My Journey to the Black Belt

My attitude and reasons for training have changed quite a bit over the years. Each belt level was a very distinct phase for me in terms of attitude and training habits.

White Belt

I was actually a white belt longer than any other belt. It was the most frustrating and depressing belt for me as well.

At first, my reasons for training were I wanted to “learn how to fight”. This wasn’t particularly motivating, as I really didn’t want to fight anyone. I just didn’t want them to want to fight me.

I’d start training then stop over and over again. I went just enough to get frustrated. I’d see maybe a little skill start to develop, but with the first mishap, injury or frustration, I’d quit for months then have to start the process over again.

My thoughts about my skill went up and down depending on my tapping verses getting tapped ratio. Since I wasn’t showing up consistently, I had to relearn things and was frustrated to watch people pass me by.

And since I got depressed about always being tapped out, once I missed class and knew coming back would be even harder, I’d show up even less.

This happened for years at two different schools.

But I started to make some good friends at my second school, which motivated me to want to show up more.

Although it’s debatable whether I was there more to hang out than to actually train, I started getting reasonably proficient at a few techniques.

I was embarrassed to be a white belt for as long as I was, mainly because telling people I was a white belt felt chumpy. Again, I was still trying to impress on people that I was well on my way to becoming a fighting machine, so “white belt” made them reply, “Oh, you’re just a beginner”.

So for me, getting the blue belt was a huge deal.

Blue Belt

I felt the most competitive with my classmates at this belt . There are white belts that have a lot of skill coming in and can quickly challenge you. At the same time you have purple belts in your sights as well.

The focus continued to be “winning and losing” rather than working towards getting better. I frankly didn’t know the difference between the two.

At this point, I liked talking about jiu jitsu much more than actually training it. I had friends that were really good, which made it tough for my ego to take. It was easier for me to just hang out with them socially than to train with them.

As a result, I really lost focus on jiu jitsu. I just trained in various garages with my friends. Without real guidance, I was just always looking for new techniques and secrets rather than being honest about the cause of why I wasn’t any good.

This lack of responsibility led to me quitting altogether for well over a year. I still had a competitive mindset but wasn’t willing to do the work necessary to progress.

Purple Belt

But in the back of my mind, jiu jitsu continued to irritate me. Part of me wanted to believe that the problem was what I’d been taught. Secretly I thought maybe my former instructors’ style of jiu jitsu just didn’t work anymore.

I found a new teacher who espoused this idea that traditional jiu jitsu was outdated . He had all these techniques that people were calling “cutting edge”. Because of this, I decided to give jiu jitsu another shot. I figured with my newfound knowledge, I’d finally be able to hang with my old friends as a jiu jitsu equal.

Of course, I was repeating another variation of the same mistake, and my old friends would crush me every time. I was trying to get better by using tricks and things they hadn’t seen rather than really dealing with problems.

Strangely enough I really couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t very good. I really blamed things like not being athletic or “natural” rather than really asking myself if I had ever really worked on jiu jitsu.

Sure I had trained with some good people and watched videos and learned the motions of some techniques. But I had never worked on patterns, thought about principals or worked on developing combinations of attacks. In short, I had never studied the game.

It was at this point that I was lucky enough to move to Austin, Texas where two important things happened in my training: I met William Vandry and I hurt my knee.

Meeting William was important as I finally had a teacher in the true sense of the word. It’s not to say I hadn’t learned a lot from other people, but William was the first person to be able to analyze my game better than anyone ever will and tell me step by step what to work on.

Hurting my knee was important as it forced me to spend three months watching every class. I quickly realized how little jiu jitsu I knew. I could roll with people and pull some moves off, but when I sat back and watched people train, I couldn’t tell what they should do half the time, or what their options were or what I would do.

So I started to mentally spar. It was almost like a video game where I would choose one person and try to figure out what they should be doing at every moment. Then I’d switch to the other person. Sometimes I’d just take what was happening as a whole and predict what I thought was going to happen. And other times, I’d mentally put myself in there and see what I’d do.

I did this day after day. I still do this now and I still don’t think I’m good at it, but it’s a little better than it was.

So the purple belt started off thinking I’d found the secrets and ended up truly admitting how little I knew but finally being okay with that.

I was also able to stop worrying about looking good. The danger of being a purple belt is worrying about people’s opinions of your skills. In my mind, if your instructor knows what you’re doing, that’s all that matters.

Brown Belt

I was really happy to get this belt. It was the first one I really felt like I had earned and more importantly, I felt like I was beginning to learn how to learn.

Two new training partners came into the fold who were and are vital to my progress. I think it’s always important to have people that serve as litmus tests. In order to develop new angles and variations of techniques, I’d first try to get them on beginning students. After meddling around with that for a while, I’d start working up the ranks. If I could start pulling the technique off consistently, I knew there was something there.

But they were never officially part of my arsenal until I could work them on the two litmus tests. They helped me really deal with problems in my game, rather than just scrambling through them. I was able to hit the rewind button over and over until I was satisfied that we’d come up with some answers.

I had taken notes sporadically through the years but starting this year (2009) I did them consistently. Doing this really helped me keep my head in the game regardless of whether I was out of town or injured. In fact, I knew as long as I stayed in decent shape and kept reviewing my notes, I could make progress even with breaks in my training.

I also started blogging, which kept me accountable to other people to continue with my thought processes. Plus when people had questions I couldn’t answer, it made me reevaluate my conclusions.

There was definitely a bullseye on my back with this belt. But this was also the first belt that I felt responsibility. I could see people listening in when I’d explain a technique to someone. And having someone really listen to your advice and then take it is a great motivation for making sure you know what you’re talking about!

Black Belt

September 5, 2009 is a day I will never forget. While I cringe at much of the time wasted, I am confident that I can teach someone to learn much faster and better than I did. And in many ways I think that is the point of life: to make your mistakes and pass on what you’ve learned to the next generation.

I’ve said before, that feeling like I understand jiu jitsu is like seeing a mirage in the desert. At some point I had to learn to enjoy the walk fully knowing that the mirage will always be in the far off distance.

I have so much more of my game to work on. There are many principals of structure and movement that I want to explore. I have toyed with the idea of one day opening up my own school but for now my energies are on making myself a better martial artist and doing everything I can to make the people around me better.

I never want to protect this belt, but I will always honor it.