#42 Why Blue Belts Quit BJJ: the Blue Belt Blues and how to overcome them
Are you an experienced white belt? Due for your Blue Belt sometime soon? We don’t want you to disappear. It is a well observed cultural Phenomena that1 in 3 blue belts retire – but why? JT & Joey go deep on this mysterious occurrence and how you can avoid the pitfalls of the Blue Belt Blues:
The Problem with attainment
The ‘Cool Runnings’ Phenomena
Black Belts are not untouchable
Expectation VS Reality
Attainment VS Process
It’s possible for you to achieve your Black Belt but there are many pitfalls along the way- Receiving your Blue Belt is one of them. This episode will give you the strength and insight you need to stay on the BJJ path.
Speaker 1: 0:04
Better listen. Very careful. A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready, essentially at this point, the fight is over. So you pretty much flow with the goal who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limit this power. I’m ready,
Speaker 2: 0:29
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another Bulletproof for BJ J podcast. I am J T what’s up guys. I’m Joey. And today we are going to discuss why blue belts quit. BJ JHA is , is a good topic. It is a cultural phenomena. Uh , and if you don’t know about it, you you’re about to find out. There’s a thing that happens in jujitsu where people train, they work hard. They’ve been in their white belt forever, and they finally, they finally attain the holy land, the , the rank of blue belt. And then they just deem its to realize they just evaporate and never return to training. They’ve made it well, the joke is, is that the jujitsu community needs the storm area 51 because apparently that’s where all the blue belts hiding <laugh> yeah, pretty much. What is it? Like blue belt is the , uh , black belt for quitters. <laugh> something like that. It’s so true. It is. Think you , I mean, for us now having tra for so long, you can look back at how many, like blue belts you’ve known. Yep . That just never went on beyond that. Yeah. They disappeared and you know, whatever, like it’s not like everyone has to get to black belt, but there is a distinct thing that occurs at blue that we’re gonna talk about. Definitely where I don’t know. It’s it becomes easy to kind of step in the game. Definitely because it is an achievement. No question. It’s your first true achievement in jujitsu. Isn’t it? Cause it is you get the white belt free. Yes. But the blue belt is the first thing you are like graduated to definitely. And look, it , it can be a long road for some people. They might be on their white belt a long time. And then the blue belt is like recognition. <affirmative> yeah. It’s not like you’ve made it, but it’s like, yes, you have achieved a level above when you walked in the door, but it sets up a problem mentally. I think we might dig into a , a real life case that has occurred . No, a blue belt dis disappearing. Yeah. I used to train with a guy <laugh> guy . Really great guy. Beautiful. This is the eulogy even did a bit of Bulletproof. Amazing. Came to the small groups . Got strong car mobile. Yeah. All of the attributes seemed like a nice guy. Yeah. Like was really on that purple belt trajectory. Of course, you know, lockdown came and that was very unfortunate. Of course lockdown ended, but he still hasn’t resurfaced from the lockdown. Right. He’s a great man. His name, his name was Jake O’Neil was <laugh> no, he’s a legend, but yeah , he hasn’t come back. May he rest in peace in his blue belt? That’s right up there with all the other blue belts. <laugh> avoiding the tough roles. Not doing the warmup. <laugh> um . Yeah . He is caught so much at our academy and it’s all, I mean, he’s in a poor guy too because him and Dan were, I believe were Adams out my coach, our friend, Adam Childs , first blue belts. Right. So, you know, and they were like the first two members at the gym. So they’ve had special pressure put on them. Yes . To be, you know, to uphold the stand and that kind of thing. And so it’s like, well, where the joke <laugh> yeah . Uh , there’s nothing like the peer pressure of the team to make you go to training. Why is it that this phenomena is such? So what we should look at here is this is something I’ve thought about a fair bit, cuz it happens within like life in general. And this happens to us all as humans is this problem of attainment. We get really focused on attainment, whether it’s money , uh , a promotion , uh , whatever. It might be, a car, a job, some form of thing that we assign our happiness to. We go, I’m not gonna be happy until I get that thing. Like level of dissatisfaction, which in some ways is good because it drives you. But here is the deal. By the time you get there, you, you don’t, you get the thing and you’re like, oh , I’ve got, I’ve got to sing . It. Doesn’t nothing change it . Like even though there could be relief or a bit of joy, you’re still you. It’s pretty short. Yeah . And so actually I’m gonna reference a , an amazing classic moment in , uh , cinema history. I’m gonna throw you back to the early nineties. Oh cool. Runnings. Ah , right. So for those of you who do not know, this is the , uh , Disney fictional film. Well , it’s semi fictional, but it’s based on a real thing that happened. You’re talking about for the everyone knows. Cool runners . Amen . If you don’t well look so making Bob SL team. Yeah, bro. And uh , cool run ins. It was a great, I went , I went and saw it with one of my first girlfriends. Oh wow. There you go. I remember I, I worked real hard, the courage to put my arm around her in the movie. Oh . And uh , I threw it over there and you know, she didn’t knock it back. So I was like, we’re good. And head was resting on my bicep. Yeah . It was just, you know , like of course , skinny little arm at the time. Not , not the quivering mass that you see before you now . Yeah . <laugh> and , but I put my arm there and I was so nervous to get it there that I’m like , now that it’s here, I can’t take it away. <laugh> and all I remember is by the end of the film, I was in excruciating pain. You lost all feelings. And I , and I was like, I lifted my arm . <laugh> amazing. Yeah . I had a similar, I had a similar thing. First girlfriend just kind of sat on my knee, like, which was like, whoa , my God, its like sitting at lunchtime in, in , in high school year seven. Oh wow. Just sat on my and my leg went dead and then my, and fill my foot and I didn’t want to tell her to get off. Like it wasn’t like, oh she was heavy. It’s just, I had no circulation in my leg. <laugh> and then when she got up, the bell went, she like , I couldn’t walk <laugh> I literally couldn’t move my leg. I had to sit there and rub the circulation back into my leg . The things we do for love. Um , I love her, but the here’s the thing guys. The, the idea of a attainment is there’s this moment in cool runnings where he says, if you’re not enough without the metal , you will never be enough with the medal . And he’s talking about John candy, R I P big comedian, big guy, very funny guy died of a massive heart attack, no surprise. Um, he cheated and that’s why he wasn’t a successful. He cheated when he was in the Olympics, his character cheated. And so this gets thrown in the faces of the players that their coach was a cheater. And the captain says, why did you cheat? And he’s like, I just wanted to win so badly. He wanted the attainment so much. He’s willing to compromise his integrity. Yeah. TJ Shaw <laugh> take that EPO. Hey man, if you’re gonna dope EPOS, the way just saying side effects are very low, but you get the fitness, but so it’s but so I hear you . So it’s like, we , we get really driven by getting to that landmark or that milestone. And then when you get there, it’s like, well, life doesn’t actually change. Yeah. You , you it’s confronting. Yeah. Once that initial kind of elation of achieving the milestone has worn off. It’s like, oh, well. I thought I was, I’ll tell you a good example for me. Sure. Actually I was having a conversation with a friend of ours, John Marsh . Yeah. Legend. Who doesn’t uh , great guy. Doesn’t really know much about jujitsu and , and we were talking about it and he’s like, oh, you know, when do you think you’re gonna get your black belt? And we’re talking about that. And he was like, wow. And , and I can’t remember how it came up, but I was explaining to him how, like, even once I get to black belt, I’d still get my kicked by like a world champion blue belt. Sure. And he was like , I don’t think that’s true, but sure. Oh , ah , may yeah. Okay. You know , but say look there’s levels. Yeah. Like if you are highly competitive and that training at that level, right. You’re gonna be a real handful, no matter where someone else at. And he was like, he was a bit perplexed by that, but he’s kind of , and , and he was thinking like, but once you’re a black belt, should shouldn’t that just mean that you are like everyone’s and I’m like, that’s the illusion of it. That’s what you kind of think. I was thinking about relevant to that. When we were talking about this podcast, I was at training on Monday night training with a lot of white belts and I had tough roles . Yeah . We’re doing a bunch of live drilling, live sparring and the guys were putting it on me, Joe Rush wire . Yeah . Yeah. Right. Thank , thank God, Joey rush . Wasn’t there’s that ? You know , but I was like, these guys are bringing the heat young Joey at blue and purple belt probably was under the illusion that he would never be touched by a white belt sure . Or a blue belt cuz I’m above that. Yeah . But the case is, it’s like, no, it’s always