So you get the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu “virus”, you work hard, and suddenly the sparring sessions are no longer painful. You have gone from trying to survive when the entire gym could tap you with ease, to someone who became a challenge. More practice, more time on the mats later and now you are becoming a threat, catching people with submissions every once in a while. You start enjoying the classes and enjoying the sparring. You reach a point when you:

    • can protect yourself in tough positions;

    • have solid escapes from side control, mount and back control as a minimum, and possibly some of the other dominant positions;

    • have an effective guard, and while it is sometimes passed, it is functional enough where it is difficult to pass, and you can use it to create threats of sweeps and submissions;

    • finish people, and have your favorite submissions where even more experienced sparring partners know to be careful.

Congratulations. You have the foundational knowledge of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu now. You are essentially a blue belt now, for which the commonly stated test is the ability to beat a person walking into the jiu-jitsu gym for the first time, even if they have a background in other sports or are larger, stronger, and more athletic.

I cannot promise you that you will get the actual blue belt as soon as you feel you have all of the above sorted out. Your feelings are only useful here in that they help your confidence and learning. What matters is if your coach feels the same way and you will get that belt. But with the above list checked, it is only a matter of time.

Now what?

Now things start getting interesting. Things are bound to get harder. True, getting a blue belt does not change your skill level from one day to the next, but you will notice a clear mental shift your gym partners will go through. Higher belts will no longer take it easy on you. White belts will start coming at you, to test themselves or to prove a point. You thought being a white belt was tough?

Blue Belt is, interestingly, a key point in the jiu-jitsu journey where most people reaching it, actually quit. I guess it is the line, that, once you cross it, means you have “made it”. You can defend yourself and those close to you in most real-life situations. You will inevitably start considering putting more time into other things in your life. We have jobs, families, and other hobbies we want to pursue.

BUT. If you do continue, jiu-jitsu has a way of rewarding loyalty to the art. I will go as far as to say that the journey from blue to purple belt is perhaps the key determinant of whether you will ever get that coveted black belt or not. It is a period of great discoveries and great frustrations, successes and failures, times when your jiu-jitsu feels almost effortless, and other times when it feels like you are not improving at all.

If you do stick with it, here is some advice that can help you with the continuation of your Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu journey as a blue belt:

Technique:

    • Fundamentals. Continue working on the fundamentals. Polish your escapes, your favorite guard. Keep adding details that make them more and more efficient.

    • High-percentage. Focus on high-percentage concepts and techniques. Strange, unusual things might work once or twice (and it does not hurt to have a couple of those in your arsenal), but the time-tested moves are what you need to concentrate on.

    • Gameplan. Formulate your game as a total plan of moves and positions. Not disjointed situations, but a connected web of positions that you smoothly integrate. Expand your game by adding elements that help expand your game, for example, if your favorite guard is the butterfly guard, adding a proficient X-guard and single leg-X is a good idea. Perhaps you prefer closed guard? Add half-guard. Fancy de la Riva? Make sure you add reverse de la Riva to your game and so on. But don’t just mindlessly add things that do not make sense together. Don’t hoard positions and techniques, develop a game.

    • Trademark positions. Choose and develop a particular position or two, which are uniquely yours, becoming your trademark zone. A place where your sparring partners do not want to be because for them it is torture to defend. A position where you reliably submit people. And as your opponents work to improve their counters to your moves in this position, you will continue to improve your knowledge of this favorite position. For me, it is Keza Gatame, where I can reliably control, pressure, and submit opponents.

    • Back takes. Develop a variety of ways to get to the back. This will serve you well against opponents of all sizes and shapes.

    • Leglocks. Try to at least understand the basics of leglocks. If you do not particularly fancy leglocks, then at least develop your defenses.

At blue belt, you can no longer afford to be one-dimensional. Things like baits, multi-directional game, timing, balance, angles, creating dilemmas for the opponent become more and more important. Patience becomes more important. You need to be more relaxed and observant while rolling. Try to spot the openings the opponents give you, learn to read your opponents’ intentions, recognize their weight distribution, and develop a feel for where they seem to be moving.

Here are some general thoughts.

    • Injuries. Yes, you might get injured. If that happens, be patient. If you can still train, though not at one hundred percent, try to train. Work on your defense. Practice specific positions. Do some drills. Just add to your mat time. If you cannot train, try to come to the gym and watch or study some things online

    • Research. Get some instructionals and study. Focus on some positions as researchers do. Embrace random things that might come your way — one short video on Instagram might teach you that one little detail that finally helps get that technique you struggle with to work.

    • Plateaus. Quite natural at every belt, but can be quite painful at blue belt level for some reason. If you feel stuck, change things up, or maybe take a short break. Get some perspective.

    • Teaching. If it is not your thing, that’s fair enough. But if it is, it will be another interesting way to improve. You don’t have to teach regularly, you can start by giving basic advice to the newbies. You will notice that when forced to articulate things, your technique improves. As your sparring partners get better, it will force you to upgrade your game too. Not to mention that having your students improve, is another very motivating thing. SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

    • Competition. It is not a requirement for promotion, but it can be a great source of motivation and learning. The aggression and intensity of a match will be much higher than the sparring sessions in your gym, and one match can teach you a lot more than a few training sessions. It takes some getting used to and injuries are a possibility. I understand this is not everyone’s cup of tea and I was reluctant myself for a long time. But once I decided to give it a try, I realized that competition is a great way to test your skills. It helps reveal the holes in your game that you can then work on. The preparation period for competition is also the time when you experience a lot of growth. So give it a serious thought.

Become the blue belt your coach and your teammates are proud of sharing the mats with. Be patient, put in the work and that purple belt may not be so out of reach as you might think.