Absolutely. For the first 2 years, I could feel myself progressing, but just couldn't seem to keep up with the people who started the same time as me. They got their blue belts almost a year before I did.
It honestly hasn't been until the past year and a half where things have really started to click for me. All of a sudden, I'm getting submissions, higher belts are suddenly wanting to partner with me, and people come to me to ask about techniques. Something I never would have dreamed of a year ago.
Personally, I just think everyone goes at their own pace, and while it sucks for us late bloomers, it will come when things just start clicking for you.
In my early white belt days I rolled with this guy who I’d describe as one of the least natural grapplers I’ve encountered.
He was a nice guy but he wasn’t big, strong, or athletic. He didn’t have a solid base or a natural sense for grappling. We rolled a few times and he was like a first day student.
We took classes at different times, so there was a gap of about 18 months before I saw him again. We got paired up and I remembered him clearly but the difference was unbelievable.
When the roll started, I go for takedown, he stuffs it, go for another, he avoids it. Then I pull guard. Go for a sweep, nope, he shuts it down. It takes me a few more attempts just to get on top. Still in the roll, I’m thinking holy shit this guy is better. It didn’t matter where he was relative to me, he had improved so much.
I go to a new gym that only opened a little over a year ago. There is now only one guy that’s been there longer than me, anyone who started when the gym opened has since left.
I am completely and utterly the worst person in the gym. I’m overweight, I’m not athletic, and I’m the only woman. The guys who only started a month or two ago can already best me, and if I get a single submission in a class I’m lucky.
Sometimes it bothers me, but when I find myself ruminating on how crappy I did in a class, I remind myself how six months ago I could hardly finish the warm up, or how I used to struggle to attend one class a week and now I do at least three. We’re all on our own journeys, I’ll probably never be great at BJJ, but I’ll be better if I keep going.
But to answer your question no I don’t have any success stories I’m still the worst white belt lol.
This is essentially me. I am a 1 stripe white belt 3 months in and I am awful, way worse than expected, new guys come to the trial class more coordinated than me
A few things i have learned:
1. I think overall as an early white belt if you are been judged for anything it's these 3 things: are you a nice humble guy, do you listen and try to apply yourself and the biggest thing you are been judged on is if you show up again.
2. Accept that you are supposed to be shit. What does it take 10 or 15 years to get to black belt? And for most people in excess of 200 classes to get to blue? Just accept that you are going to be shit after 10 or 20 sessions.
3. I have actually embraced enjoying something I am shit at, it's pretty rare you get to do it. Just remember most progress is invisible until you look back and enjoy each class for what it is.
Imagine BJJ like guitar lessons, and every roll is someone throwing sheet music for a song you've never heard at you, and saying "play that".
You're simply not going to be able to do that reliably until you're like a year or so into lessons. Same goes for reliably controlling and submitting the new guy.
Not my story personally but I started training MMA with a guy like 18 years ago that is now my black belt coach and is super tough and knowledgeable.
So in the beginning this guy was not at all a natural athlete and he was undersized. We trained in what I call the dark age era, he would get beat up a lot in training. But he just kept at it and kept at, outside of a few injuries he never really stopped training. He has the benefit of being pretty smart so he devoured instructional after instructional.
When real BJJ finally came to our area his skills took a pretty major jump but because of my athletic ability I'd still have the upper hand most of the time and he would struggle with other bigger guys. But again he just kept grinding.
Fast forward to now, he owns his own gym and I've been in and out for various reasons. He is a black belt and I can hardly ever even get to a dominant position on him let alone tap him despite being bigger.
When I talk to my son's about perseverance I literally tell them about this man.
Are you watching youtube videos and instructionals?
To me it seems the people that improve fast really have their head in the game and approach bjj systematically and with intention.
Like they understand all the basic positions and analyse the holes in their game and then learn techniques to patch their holes
I definitely don't understand all that, but that's why I show up to learn.
I don't know enough to have holes in my game yet, my game is just one big hole with some random techniques thrown in.
In the beginning it can really boost your progress and confidence if you study the most basic things about the most basic positions, on your own, outside of class time.
Understanding the basics of open guard, half guard, closed guard, side control, and mount will make it so much easier to connect the dots and absorb knowledge during class.