hard. Yes . Like it never gets to the point where you are like MC dojo , like use the force TA Chis . Yeah. But in the beginning, I think when you’re a white belt, you are thinking, man , when I get to blue belt, like none of these guys are gonna be with me anymore. Like I’m gonna be on another trajectory. Yeah. I’m on another level and all of , and very quickly go back to your first training session and they’re coming at you even harder, harder. They wanna show the coach, I’m a blue belt. I can beat that blue belt . Yeah . And you’re like, holy. Like you almost worse than you were the week before, when you were at the end of your white belt and there is a crisis of conscience and I’ve seen this so many times, and this is the thing that you get from being in the game for a while is you see someone either kind of swell into that blue belt, you see someone get their blue belt and they boss up and you’re like, whoa, this person’s like, they’re letting you know, I’m the blue belt. And then some people shrink. People are like, God, there’s so much expected of me now. Like I’m actually, I’m actually, there’s some expectation for me to hold a certain level. Whereas when you you’re a white belt, even if you’ve got a couple stripes, you’re a white belt, you’re kind of free in that way. But definitely. And this is the thing I, my misconception about getting my black belt was not that I thought it was gonna have magical powers, but I just thought I’m gonna have a certain level of understanding by the time I’m a black belt. And I, I didn’t like I , yeah , I , I , I had a accumulate, had a certain amount of knowledge, but there were brown belts who tap me and I’d be like, yeah . And then, and then I’d just think there’s a hole in my knowledge. And because you’re a black belt, you have to show up, you can’t not show up. If you’re a white belt and you have a bad day, no one cares. You’re a white belt. Your life’s gonna suck a lot for a long time until you get up. But then when you’re a blue belt, it’s coupled with that idea of, well, you’re not a white belt anymore. You know, you gotta put, you gotta put your , your big person GE on and you gotta , you actually have to bring a degree of level. And, and , and people don’t like this, it’s gotta in a way, like what you just said about how you felt about when you got your black, it’s gotta be the equivalent situation for them . Yes . Like they’re feeling it’s , it’s their black belt. And they’re like, oh my God, like how, how you know, I should be doing better. Yes. But the , but the truth is this guys, and this is the attainment verse process. And this is the thing I wanted to open with is that, and you’ll see it. This is a , a lesson I take from Joe Worthington, the few, the few lessons I’m opening up 2022 mentorship program. <laugh> one of my greatest , uh , disciples right here. Please apply. Well, if you would like to train with , uh , his trainer , uh , that gets him strong, feel free to , uh , just message me. No , I think the thing is this guy’s , Joe’s very process oriented. He’s a day in out. What are we doing today? What are the actionables? Let’s do those things. I understand that those things are important, but they’re boring. It’s so boring. It’s like, I want to talk exciting things. I wanna talk about jujitsu robots. You know, I wanna talk about the future. I feel like Kanye west, I’ve got synesthesia. I’m I’m hearing colors. I can see sounds. <laugh> like, I am so far in the future. You guys don’t understand. Joe’s like bro, calm down. Yeah . Let’s just talk about that. Have you tied your shoe laces this morning ? Have we done this on emails? <laugh> <laugh> you know , yeah. I tied my left to my right. Yeah . It’s the way <laugh> . This is how it looks in the future. Right . You can see people doing things in their day to day lives, which are very ordered and organized, but when they come to jujitsu, it’s just chaos. Yeah . Like, yeah . It’s my free time. I don’t wanna think I don’t wanna be organized, but if you can be process oriented, which is when I show up, I do my warmup. I bring my water bottle. I do all these things, even though that seems boring, that builds to success. So if you actually want to be good at this thing, you get focused on the little things in the day in and day out and the process and just know that winning and losing , uh , you know, either side of the coin, the ying and the yang of a process of development and that losing to a white belt, even though you’re or a blue belt that might suck, you gotta go that white belt is on one and I’m having a bad day. And then on another day you might be kicking and you’re a blue belt and you tap a purple belt. Well , maybe they were having a bad day. You were having a good day. There’s so many variables there that you need to be able to step back from the emotion of