How I treat my Blue Belts.

Being a blue belt is a rough time, both in learning grappling fundamentals and putting up with loss and disappointment.  Injury is prevalent and good technique is scarce. This is the time where many students quit because it’s difficult and because it takes so freakin long to get to purple belt, in many cases up to five years.  I would also like to add that I’m an advocate for adding another belt in their somewhere but that is a blog for another time. 

I love my blue belts dearly.  They represent all the potential that the school has to offer.  This is the belt that I’m the toughest on concerning defense and choosing when and how you use strength as well as getting the fundamental building blocks of correct technique laid out, so they use more angles.  

I let my blue belt students know that the goal is purple belt.  It’s the longest belt to get to.  It’s the hardest belt to get and I judge them severely on how they grapple in order to achieve it.  

Getting through blue belt can mean the difference between getting a black belt and not getting a black belt.  The reason you ask?  Once you get the coveted purple belt then it’s all downhill from there. It’s only a matter of time.  It’s polish, polish, polish instead of prove, prove, prove. 

Remember this (as a blue belt) is where you PROVE yourself to your instructor.  If you feel you deserve it just because you show up and are friendly, you would be wrong.  In my school it’s proving that you understand the fundamentals of all positions and you are a very difficult opponent to grapple with on an intermediate level.  You are also an amazingly tough person on the inside and the outside. 

Is this you?