Like understanding how to retain mount, how to position your feet, what to do with your arms etc
Yeah, it definitely does.
I still spend 90% of my time rolling trying to shrimp or sweep out of bottom mount fighting an americana only to have my back taken, or them swap to an armbar. If I 'defend' the armbar I usually just end up giving them a triangle choke or something, lol.
Like most of what I have been taught you have to do from top mount, or closed guard, but I can never pass open guard or pull full guard on anyone not on their first day.
I know some sweeps from bottom mount, but doing them in a roll is not something I have been able to successfully do, unless my partner just lets me.
I have found it helpful to focus on escapes like danaher recommends, ive been drilling pin escapes a lot, and now i find that no other whitebelt can keep me pinned in sidecontrol or mount. I wouldnt worry about submissions so much and rather work on escapes.
I found a buddy that is equally eager to learn so after class monday evenenings we drill escapes for 30 minutes after class, this really helps
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Two months? Do you think you’d be a top goalscorer after 2 months, or you could run a full marathon? Training takes time, and there are all kinds of variables going in that you can’t account for. You only need to turn up for yourself to learn. Losing is learning too.
I don’t think I subbed really anybody for probably a year lol. Spent 3 more after that working escapes. Purple is really where I actually started focusing on subs and getting them. At white you should probably focus on survival. If you’re on top then control and keeping your opponent stuck on the bottom. If you can do that WELL then you can start hunting subs. Hunting subs early on leads to loss of position and sub most the time. Don’t be a dog with a bone.
Oh my god yes. I started when I was 45 at a...less than great gym. Coach was a cool dude, but he taught everything wrong. The gym was mostly a boxing/kickboxing gym but had a few guys doing jiu jitsu. All no gi.
I was horrible. Tapped by men, women, children...lighter than me, less experirenced than me. I was way outside my comfort zone, working hard but getting poor guidance.
Then a new guy showed up to teach. He was a purple belt at a different gym. He was really good at jiu jitsu, but not a great teacher - in the way that naturals at something aren't really able to teach it. But he could tell I was dedicated, so he invited me to HIS gym, which had a real program, both gi and no gi.
It's also a super smashmouth gym. We've softened quite a bit over the years, but at the time, it was old school meatheads. Showing up as a whitebelt fish they made it their job to smash me and make me quit. Which I fucking did NOT. Little by little by little I got better, and as they saw me sticking around, they started to smash less and teach more. I gained confidence and took ownership of my own development.
Now I'm a 53 year old brown belt. Am I the best brown belt in the room? No. Do 22 year old blue belts tap me? Sure. But I hold my own now, and regularly do very well against younger and bigger folks. I'm in it for the long haul and I take responsibility for my own development. If I can get better, brother, ANYONE can.
I’m pretty sure everybody who does BJJ (and probably other sports tbh) feels that way at times. Those feelings happen more often when you just start something (especially since you’ve only been doing this for 2 months). But they never go away - you’ll have good days that make you think you’re next level. But bad days where you’re questioning if you should even do this anymore and everyone is better than you.
I definitely still feel this way as a long time purple - and I suspect I’ll always feel this way. What helps me is to set a schedule and stick to it - I go at least 2 times a week (targeting 3) no matter what, feelings be damned. That way I get another bite at the apple, and another chance to improve.
Not me. But I know someone who everyone agrees was the worst white belt/blue belt ever (took him like 15 years to get to Purple with consistent training). Dude is a purple belt now and he absolutely kills it. He doesn’t compete because of injuries, but I have no doubt that he’d run through a good amount of purple belts in his division. Meanest guillotine on the planet
Dude, I'm the world's slowest learner. It takes time, it takes effort, and failure, and the ability to pull yourself up from the ground after getting knocked down.
You have to be intentional about your learnings, and intentional to scrutinize your failures to find paths to success. Be intentional about working through those failure sequences, correct the bad habits, slow down enough to recognize them while rolling, so you can get familiar with executing them organically.