it. And the I’m a blue belt and the ego and the attainment go, what is this process? And understand that blue belt is just a step within the process of getting good at jujitsu. When you start jujitsu, I’ve spoken about this before, there’s a short term aspect to your, like a short term perspective that you have. And that is, oh , James and I started at the same time, like two months ago. So we’re probably gonna get our first Stripe soon and there’s together, you know, and then that’s happening and oh , but so, and so was already here. So they’ve got three stripes better , you know , and then someone gets their blue belt and you’re like, oh . You know , why didn’t I, or , or you get yours. And they’re like, why don’t I, and as a coach and I mean , I don’t coach logit , but I’ve had a lot of these conversations where people are like, I haven’t been shot up. I need to get, you know , Soandso got their Stripe. I need to get my Stripe or their blue. And it’s like, you , you are like, you’re looking at every single session and every minute of the day and like, how do I stay on par with these people? You get to my level, 14, 13, 14 years at jujitsu. I’ve seen people go from white belt to brown belt in the same amount of time that I’ve had my brown belt. Oh yeah , yeah. Yeah . And I just don’t give a. I’m like, I’m like, wow. How about that? Good for you. Cause I coulda, I mean, you know, if I’m thinking about it , I’m like, well, I almost quit a few times. And as you get further down the path, you just, that whole like micro observation of the timeline is just obliterated and it , all of a sudden, it just becomes about you and your journey. That’s right. And I think that at that blue time, for most people, not for the people who have been like 10 years of white belt , but for most people who are , it’s pretty early on in the piece for them, they’re still looking at that micro timeline. Yes. And so you’re expecting rapid progressive growth and you’re still comparing yourself to your training partners like day in and day out. Yeah . And I think kind of what you’re getting at is like, don’t worry about that. Like you have to take this long term view, which is essentially looking at the process and applying yourself to that. I’m just gonna show up, keep training, do my best. Yeah . You know, be consistent. That’s that’s the goal. Yeah. I , I definitely agree, but this is where I wanna move from, move from the something which I guess we, we all know in our hearts, it’s not the sexiest thing. You know, we want rewards. We want dopamine. We want to feel like we’re getting better. All of these things, the difficult thing with this is as you get better, others get better. And if you’ve trained at a hypercompetitive gym and I, I did, you know, I was training at absolute in St . Kilda , very intense environment with the pros. If you take a week off, you come back and everyone’s doing something new. You’re like, what’s this new thing. Oh yeah. We’ve just talking about this. And everyone drilled this. And now this is a new part of the paradigm. Like go , I’m playing catch up . And you know, even if it’s a month off, it can be like that. You come back and people have gotten, but people that you were beating multiple times are now they’re , they’re kicking your butt . And , and this is a difficult thing. It doesn’t mean that you are that much worse. It just means they have improved whatever. And, and the problem with this is the expect versus the reality we expect. If we, as individuals show up the same amount of time every week, put in , you know, and I don’t know what you are doing outside of training. You don’t know what I’m doing. Maybe. I mean, for us, we do. But when you are looking across the room at another person of the same rank, you are not built the same. You don’t learn the same. There’s gonna be different, different lives, different outcomes. Yeah. They’ve got a kid. You don’t have a kid. They’re 21. You are 38. Yeah . Whatever, whatever the situation might be, you need to understand that not all belts are the same and your expectation has nothing to do with the reality. The , so I think it’s, this is important that your expectation of what a blue belt is, and then you get, it is very different to what the reality is. And the reality is the glory is short and the hard work is long. So, and I’m not trying to , I’m not trying to talk you guys outta this, right? Because we all understand if you’ll listen and you’ve done jujitsu, you’ve had your blue belt, maybe you’re , you’re creeping up on your purple. And you’re a blue belt who has not quit. You know what I’m talking about, you’re in now, you know, you want to take that next step to, to graduate towards the purple belt. You know that it’s gonna be similar. You get the purple. Now all the blue belts wanna smoke you now all the way