been a blue belt for 18 months and i genuinely feel like i have not improved at all in the last 6 months. maybe gotten worse. this is not a humble brag — i am legitimately struggling and thinking about quitting for the first time since i started.
heres whats happening:
- white belts are giving me trouble that they shouldnt be. fresh 4 month white belts are catching me in stuff
- i feel like i know a lot of techniques but cant execute any of them live
- my guard gets passed constantly and i used to have decent guard retention
- rolling feels like a chore instead of fun
- i compare myself to the other blue belts in my gym and feel like the worst one
- i dread going to class some days which NEVER happened as a white belt
my coach says this is normal. he says blue belt is where most people quit because the initial excitement of learning is gone and the reality of how much you still dont know sets in. he calls it the "valley of despair."
but knowing its normal doesnt make it feel better when youre living it.
the other thing is the expectations change. as a white belt nobody expects anything from you. you lose, whatever, youre a white belt. as a blue belt youre supposed to be competent and when you get tapped by a white belt the shame is REAL.
DFW blue belts and former blue belts — how did you get through this? did you take time off? change your training approach? switch gyms? or just grind through it?
i need to hear that it gets better because right now jiu jitsu feels more like a burden than a passion and i hate that.
purple belt here. blue belt blues lasted about a year for me. what helped: i changed my training partners. started rolling with higher belts exclusively for a month. getting smashed by purple and brown belts reminded me how much there is to learn which paradoxically made me more motivated