Blue belt is a difficult belt to have

Getting a blue is great, but it is also a difficult belt to have. As a blue belt you know a bit, the basics, that's why you've got this belt. For your instructor you've reached a level where you can clearly show a understanding of the basics of BJJ.

Now you have this new colourful belt you feel that you should be tapping white belts left, right and centre. But as we know that doesn't happen. A couple of lessons ago I rolled with a new guy, I was in the gi, he wasn't. So we started rolling and I soon found out what he was going for. Just pure strength, plenty of slamming and yanking on arms. What he didn't have in technique he was going to make up by bulling his opponent around.

So as the higher grade I thought I should have the technique and experience to weather the storm, and apply a good submission once he gassed from all the effort he was taking trying to pull my arms out of its sockets. 1 min later I was tapping to, well save my arm.

Walking to the edge of the mat (we were doing king of the hill) I felt annoyed with myself. And this is big problem with the blue belt for me.

You're at the level where you know something, and you think now I have this belt I can really start progressing in BJJ, you think (foolishly) that you should tap all white belts, survive against the purple belts. Then you roll with a beginner and them slam you about and you feel like a complete beginner again.

People say that the blue belt is where you learn to defend, purple belt is where you start to learn your game, brown is where you are really perfecting your game and black is where you show that you have a strong game.

Being a blue belt can feel like a frustrated toddler trying to walk, but keeps falling over.

Anyway back to mats soon....

First Post

This is the first post of my new Brazilian Ju Jitsu blog, I've tried writing other BJJ blogs before but never really kept them going. But there is no harm in starting again.

The reason I've called this blog Blue Belt Tales is because I am a blue belt and this blog will be about my training and BJJ in general. I also think it'll be a long time before I get my purple belt, so the title Blue Belt Tales should be suitable for a while.

Not only am I a blue belt, but I'm also forty and training with people who are usually at least 10 years younger than me has it's problems. So I'll probably be writing about that as well.

I've been training in BJJ for about 3+ years now, I'm not sure of the exact date as the club I train at is/was originally a Jeet Kune Do club that brought in aspects of BJJ into the training. This slowly grew and as my instructor went up through the belts we, as a club did more and more BJJ.

Eventually I received my black belt in Jeet Kune Do and then I decided that I was enjoying the BJJ so much and wanted to get better at it that I decided to concentrate on the BJJ. My club also started to have just BJJ lessons (both Gi and No-Gi).

Now I train in BJJ about 6 hours a week, two sessions at my club and one session at a training partners house, he's just converted his garage to a small matted training area (something I think all people who train in BJJ think about doing).

I'm not a massive competitor, I was recently training for a competition and broke my foot (by a crazy white belt). This did make me think if I had broken something else, like my hand then I couldn't work and as I work for myself there is that risk that a training injury could cost me more than just a couple of days training.

So hopefully I keep writing this blog, probably posts about techniques for me to remember them and make sure I understand them.