white belts wanna smoke you round belts are a little bit fearful. Ofer . I don’t want this. I don’t want this purple belt coming up on me and black. Belt’s like, there’s no way I’m getting tapped by purple belts. Like you’re stuck right in the middle. So if you’re taking that step from blue to purple gets even harder. But that said, if you have cultivated a process for just, you know, improving yourself, working on your own technique and not getting caught up in this expectation of, oh , I should be better. I’m better than them. This comparison game that is super important. And it’s like, as soon as you’re just focused more on how you are going and just, am I getting better? Am I learning? That’s the key thing, not, am I better than them? Am I better than me? Six months ago? And if you can say yes, then you know, you’re on the right track. Yeah. I’m sure the statistics would show that if you do get to purple, you’re probably likely to continue onto black you’re in the game. That would be the case too deep . Because by the time you’re there, you’ve, you’ve come to understand a lot of this stuff and you do have a process and you , and you’re like, ah , this takes whatever it takes. And I’m just doing the thing. Yeah . That would be interesting to see some numbers on. I saw it was very funny. I thought of this recently and , um , maybe a month ago and I’m like, I gotta , we gotta talk about this. We gotta , you know, put some something out there relevant to this and then popped up on my Instagram, which was incredible because I didn’t even verbalize it. Well , are you sure that is Instagram reading your thoughts through your phone? Potentially likely <laugh> um, and it popped up , uh , a graph of like , uh , it was kind of like, you know, it was a bit of a meme, but it was like, what you kind of, how you perceive your jujitsu at the different belts. And it was like white belt, like I’m getting smashed and it , and then it was like blue belt. I know everything <laugh> and then it was like, boom, like the line just goes straight down and then it’s like a purple brown, black. Yeah . And I’m like, that is exactly me. Like, I, I thought I knew jujitsu and I had a game and I was super athletic and just went really hard. And I gave everyone a hard time and looking back, I think about it relevant to how I now train against blue belt stuff. And it’s yeah. You give people a hard time because usually they’re not that concerned about you. Yeah. You know, and then you get, you know, and then like me, I like started like rolling, like a tornado. They’re like, I’m gonna put this kid in his place. Sure. Put a bit of smash on, but I don’t think about the last two minutes of the round where they beat the shout . I’m just thinking, man, I given that guy a hard time for the first three minutes, you know? Or you can remember. Yeah, that’s right. So it’s a lot like when Joey and I roll, I might have submitted Joey once or twice had positioned the whole role . And he is like, bro, how’d you like that? Single Leger hit on you. And I was like, dude, it was one take down . It was that’s when it was an eight minute roll . Like, what are you talking about ? That’s when JT brings out the ledger and he’s like , um , no , Joey 14 points times in the last three months , uh , you’ve tapped me. I’m like, oh , who’s counting, bro, bro. Who’s not counting. What are you talking about? Trust me, once you get that black belt and you’ve got up brown belts trying to tell you like they, until they get the strap until they get that Faser preta . Nah , can’t let it fly. But let me just on that last piece , like that acknowledgement that you think, you know, everything. And I kind of still thought I knew everything at purple bell . Like that was all a bit of a blur . But that line, that drops down to that point where you think, you know everything down to, oh . I’m ah , I don’t know anything. Yeah . Like I got a couple moves and that’s it. Yeah . And a couple of, you know , fundamentals that is where this problem lies where people are like, it’s like getting hit by a freight train . You’re like, man, I’m I got such a long way to go I’m at this. Like that’s what it boils Andrew . You’re like, I’m not good at jujitsu. I thought I was really good and I’m not. Yeah. And I think this is the biggest challenge that faces people, their , their first big hurdle in jujitsu . Obviously you overcome the squash and, and the pressure and all of that to go. Yeah. I mean , I want to keep doing this. You do it for two years, maybe three years, however long it takes you to get that blue belt. And it doesn’t matter. Even if you’re a humble person, you you’re thinking about yourself, this is a certificate or this is an acknowledgement that I am better than, or I have improved X amount. But the truth is, or the , the reality is it is acknowledgement