Per Aspera ad Astra — 3 Lessons I learned from becoming a blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

At the end of 2023, I finally got my blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I have reached the first big milestone of a journey that started two years ago — and that has been a ride ever since.

I’ve learned to embrace pain, to be fine with being humbled and to walk through severity (see above).

Now, odds are my tap-to-be-tapped ratio is still negative, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the latter number actually hit four digits.

Yet, Jiu-Jitsu is not about who’s best but who is left! It’s about who still shows up and puts in the work — however small — to improve every single day.

Because in the end, there is truth in the words of an old fella…

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable. ~Socrates 400BC

After two years, I still find myself on the mat, sometimes caught in triangles, often pinned shoulder-down — yet always having a good time. Make no mistake, since I started, I’ve learned a lot about myself and what my body is capable of.

So, I guess the old man would have been proud and given me the right to share some of what I learned.

Here is what the recent years have taught me about the beauty of BJJ.

# 1 Started from the bottom… still there

The belt colour changes nothing.

You still don’t have the superpowers that you assumed a blue belt to have when you were a white belt. You still get beat up by higher belts, and you’re now the official target of the aspiring newcomers.

Besides, you realise that there is so much left to learn, and at the end of the day, the only thing you do know is…

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

~Socrates

BJJ is an endless journey, never-ending, ever-evolving.

I realised that this journey is not about arriving; it never was. Rather, it’s about finding yourself — in expressing yourself on the mat.

As a martial art, Jiu-jitsu touches science and art. Even the magic that black belts perform works according to the laws of physics and logic. But they make it look like dancing.

Technically, you could use 100 different variations of moves to submit your training partner.

And if there are 100 different techniques you could use, you go for an armbar; it is an element of choice and self-expression on your part.

…playing half-guard

In BJJ, you express yourself through the techniques you choose. Your choices reflect your physical abilities, preferences, and character. How you move and chain technique after technique can tell you something about yourself. Some people engage proactively; some remain reactive.

Personally, I started BJJ after 4–5 years of lifting weights. Character-wise, my girlfriend describes the size of the stick I have up my butt as the wet dream of any carpenter.

While I still see physical strength as an advantage in this sport, I made a lot of choices with the intention of controlling my partner based on my strength in the beginning.

It made me feel as confident as a white belt in the bluebelt shark tank — it might even have spared me some further humiliation, yet I realised it came at the expense of technique and ease of movement.

Ultimately, his style and set of choices reflected my preferences and physical ability.

But as I am battling to get more flexible and less tense all around, my choices on the mat may shift soon. For now, I placed all eggs in the yoga basket, trying to smoothen my game and motions and, thus, improve my game.

I currently prefer to play the half-guard position. It’s a versatile stance that encompasses options to go in every direction, providing a lot of variety to dictate the flow of the match. You can feint upper-body submissions to set up leg entries and leglocks or threaten to take the back to leverage a resisting reaction for a sweep.

Either way, I can create problems and force reactions from my opponent, and I like the idea of taking advantage of reactions and using them to initiate further sequences.

In BJJ, you won’t find mastery, even after years on the mat. BJJ is perfect; it’s the human who makes mistakes. But you will find 100 different ways to express yourself.

Every move, every decision, every submission can tell.

# 2 Winners celebrate, losers calibrate

Pain + reflection = progress¹

Imagine preparing for a competition for months and then losing your very first fight. After four minutes on the mat, you can pack your stuff and go home already.

Been there, done that.

There is pain and a sense of inner cringe when you reflect on how you made a tiny yet stupid mistake. A detail that cost you the sweep, a better position, or the win altogether.

These emotions can keep you up at night after a competition, studying instructions with the only intention of fixing the mistake so you can relieve the pain.

Losing is not fun.

Yet, losses give you the opportunity to create a reflexive reaction to pain that causes you to reflect on it rather than avoid it, it can help you learn from it.

Making progress is.

Once you have found yourself studying instructional with the deliberate concern of eliminating your weaknesses, you start to realize that losing and making progress might go hand in hand.

It’s the reflections that provide the lessons.

It’s hard, but it helped me get a better relationship with failure.

The challenges in BJJ will test and strengthen you. If you’re not failing, you’re not pushing your limits. This process of pushing — often failing but sometimes breaking through, learning from what worked on the matt, and calibrating further — sometimes requires trust in the process, but if you embrace it, it can be so thrilling that it becomes your second nature.

Only defeats get you further. Right — because that’s the only way you learn. You don’t learn anything from winning. Ultimately, the so-called loser is the real winner!
~Bernd Stromberg, season 1, episode 8

BJJ taught me to get more comfortable with pain. In throwing the book at you and showing you the truth — “your guard play sucks” it reminds you of what parts of your game need more attention.

The same principles apply in life. Sometimes, life throws things at you that cause setbacks that seem devastating at the time. However, many people who endured those setbacks ended up as happy as or even happier than they used to be after having successfully adapted to the new status quo. Amidst these painful moments, we can find opportunities for growth.

The quality of our lives will depend on the choices we make at those moments.

The faster you adapt, the better.

With BJJ, I am happy to practice this habit in — compared to life — safe waters.

# 3 Attend classes with concern and close the loop afterwards

Not all time on the mat is spent equal.

It’s less about how much you train. It’s how much focus you train with. We can approach class with clear concerns and agenda of what moves to train and what positions to focus on, or we can go in there and do whatever the coach is teaching.

It’s like having a burning class. If you combine all your focus on a specific position or question, the training will be more efficient.

If you have a clear goal in mind and an agenda set, you go into class with clear concerns, asking specific questions and looking for detailed information. The feedback you get, you evaluate regarding the concern and the question at heart.

• How do I deal with kneeshields in passing half-guard?
• How do I off-balance my opponent from the bottom half-guard to force a posting reaction to get the undertook?

The point is to ask specific questions and prime our thinking to seek the very information to answer them.

From my experience, going into class with specific concerns makes all the difference. Rolling is more efficient and fun if you have a technique area you want to focus on focus on in the next months. It makes you look out for the little details, like head positioning, height of stance, and so on, that decide whether techniques work. As you are sweating the details this way, your training will become efficient.

Close the loop and reflect on the rolls

The best time to learn a concept or technique is when you hit it perfectly in class the first time.

But I can count those times on one hand. It barely happens.

However, the second-best time is directly post-class: If you have a problem with something, grab your training partner or coach and get direct feedback by going through the very technique that made the problem.

In every situation on the mat, you create problems for your partner or solve them. When something doesn’t work, there is a reason. And often, the devil is in the details.

Troubleshooting after class only takes you a couple of minutes to find him. But more importantly, you close the open loop of why something did not work out, ensuring you won’t repeat your mistake.

In addition, reflecting on your rounds and taking notes after class can help you retain more of the techniques taught in class. It gives you a good idea of what to do differently in your next rounds and gives you your agenda for the upcoming class.

I will be honest: I don’t do this every time. Sometimes, I skip sparring in the evening sessions to get to bed as soon as I can. But when I do, I make sure that tiny detail about a failing arm drag is not haunting me in my dreams.

In BJJ, you only bring problems to the mat; you never pick problems from it and take them with you.

Training this way gave me the feeling of making more focused progress. Ultimately, that’s all I need to stay motivated. Because every time I notice improvements, however small, it’s like I am falling in love again with this sport.

Notes:

[1]: Life Principle 1.7 of “Principles” by Ray Dalio