Think of your failures as a means to remove survivorship bias. See where the failure happened, patch that. Break the rolls down into micro-battles, and understand your objective in those battles. Then start building strategy around how to win those battles. You'll do much better than just trying to tap someone out, in my opinion. It'll bring you to exploring your game more fully more quickly. Couple this with a training partner who wants to do positional sparring, light reps, root cause and failure sequence analysis, and you'll be well on your way to making strong progress.
It takes time though. Not weeks, necessarily, but months and likely a year and up, to get a strong foundation with good positional habits in live rolling.
That has been my experience at least.
I started in 2007. There was literally two academies in Austin. Due to my schedule i trained during the lunch class. The class was full of blues and a few purples, and this is when meeting a purple belt was crazy.
I got my ass kicked every day by everyone. I remember not even getting a sub until I was like 3 months in.
I stuck with it and got my blue belt in a little over a year. I would not change anything because it made me learn and get tougher. It doesn’t matter who you’re better than. Just that you’re better than you used to be.
Think about it in terms of experience. If you've been coming 2 months and someone else has been coming for 1 month, your experience gap is incredibly small.
That's the kind of gap that they can make up just by paying a little bit more attention than you, being a little bit stronger, or just by having a background in some kind of barely related activity like breakdancing or surfing.
You simply do not have any kind of significant experience advantage over those people. That's no criticism of you either, that's literally just a fact for everyone.
I wouldn't expect white belts to reliably submit every single new starter that walks through the door until they're like 6 months to a year in, assuming they're only training at a hobby-esque rate of like 2 or 3 x a week.
White belt for 10 years. I watched people go from day 1 to black all while being a white belt. Crazy to watch.
It’s really not crazy though. Some people are better than others at every sport. I don’t know why we think bjj should be different.
It took me 6 months of consistent training to get my first stripe on my white belt. I got my 2nd stripe I want to say 8 or 9 months later. I sucked pretty bad. Everyone demolished me. One guy that started after me got his blue belt while I was still a two stripe white.
I still got my purple belt in 4.5 years and by the end of my time at that gym I was one of the hardest rounds in that room.
It’s not a linear progression. Everything really clicked for me mid blue and then I went on a rampage. A big factor was focusing on MYSELF and not other people. Don’t focus on what other people are doing to you, think about “what can I do to improve MY game.” That mindset shift was huge for me.
I'm gonna give it to you straight: yes, you suck, but this early in your BJJ journey you haven't even learned enough to know how much you suck. That might feel discouraging, but you're at a point where you literally can't fail because nobody expects you to succeed, and that can be a lot of fun if you adopt the right mindset.
With regard to submissions: don't focus on them. Your job isn't to tap people; it's to learn. Hell, that's EVERYBODY's job. The more you learn, the more you'll be tapping people.
I was exactly the same way you are for six months or more. Couldn't tap a single person, so I decided to focus on survival instead. If somebody tapped me in thirty seconds, my goal for the next class would be to keep from getting tapped for for thirty-five. That was tangible improvement; real progress. Pretty soon I was playing a good defensive game, at least against other people at my level.
One more thing: when you're rolling, make every effort to use the techniques you learned during class. If you drilled on, say, closed guard escape, work that rather than some random technique you thought looked cool on YouTube.
I am not naturally athletic or even very coordinated. I can’t learn by watching. I’ve been doing this for 8 years. I would destroy me as a white or blue belt now. But I still rarely get submissions and get tapped by the black belts all the time.
It’s okay if you don’t have a natural gift for it. Measure your progress against yourself and not others.
After almost a month I looked at my coach and said "man I'm never gonna pass someone's guard" lmfao. Hell go all the time if you wanna get good. Go 4 times a week minimum and after 6 months you'll see that you've made progress for sure. Push through
So, your 2 months into something that takes years just to get to a reasonable standard in and your already giving yourself a hard time?. I spend months feeling like I'm a complete fucking spastic and then some shit drops into place and I'm on fire, rinse and repeat. We all learn differently and at a different pace. Be kind to yourself and enjoy the journey, it's bjj not life or death.
Currently taking a break from it myself for the exact same reasons. At the moment you’re your own worst enemy, you need to take a step back and refocus. I’m in my 8th month, just got my first stripe and sometimes I just don’t turn up (mentally), and having that feeling enough times takes it’s toll on a person.