of the work you’re put in, but not all blue belts are the same. And you might go train at another gym and your blue belt, maybe doesn’t stand up. And that can , that can be embarrassing because you , it turns your world upside down because people were telling you, Hey man, you’ve gotten better. You’re good. And you go somewhere else where they don’t care about your feelings and you are getting your direct that can make you go, you know what did you too . I , I gave four good years to this. I need this . I’m a blue belt, man. I I’m gonna tell people when I’m at the USC barbecue, I’m like , I wouldn’t have done the Gogo platter like that. <laugh> that’s one submission. I use that buggy chokes . Yeah, man. Buggy choke buggy, choke counter buggy choke . That’s what Eddie Bravo told me at his seminar. <laugh> but , uh , guys seriously when , when we move to the next thing and I think this is where we’re gonna talk a little bit more about learning and, and why this comparison, you know, let’s say comparison is the thief of joy that the competitiveness about the need to win can really kill your learning. Because when you play your a game all the time, like you’ve got a game, say you’ve got a good half guard game or you’ve got a really good takedown part game armbar , whatever it is. You’re like, I got my game. I know that I can hit this on most of everyone and you just don’t wanna lose, you got your blue belt. I don’t wanna lose. ’em just, I’m gonna prove I’m better than these white belts. And I’m tough. You know, you feel the need to prove yourself because you get stuck playing your a game . Cause you’re so competitive and develop, you know, it’s , it’s true. And we see it all the time. People who are really good at one thing, I still do it. I , I was actually, that was me photo talking <laugh> that was just describing Joe’s whole game. I catch myself do it all the time. And I , well too , going back to, to what I’m really good at here. Yeah, for sure. That’s a , that’s something you have to keep like you , you have to actively go . No , I’ve gotta work on some. It’s kind of easy too. It’s not even totally . It’s not even about, oh , I have to win. It’s just like, what is your default mode efficient ? Yeah . You go to your subconscious game cuz you , you maybe you’ve got 5, 6, 8 hard roles you have to have, you don’t wanna think about what you’re doing. You just want to do the thing and, and , and be able to roll well, and the challenge and this take a bit of maturity is to go, you know, I actually suck at side getting outside control. Hey man, you wanna start on side control. I’m just gonna, I’ve just gotta work this bad boy. And just spending a bit of time there teaches you that you can get outta there and you can be safe there even though it’s not great. I think the thing for me was I, for a long time was like, I wanna be a competitor. I wanna be a champion. I wanna be better than everyone. This is a , a real thing. And my game got really stuck at purple belt. My game got really stuck. Like this is my game. This is the game I play. And then I got caught out in situations, particularly stand up cuz to my game, when I first started jujitsu was guard . I just didn’t have anything. Didn’t have judo. Didn’t really have wrestling. If I swept, I had a few passes up the sleeve, but I would just always go to guard. And it’s just not good enough. Especially when you come up on your brown belt and I said , all right , I’m gonna learn some stand up . And that’s what got me very motivated to wrestle and start learning judo and, and do that. And, and it just, it changed my jujitsu. I sucked, but it meant I had a good developmental face . So when I came to black belt, I was more well rounded and yeah, I learned heaps and I enjoyed learning. It was one those things like going to judo, being a white belt again, that was actually cool. Cuz there was no expectation on me and we can choose to do this mentally. You know, we don’t have to put this pressure. I’m a BLE belt. So I’ve gotta , you know , I’m a purp , like you’re just a person I need to show them all. Yeah, you gotta learn. You gotta learn. And really the person who’s most successful is the person who’s shortening up their learning loop and, and getting better and, and being competitive and playing your a game can really kind limit that and hold that back as a, like a PR school measure for folks here in this. Like, okay. Yeah, I gotta do more of that. The, the other side of the coin is that you do also have to train hard sometimes and go to like go to your a game . Yep . And be hyper competitive and knock in seed points like that, you know, more sort of competition sort of oriented training. And I would argue like, that’s probably like when we train together, you meet Adam . It’s more that yeah . It’s like, I’m just not gonna concede