old gym, I was competitive with the purple belts. So I wasn't in this no man land. I already had a target. It was the purple belts. I was trying to beat their purple belts, like straight up. I was trying to beat their purple belts. Um, and, and at the new gym, when I transitioned over, it was even more awkward because I was clearly the upper belt, uh, because he had a bunch of blue belts and then I transitioned over. So newly minted wrestler blue belts. And these guys were every bit of blue, blue belt in that, uh, you know, I could take him out pretty easily with my jiu-jitsu skills, with the techniques that I had. But if you compared these blue belts that he had to any of the other white belts, you know, these guys have eight years of mat time, mat times, mat time. You know, I had a hard time with them, uh, only because, you know, the wrestlers and their cardio is so good. So at that time I was in some of the better shape in terms of my ability to withstand and be patient. But every now and then they'd get me with something. You know, I remember one of them bent my leg in a way where I had to tap because they, they, the worst is they're wrestlers. So they don't know leg locks or anything like that. They're not, I have had wrestlers who trained leg locks, then came into our gym. They're a big problem for me. Um, because they'll drop back for a leg lock and you'll forget that they have, you know, but these guys didn't have those yet, right? Cause they were traditional white belts who had the basic submissions necessary to become a blue belt. And really their specialty was, uh, you know, rear naked chokes and really basic stuff like basic top position, you know, get on top of them, roll them over, submit them from their back, uh, and pretty successful at it. Right. So they didn't have a whole lot of stuff from their back other than the ability to, to get up off their back very quickly. Um, so I didn't have to worry about them from bottom position at all. But I remember I was still working on my top position game. So I had to rely on that bottom position game to beat these guys. And usually that went my way, uh, because it took a long time. Like my guards hard to pass. I have a lot of ability to like a blue back. I had a lot of ability to get back to half guard and then launch attacks from there. And you know, these guys were clearly a little bit outclassed by me. And so I did get promoted to purple belt quicker. Uh, not than I would have expected, but then I would have at my original gym, I would say. Um, but not by much, right? Because I was training during COVID. I didn't take any of it off. So I went, but at blue belt, if you're like me, you're already looking at purple belts and that makes it easy. Right. I think in general with me, I have to set my target at something right to, to try to progress. And so the targets always set at something. And at blue belt, it was clearly set at the purple belts. And I honestly think if you do that, you'll make it through blue belt. If you don't do that. And, and especially if you take a large chunk of time off the person that I was talking to, to made it to four stripe white belt and then quit after that, hurt their knee and quit. And it's like, Oh man, didn't even like get the blue belt. But you see a lot of that where four stripe white belt, early blue belt, they don't continue after that. And I really think it's because their target wasn't the purple belts where they get an injury that puts them out. And it's probably the first time you're going to accumulate a major injury. Luckily, I didn't talk about it much, but I spent a lot of white belt injured. I cracked my ribs. Uh, I, I did, I had the deviated septum. So I was bleeding all over the place all the time. Uh, I didn't get that fixed until just now, you know, last, last winter, I finally got that thing fixed and it's been like night and day difference. I mean, it's a, it's a, if you're ever going to get any medical procedure, if you get chronic nosebleeds, go and have your nose looked at, you know, I waited years. It cost me like 250 bucks and it's the best, uh, LASIK eye surgery. I'd say it was the best money I've ever spent. Uh, cause I'm, I'm like, I was almost blind. So I wore glasses for years, like really high stigmatism and, uh, the LASIK eye surgery is the best, but a close second is that nose surgery. Like for sure to have that deviated septum fix, it just, they went in there, burned it, cauterized it all. And it just, it's, it's been so much better. And yeah, at white belt, I was bleeding all over the place, injured. Uh, I had, uh, an ankle injury that put me out, you know, really like a really bad ankle injury. Uh, not the only time I had it, but I definitely had it at white belt, had a shoulder injury, uh, had a shoulder injury win, by the way, that grappling industries tournament where I got a gold and two bronze medals, I couldn't lift my arm over my head, my right arm during the tournament. So, uh, that makes it really fun, uh, to, to try to compete. Luckily, no one knew it or else, uh, I'm sure I would have had, you know, I'd have lost every match. Uh, but thankfully people didn't know it and I could still, I, it's not that I didn't have full strength in the arm. It's just my arm. So my arm flexibility, this is actually the arm that was, I can go completely, completely up, completely locked out. I could only bring it to here and I was at full power to here, but, uh, you know, I couldn't bring