So here I am, four years into this journey and I still suck. And in some ways, I suck worse than I did when I was a white belt. As a white belt, you're taking in so much knowledge that anyway you go, it's forward. You show up 3x a week, it's improvment. You nail an armbar or hold side control for 3 seconds, it's improvement. Folks talk a lot about the "blue belt blues" when you plateau in your progression. You doubt yourself because all the peeps you were used to tapping out are getting better and you're finding it harder to submit them or they are tapping you out now. The blue belts you used to give a hard time to aren't taking it easy on you anymore and are capitalizing on your lack of timing and holes in your skill set. But eventually, you hang in there long enough, you persist and at some point, you find your groove again. You make peace with being both hammer and nail, you coach up the newbies with increasing regularity, you achieve a balance between challenging yourself and confidence in your technique. Overall, jiu jitsu feels a lot more natural.
And then you get your purple belt.
I had never spoken to my teammates about how they felt after they received their purple belts. To be honest, some of them stopped attending as often (others not at all). But those that were around, I just didn't think anything of it other than they deserved it (they were obviously better than me). I would congratulate them, look up to them and learn from them, but it never occurred to me to ask them how it felt to progress in that new rank. My coaches have always said that purple belt is where you start to define your game. If so, I'm failing miserably. Am I a takedown guy? I don't think so. But am I a guard puller? Not with my current scramble (or lack thereof). Not only do I have no clue about what my game is, I feel like I've slipped in my progression. By now, I should be relying on instinct, responding spontaneously to my opponent's techniques and imposing my own control on the fight. Definitely not the case; often, I'm locked in self-doubt, over-thinking every position, falling into traps I should have seen coming, missing out on numerous opportunities because my timing is off, etc. And like success breeding success, doubt just wears you out. It's gotten to the point where I rely on discipline most nights to get myself on the mats whereas in the past, I practically skipped into class with an ear to ear grin. I find myself phoning it in during warm-ups and losing focus during drills. Rolling? I'm embarrassing. I rely on old tricks and habits. As my coach would say, I'm getting lazy. While I'm not getting tapped out a lot, I'm also not finishing the fights. I stall when I'm supposed to advance. I hold position more than attack. I execute individual moves instead of sequences. My guard gets passed more than it should. Attempts at sweeps fail far too often. I'm on bottom when I should be on top. I am too responsive and part of that is due to not having a strong picture of where I want the match to go. With this new rank, I feel like I overcame a steep climb and plateau only to find myself upside down with no idea what is on the other side of that hanging cliff.
And yet...
I still get on the mats. On average, I'm there three times a week. And prior to my class, I'm typically helping my coaches with kids classes. But regular attendance is not enough. Not at this point. At this point, I need to define what it is I'm chasing after. It's not a belt, that's for sure. And I'm not in any mindset to compete (though competition has a way of clarifying one's goals and lighting a fire under my ass). If this was writing a book or a play, I'd walk away from it, meditate and then come back when I've figured out my solution. But anyone who practices this art knows any time off the mats will only make it worse. Staying on the mats, I can at least maintain if I can't progress but there's no possibility for progression if I'm not regularly training. The other thing I remind myself is to cancel out the noise (ie. not comparing myself to others - below, at or above my rank). I got my expectations and those of my coaches and that's whom I've got room for. This is my journey and I need to own my successes and achievements as well as my failures and challenges.
So here I am, four years in, purple belt and still living in the suck. And unlike white belt me, I am no longer comfortable with that.
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