anything. And I go because we’re, we’re playing at a different level. Definitely. How does someone navigate that? Say someone’s at blue belt, would you recommend that they do, they try to use both approaches in the same training session? Or would you say, Hey, maybe in one session, do this the other , you know, I guess this is how I’d frame it. Any technique has to stand up under pressure or load. So if it’s like a squat, you know, you might squat really well at , you know, about your body weight, like a back squat. But then once you incrementally get more than that, maybe your technique starts to fall apart and these cave backgrounds, whatever. So there’s a threshold at which you can squat quite well. And then there threshold of which your technique will breakdown the , the same is true of jujitsu. You know, it’s that classic line. I always hit this on white belts, which basically means this works on people who dunno jujitsu, you know , like that’s and , and this. So if you are a blue belt and you’re like, how do I develop? It is good for you to probably do things that you’re less comfortable is with less capable people so that you, you know, that like they , they’re not gonna just kill you if you make mistakes. Whereas when you are going up against higher rank people or someone who, you know, is your direct nemesis in training, we all have that nemesis, like you’re evenly matched, same weight. You probably compete against each other. You know, whatever it is, you don’t compete against other , but you just, you might even look like each other. And some people , those Neme are even in business together. Crazy. I know. Yeah. Who , who thought was even possible ? it’s like being in a boiling cab all together every day . I can only imagine. Yeah, it’s difficult, but you’ve just gotta overcome your differences to , uh , allow the lower belts to survive. <laugh> I think the key thing here guys is to realize there’s times to pour harder . Like there is time, it’s good for you to have one or two wars, like absolute fight to the death and you are playing your a game . But if you don’t experiment a bit, let yourself get into a bad situation. Like, what I mean is like not let them, but the person passes, you stay calm there , work from there, they get your back. You gotta get out of there. If you don’t allow yourself to work on things that you’re not good at, you will never get above that level. Yeah. It’s , it’s just super simple and , and you can see it in life. You see people who are really good at one thing. So they just do that forever to a point that they don’t keep developing. And then they , they’re kind of stuck. And that’s a challenging thing. That’s a, probably more challenging thing to see in someone’s career than jujitsu, but people might do jujitsu longer than they’re in a job. You know? Like we , I don’t know if you know, but like, like if you know someone specifically Joe, but I know a guy who was in his white belt for, I think six years before his blue belt and he was training consistently the whole time. Yeah. But he , he also changed Jim’s a bunch and he was also just like a jerk. And so I don’t think anyone wanted to grade him. Right. But anyway, came a world champion, holy your white belt. But he was six years on that thing. He should have been purple belt. But I mean, that said, it really depends on a person’s ability to see the way forward. And if they can’t see the way forward, then maybe they wanna quit. That’s a , just on your comment there, like you should have been a purple belt. If he , you know, like he , he could have been a purple bell , he could have been a purple. Yeah . But it’s, you know, you gotta , I guess it’s that thing where it’s like, yeah, maybe you do , you know, you change gyms because the gym you’re at, it’s not working for you. And then you kind of reset back to the start and it’s like, well, so be it. If you’re enjoying it more here, that’s a good decision to have made. Yeah. You know, there’s so many things that come into it like that it’s even like, I remember what the last compos was at watching a guy compete at blue belt. And , uh , I was talking to ke yeah . Guy that we know Savage black belt. And uh , he’s like, oh , check this guy out here. This guy was a world champion, judo fighter . Oh . And he’s like, like watching him and this guy just destroyed his entire vision . Right . Like through them, their , it was hyper aggress , like armbar from the top, whatever repeatedly. And it’s like, guys are judo, black belt and highly competitive. Yeah . Doesn’t matter. Like maybe, you know, like he’s gonna be a handful. So there’s so much nuance to it. And I think the big takeaway from what we’re talking about is like, don’t put that pressure on yourself. I , I know for many years when I showed up to training as a blue and purple belt, I