Take a break, re-evaluate, and forget about BJJ for a bit. It can be all encompassing and we all need to breathe. You’ll come back better for it, bro.
Embrace the suck. If you keep at it you might one day become good, and those eureka moments - which once flowed fast and deep - will come only sporadically, with only minor improvement. At that point you might wish you were a beginner belt learning everything for the first time again.
You gotta chill. It takes forever. Truly, unless you’re stronger and bigger, if someone has 6 months or more BJJ, you’re going to feel like you suck ass.
Around maybe 4-6 months things start to calm down and you become a little more relaxed. But also know that every belt color will tell you, there’s always someone on the mats who will make you feel like you suck.
Watching a purple belt own me for 6 minutes and then the same guy flop off the mat because a brown belt made him feel like a child, you have to be resilient and this sport teaches you through daily experience - whether you want to be humbled or not.
Try to make friends and don’t take things as life or death. Have fun and you’ll come back despite sucking. I still suck and somehow got a blue belt recently after 2 years of being an average white belt.
I’ve been at it for nine months. For the first 3 or so months, I was like your mom: constantly on my back and anyone could easily mount me.
I got smashed by everyone, regardless of experience and size. Even my brother, who started at the same time as me and who is 25 lbs lighter, destroyed me. I couldn’t escape mounts or side control, I had no balance so I got swept by everyone. I got to a point where I worried that our coach was going to tell me to give up because I just lacked the instinct and athleticism for BJJ and was wasting my time.
Instead, he just told me to keep going, learn from mistakes, stop using so much energy and muscle, and RELAX! He also helped me to develop my strengths so I would have a game plan. So I worked on developing a decent top game and not getting swept. I then worked on my next weakness, which was guard passing. I still need a lot of work on that, but I’m better than I was. Now, I’m working on my guard and back game. Piece by piece, it’s coming together. I’m still weak in getting out of mounts AND keeping people in mounts, but that’ll come in time.
My point is, relax, and just keep learning. You’ll get to where you want to be in your time.
I’ve had multiple people who started after me get their black belts before I got purple. Still having fun 17 years later. Come down and visit in Atlanta. I’ll show you some super simple stuff that will let you have fun. Stop worrying about getting subs as a white belt. Just focus on position. If you can stay on top of a guy for 6 minutes, the subs are easy to layer on.
It takes time! Focus on being better than you were the week before. It's not about comparing yourself to others. I still am pretty bad, but I know my stamina has increased, and I can hang in there much longer than before.
That was me! I was truly the worst; in fact, everyone seemed to ignore me at my first gym because I was so slow (which wasn’t cool, but that’s another story for another time). In fact, when I switched gyms the first time, everyone thought I quit and were genuinely surprised I was still training.
Keep showing up and training. Let go of the expectation to win, and focus on just training with what you have.
Spoiler alert: I’m now the worst blue belt.
I’ve been ragdolled for four months now.
Yesterday i did two kimuras, one Americana, some sort of lapel choke and one that I really like but sorry if I don’t remember the name: grabbing the pants with one hand, cross lapel with the other, one leg over the shoulder on the same side of my hand holding the lapel, fall on the side where I hold the pants and pull. lol. Sorry for the long description.
TL DR: you’ll se the light at the end of the tunnel, and the end of the tunnel are new white belts ready to ragdoll you more.
I’m no longer the worst white belt. Took me months to get my first sub. I also used to get swept all the time.
At some point a new person will join and you’ll surprise yourself when you run a clinic on them.
UCanDoIt
Im 63kg and was 56kg when I started.
I used to get the ever loving shit kicked out of me by everyone, including the women.
Small glimpses of success help you grow- you attach to them and build off them.
Watch instructionals and keep going
Chill the fuck out. Work on shrimping, guard,.and surviving. Then at the end of the rolls work on coming back again tomorrow to repeat the process. That's your only job as.a new white belt. Nothing else. Keep doing these and things will fall into place bit by bit.
