December 15, 2009
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Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is Kicking My Behind :-/
Ever since being promoted to Blue Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) I have been training in the Advanced Class and the experience there compared to that of the Beginners Class is worlds apart.
When I first began I thought I would do fairly well considering my Japanese JuJutsu background, but I was completely off base with such thoughts and found myself struggling there. By the time I reached my fourth stripe I was actually doing very well in the Beginners Class and was submitting people regularly and was very successful with defending against submissions. The only trouble I had was against those guys who were significantly larger than me and a few guys whose skill level was just obviously beyond mine.
Fast forward to the Advanced Class. This class is filled with Blue, Purple, and Brown Belts and the occasional Black Belt. Whenever I used to train with these guys while a White Belt, in hindsight they were obviously taking it easy on me. Now, while the vast majority of the upper belt students are helpful and take the time when they don’t have to helping me and walking me through things I should be doing, I still am feeling very frustrated at how horrible I’m doing in this class. I’m getting submitted left and right and the only people I am doing decent against are those that were just promoted to Blue Belt alongside me. And on top of that after these classes I feel beyond exhausted.
I know that as time progresses I should slowly improve like I did as White Belt and will begin to more successfully avoid being submitted and begin to catch guys not far above me in submissions here and there, but at the moment it just feels like I will never get there. Perhaps I’m overreacting. The minimum time between Blue Belt and Purple Belt is two years which gives me plenty of time to grow as a BJJ practitioner and does explain why those at Purple are so good since they have all been basically training for at least three years if not longer depending on how many tips they have on their Purple Belt.