put so much pressure on myself to perform. And you know, man, it was a hobby for me. It’s something I’m turning up after a long day of work sometimes to train. Yeah, sure. Some days I’m turning up and I want to get after it. Sometimes I’m just there. I’m like, oh , I just wanna tick the box . I wanna get my training in today and you know, show up for the team and that kind of thing. And when you put that pressure on yourself, like I have to win every role. I cannot concede anything. You make life really hard for yourself. Yeah. I think it can work for some people, a lot of folks and very, you know, in terms of what we’re talking about, like why blue belts quit? I think that that self-imposed pressure. Yeah . And that microanalysis. Yeah. That self-judgment is what makes them quit. Definitely. And this is a quote I heard not even that long ago, but it makes sense, which is nobody’s watching. Nobody cares. Yeah . You know, and we tell ourselves and you know, me too, me too, like I , I always way too much emotional investment and importance on all the little things I do because that gets me fired up to do them. But that’s just me kind of coaching myself and getting myself switched on for it. But at the end of the day, no one else knows what I’m doing. You know, like maybe you guys kind of know a little bit, but in terms of my life and what I’ve do day to day , no, one’s really paying attention. And the truth is it’s only as important as I say it is. It’s not necessarily that important to other people. So if I say this is the most important thing in the world, if I don’t get this, I’ll never be happy. That’s a choice I’ve made. But if I can take perspective and go, you know what, this is a small step in a bigger process us, and I’m just gonna keep taking the steps. Then I can be calmer about it. And guys that , that’s what it really comes down to is knowing that if you’re on this BJJ path, it will take a little while. And that yes, you could train for four years and still not be very good <laugh> but that’s actually great. Cuz that means there is a of improvement for you that doesn’t get old and doesn’t get stale. You know, like you , there’s so many layers to it. And what’s great about that is once you go through that process and you come to this understanding, you can then share it with another blue belt who might easily quit on that note . If you know a blue belt who hasn’t shown up to the gym for a long time, please share this episode with them . Yes. This is the perfect episode. Yeah . And we say this with no sense of malice or like small degree of mockery, but it’s one of those things that guys, if you’ve hit blue belt say on the path, like it’s worth it, it is worth it. I don’t care what you say. Even if you can only train one day a week enough to stay in touch, your life will be better with a little bit of jujitsu in it. Even if you’re not trying to be a world champion or you can’t see, you know, a clear path of your black belt stay connected. Cuz you never know what that might do for you down the track. Yeah. I second that now a thing that is coming up is , uh , posters. The posters are coming out. Yes. So you may have heard us mention this before guys, but we have our exercise posters, our mobility posters, and we will be putting these out in world. Got these are like we have two posters. One is warm up . So it’s our top exercises that you would do before you start jujitsu and then it’s cool down. So the top things you would do after, and the beauty is if you’re a coach, you can have ’em on the wall of your gym and your Stu you can like students go , Hey guys, let’s do three of these or students coming in can just start their own warm up . Like before the class begins, they’ve got something to fall . Hello , there’s a reference. Um , but you’ve also got material. If you need to make your warmups a bit more appropriate for jujitsu, you go, I’m gonna do some of the from the poster. Yeah . Really good resource. And then further to that, if you’ve just got a home gym and you want some ideas and you want some stuff on the wall, that’s gonna help make your training sessions better. They’re perfect for that. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, we will be doing a , of a , the pre-sale window . So it’s just, we’re gonna get the orders in and then it will stop. Yeah . And so we will look to time this here and there throughout the year, but this is limited time getting quick. Yeah. Get the orders in orders need to be placed. We’re gonna set it . You’ll see a date on the webpage, but go to Bulletproof of bjj.com. You’ll see the posters there in the , uh , shop section and then we’ll be ordering them up. Beautiful. All right guys, thank you for tuning in. We definitely appreciate it. Awesome. Thank you, Joe . Thank you brother. Thank you guys . Choose everyone .