it up the rest of the way at all. I'd really torn something inside there. And, uh, and, and by the end of the tournament, it was even worse and I had to go get it looked at, but yeah, I blew out in general, I would say set having a target, having a plan, uh, looking at, you know, uh, especially because, uh, because I was switching gyms, I had, you know, I had, I had a lot of, I had a lot of, you know, I had a lot to prove. Right. Uh, and, you know, thankfully I was pretty successful at that, I feel. Uh, but yeah, that, that was the general gist of, you know, even before I switched gyms, I was, I was eyeing up the purple belts and, uh, I would say in general that seemed to be very successful for me to not get the blue belt blues. Like a lot of people get where they just don't know where to go from here because you've, you pretty much got all the foundational skills. You've got everything you need, but the, the thing that you always need in jiu-jitsu is where you're headed, you know, what you're going to work on next. So that was my blue belt adventure. Uh, not too much to say, to say about it. Uh, I guess one other thing is right before I switched gyms and this probably made me even more unlikable at my old gym. I did win their in-house tournament at blue belt with no stripes. So, uh, no stripe blue belt took out all of their blue belts and won the tournament. Um, which was pretty awesome because I, I'd always felt that, you know, I was at blue belt level whenever I was white belt and I definitely proved it by winning the tournament, winning, you know, both the, the absolute division and my weight class, which is my weight class is 185. Uh, but some of the opponents were tough. Like it wasn't like it was easy. It's not like I walked through and submitted everyone quickly. Like it's tough, you know, even, even if it's just the people in your gym and, uh, and actually really loved that we did those tournaments and we were big enough gym to be able to, you know, do in-house tournaments and have, have different people compete. And it was a lot of fun, uh, hard for me to, always hard for me to make weight. You know, I, I struggle to make the weight. And what's funny is I always come in two or three pounds under the weight, but by the time you get me in the ring, you know, I'm over 190 pounds. I weighed myself whenever I came home from that tournament and I want to say it was one. So I had to weigh 184 by the way, cause they were using metric and he said 185. And then I realized I did the math and I'm like, I have to be, and it was no pound allowance or anything like that. Uh, at the in-house tournament, it was IBJJF rules, which also is not a good rule set for me because I'm not real big on rules. So I'm proud of myself for not getting DQ'd during that tournament. You know, that's highly likely with me and IBJJF rule sets. But, uh, yeah, he, he, he, he said it was 185. And then I realized I had to be 184. I weighed in at like 183, 182. Uh, so I weighed in, you know, light, but man, oh man, by the time I got home, I'm pretty sure I was like 198 from rehydrating and, and, uh, and eating. So I, I, I ate the whole time I was there. I was eating blocks of cheese, which is probably the most memorable thing for everyone else in the tournament. I've, I've lost tournaments because I packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the past. So at white belt, I swear I lost a match because I had, I'd eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I was, and I, I got taken down. So I lost the takedown points. I swept them, got on top, but couldn't pass his guard. But the whole time I'm trying to pass this guy's guard, cause again, my guard passing game wasn't great. So that probably played into it too. But also the whole time I'm thinking about this peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And I still remember to this day, because it bothers me that much that I decided to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before a match because everyone talks about how great they are in terms of protein and carbs. And no, they're terrible. Don't ever take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to a jiu-jitsu match. The peanut butter gets stuck to your mouth. And all I was thinking about is a stupid sandwich. So if you're going to do a jiu-jitsu match, you know, I don't recommend blocks of cheese. It's probably a terrible idea, but that's what I'm doing. I take a giant block of cheese and you know, a two pound block of cheese, and I actually have two of them and I'm just munching on that thing. And the reason why I do that, that's all I would ever do going forward is, uh, that maybe gel packs or something like that. Like I would do the carb packs that you use for running. That's that kind of stuff would be fine too. And energy drinks. I also like to have energy drinks around. Probably not the greatest, but that's kind of my protocol now. And, uh, yeah, I, I would just munch on that because it was, uh, because I knew it was something my stomach could handle. I knew I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom in the middle of it. That's a, you know, that's a huge problem is having to go to the bathroom in the middle of your matches. But in general with blue belt and in general with, with competing, uh, at blue belt, I competed and at white belt, I competed a lot. Now what's interesting is when we get to purple belt, because that is quite a bit of a different story.