Its pretty common for schools to make you wait till at least one stripe before sparring. Thats mainly to make sure students are competent not to injury other students or themselves.

Thank you for this. Students can also benefit by reflecting on that days training and rolls and using a journal to write down their mistakes and improvements. This helps me at least. Even visualisation of that day reinforces the training in the brain.

Blue belt for 5 years. Identify a lot with the whole «finding what works for you» as hard. Not falling into the same game all the time though, was even harder. Keeping curious, trying new stuff, adding it to my game, forcing working from my back etc.

I’m 6’4 185 and a three stripe white belt rn, I noticed I have a good guard/triangles and have lots of options in front headlock and back control. But I’ve realized my long legs are vulnerable to leg locks and I’m not top heavy at all from side control

We’ve got this one white belt that literally is a danger. We were doing like a 10% warm up roll and he was literally going for submissions on me. He’d also busted his own nose on someone from being to spazzy

I was a white belt for 24 months. However I found out months after my promotion that the discussion to promote me had came 6 months before but my coaches wanted to build my confidence as a white belt.

Do you guys drill specific moves or techniques during sparring? Or just roll & do what you’ve learned so far

6’5’ long limbed. Definitely a guard player. Makes closed guard and triangles much easier than my shorter partners.

White belt just started. Great video.

Im 48. Starting bjj 11yrs ago. I was white 2yrs. I was blue 6yrs and have been purple 3yrs now. It was the strangest thing when i was given purple. Just before getting purple, there was like a change in me. All the years as a blue, it was all about getting to purple. Watching people move up but I'm still there. Wanting to get to where the ones moving up were. But at the exact time I was given purple, I had this internal change in me that I no longer cared about belts. Not only no longer cared about belts anymore, but I no longer even wanted purple. I became very content with my white faded blue belt and worn out stripes. But my point is it was an internal switch that it seems like my coach saw. idk if he did or didn't, but it happened at the same time. Internal switch that I just love bjj and dont care about belts, and that Im not going anywhere, plus finally content with being blue, then bam blue is over, and Im now purple. The internal switch was so bad that I didn't even want to go up and get the belt put on. I wanted to stay blue. I really missed being blue for a good while after getting purple. And when they say its not about belts its the journey, that is without a doubt truth. I didn't see that until I got my purple bc I missed those years as a blue. If I could go back, I wouldn't be so hard on myself when i first got blue and the years after thinking I just sucked and never going to get any further. That thinking is furthest from the truth. It's about the love of bjj and bjj for life, not the belts. When that truly clicks in you, it's a good indication that you're moving to purple along with your bjj game too, of course😂.

You could always add a weighted vest to the dummy.

So I just quit because im concerned about getting injuries to be out of work for 6 mths to a year would crush me financially...Any advice to get less injuries???⁷

Not worth the money

4 stripe white belt a little over a year

1:57 no judgement dawg. Cream pie that bish

I’m a muscular 5’8 155lbs. Does that make me the spark plug or the attack demon? I “feel” as though I have the equivalent body type to the 6’0 190 guy but just a 5’8 version…which seems to not fall into anything 😂

Thank you for an amazing conversation !

The 4 avatars were flawed right off the bat as it doesn't account for muscularity. For example, I am long and lanky, but also heavy, and very flexible and agile. I do play "strong mans games" on the ground, but fast and light in standup. I hate closed guard and only use it to arm drag to back, but butterfly and open guard I love because I can use my speed to get back on top or to back .

I started BJJ in 2000 with my wife. We trained 4-5 days a week 2-3 hours a day. We trained and competed as white belts until 2004 when we both got our blue belts. Back then it was very tough to get promoted at least in our school. Alan Goes and like 3 other Gracie Black Belts had to approve us. Anyways - we trained as Blue Belts from 2004-until 2007 when we built a house an hour from our gym. An hour in Atlanta drive can be 2 hours or 3 if things go bad on the roads. Eventually we had kids and we stopped.. in October of 2023 I came back to train because my daughter wanted to train. Now I know the moves - My body is remembering but now I'm 48 - not 27. Now my body doesn't do what it did before and I'm busting my rear end to get back to what I was - tough as I know. I'm pretty competitive. I'm rolling with 18 year old Purple Belt Phenoms or 230 lb. blue belts and I'm 170. My brain is faster than my body... I'm not even sure what a purple belt would look like for me. It won't look the same as the 18 year old phenoms now.. kind of a bit disillusioned about what my options are.

Thank you for this

Newly blue belt, I recommend if you can take some judo . Learn grip fighting , hand fighting, how to fall and breakfall. At least 2 throws a hip throw would be good start with

Im thinking of switching to a gym thats closer to my house but the problem is they only roll and dont teach a lot and the coaches dont come out and coach you at small tournaments

I honestly don't think it is a syndrome for everyone. Honestly, my purple is solely about attendance and presumptions of my skill. It can't always be imposter syndrome. Some of us just suck.

Been training for a month. Thought I was doing okay, managed to roll a few times with blue belts now being submitted and event made a few white belts tap. Last night different white belt came in , was very aggressive but I got absolutely smashed. It’s really in my head

My strategy is to get taken down/swept, and then spend the entire round fighting between closed guard and side control with the occasional tap. I never get subs 👍🏼

no mentioned main difference between blue and purple.

6ft 195 here I’m very flexible and strong and speed is average cardio sucks

Im a hybrid of tall and thin + tall and thick. I love going for double legs and singles, and I love being on mount trying to get head and arm triangles. However I also love d’arce chokes and playing guard to go for triangles. Also armbars are hard due to long legs. Excellent video 👍

Gone 2-3 times a week, got my blue belt at almost exactly 2 years of training. Love the grind, been blue now for almost 2 months

loved the inside, definitely a guy that values technique.

three stripe blue belt....it's a grind

I’m 5’6 200 lbs former yoga instructor and rugby player. So I’m flexible but also fast and athletic. I am a white belt who only has 8 months experience. I’m definitely no where near specializing and appreciate this insight to just think about in the future.

Just got my blue belt. Started training about 2.5 years ago. Was out for about a year with shoulder injury and then surgery. The hardest part was getting into a new gym after I moved and recovered from surgery and feeling like the process was starting all over again. It was a mental battle, but so rewarding.

Holy shit this video helped me so much, I am so bad I’ve been training for a year and I only have 1 stripe and I go about 2 times a week, we learn a couple of techniques every session and that is way too much I forget them at the next day anyway so I feel like I know as much as when I started with BJJ. Honestly I don’t even know how I still go to the sessions because they are not even fun because I’m still the worst in my gym.😢 Just going to the session doesn’t help, I forget most of the complicated techniques when I don’t even know the basics. the spreadsheet does help a LOT

How are you rating this though. I get the stars but what is your criteria for giving 5 stars

My body type is back pain and scoliosis

1 stripe White Belt, 11 months in, I've got the champagne in the fridge ready to pop when I get that second stripe. I suck, so it could be a while.

6ft 265lbs here, i'm a short and very stocky guy and the thing that has helped my skillset most recently is playing bottom, instead of my most effective game which is top deep water pressure, this is mostly good to do against people that i have a size advantage over to me, as it gives me more leeway to practice, doing this has won me competitions too, as i'm able to sweep bad positions better generally than most heavyweights, as they rely on the "who lands on top wins", i want to have an advantage over the people i compete against by improving my weakest area where they do not

5'9" 230 lb construction guy, no stripe white belt, my game is to try to make it 5 min without tapping

As a white belt, I’m trying not to use my body type. At 5’9” 220lbs with at bench of 315lb and squat over 500lb, I have a tendency to try to use strength when I should be focused on skill. I end up with a short term advantage that quickly gives way to exhaustion and a compromised position. In the end I’m not only defeated but worn out. It’s easy to tell yourself to chill until your pinned and can’t breath, then the hulk comes out. Quickly followed by another pin and a hulk tapping. Skill over body type - every time.

I’m 5’6 ( prob 5’5) and usually 155 walking around. My game is to not get submitted, still fun though

Scabies.

I'm 6'4 300+and semi flexible white belt just days in.i just stay still if I don't know what to do witch us often.duh lol.

Just got my purple belt, something I wish I could tell myself as a white belt is to have fun and not rush, BJJ is about the journey, not the destination

You hear coaches preach belts and stripes dont matter If thats the case why demote or promote students

I've still got the White Belt Blues, and it seems odd that someone who trains hard enough to get their blue belt would lose heart. But perhaps it's exactly that kind of thinking that causes the blues. "I've worked so hard to get to blue belt, and yet I'm only just getting started, and now I'm at the bottom of an even bigger mountain."

It wasn’t until I got my purple belt that I realized how to actually learn jiu jitsu. I thought I was long past ready for my purple when I was blue but once I achieved it I realized I needed to adjust the way I looked at training. I would say that being consistent over the long run is the hardest thing to do. Life, kids, job, money what ever it is always gets in the way.

Dad: "How about Jason, that's a strong name" Mom: "I just think he looks like more of a Chase" Dad: "Surely, we can come to a compromise..."

I'm 1.65m (5'5) and weigh between 82 to 84kg (180/185lbs) on average. I'm strong, with a thick back and legs, I trained Wrestling and Judo in Brazil for a few years. I have a good takedown game and control of positions on top. However, after earning my blue belt I started training a lot from bottom, especially in half guard. Today, at 32 years old and with a purple belt (I was supposed to be a black belt, but I had to stop a few times due to changes of residence and work), I feel like a complete grappler refining my main weapons and adding new weapons. I feel like I'm stronger than the vast majority of guys my weight and lighter. Faster and more mobile than heavier opponents. Because I have short legs it is more difficult to achieve some submissions, however because I am short I have a lower center of gravity which gives me more control and balance.

I’d put injury on the list. I’m over 40 but also a bigger guy with decent strength. I feel like people go hard at me because I’m strong and I’m constantly at home doing PT on some injury or another. Last week a guy went nuts on head control and I’ve been nursing whiplash all week. Getting old sucks