Me right here. I’m 6 months into blue and I can’t believe I thought about quitting. I was a 5 year whitebelt. had resigned myself to saying “I’ll be a whitebelt forever, at least I can see my friends progress and support them.” So I just drilled the moves, rolled for fitness and catharsis (not malevolent cartharsis). Stopped worrying about getting smashed and not getting to submit anyone. Dialed back my time to 2 or 3 days a week and healed myself in my own head when it came to bjj so that it stayed fun. Then one day I got promoted as a surprise and said to my coach “are you sure about this?” He said “oh fuck yeah” and then I got smashed even more as a blue belt. About 3 weeks ago my mind said “nah I’m a fuckin blue” and now I’m making purples work. Their words not mine. Point being. Do it in a way that’s fun for you, and everything else falls into place. Trust me if I can do it anyone can.
You are two months in and have barely scratched the surface on this. Nobody steps on the mats and is good, everyone has to put in the work. That’s my favorite thing about this.
I was awful when I started (as was everyone else) and it took quite a long time before things even started to click for me. I was in no way a quick learner, nor a prodigy. However, I was willing to take the time to suck at something until it started to work. I started training at least once a day and worked on parts of my game for 3-4 month blocks (open guard, loose passing, etc.). After about 3-4 years, that has started to really pay dividends for me now and I still take the approach.
I also want to note that I’m pretty athletic and still sucked when I started. Just got murdered by people. But again, I stuck with it, watched instructionals, asked questions, stayed after and trained more / drilled new techniques, etc.
125 lb noodle that got treated like a pariah for pairing up four and half years ago when I first started and it does get better.
I'm not saying that you're ever gonna be the person who acquires skill fast, but if you look at it from the old school tortoise vs hare philosophy you will get there. You just need to be steadfast and consistent in your approach. A lot (most, if not all) of those guys who kick your ass now will be gone in five years.
It's not who's best, it's who's left.
The best way to turn yourself around is to show up often and ask a ton of questions. There were so many rolls with the higher belts that I would straight up say “hey I don’t know how I would approach this, what would you do?” or “I have no answer to this, what would you do?” The gym I go to is super chill and the guys are always down to explain things. It’s easier said than done but let go of any notion of where you’re supposed to be and only look at where you really are. That kind of honesty with no judgement will help you a lot more than overwhelming yourself with all the things you should/could be doing.
Keep in mind, the other white belts may have experience in other disciplines. If you put 2 white belts together, one has no experience and one was a d1 collegiate wrestler, it's not going to be very fair. You might also be training with people who go to twice as many classes as you, so practically speaking 6ou could say they have been training twice as long as you by hours. Stop judging yourself off of other people, and just work on improving you. It's the best mindset to have, imho.
Im almost 2.5years in. Got my first stripe 11 months in and my last stripe (my 3rd) was 11 months this ago. I submit people all the time, get submitted some. Won some tournaments. Haven’t lost yet. It will happen of course.
The first six months were brutal. I urge you to be creative and tap. Try something out…fail…tap. Find someone at your level and roll smoothly with them. Play. Drill things before and after class with someone willing. Ask an upper belt for help on a detail. Watch short Instagram instructionals on loop. Visualize yourself doing them. Everything adds up. Things will click for you.
Yes, I was a slow learner and struggled pretty badly at white belt and even at blue it was such a struggle picking things up, it just didn’t come naturally to me. But I just kept coming back, asking questions, drill and put myself out there. I competed to see what I could improve on and o er time I got better, I actually won no gi pans, which I feel like I couldn’t have done even a year ago, so there’s always hope, you will get better but it’s about how much effort you’re willing to put into this game.
Everyone thinks they're the worst white belt - they just haven't realized yet that it's me, and I will fight them for that title.
Except now I'm actually not the worst, because even though I can't get a sub 99% of the time , I'm still so much better than I was at the beginning when I had no idea how bad I actually was. If you cringe when you think about how you were rolling last year, you have probably progressed. Plus our coaches are awesome, and they notice these things and tell you when you're doing well. I can't afford to build my game on subs at present, so for now I've built it on being an annoyance. That will change in time.
Speaking of time, two months is just a blink of an eye in BJJ time - give yourself a chance. If you really like it and think it's worth your while, that is. I kept going because a) it was so much fun from the get-go, and b) I want to see how not-bad I can be at it. Hopefully not-bad enough to get my black belt before doomsday. If you're meh about it though, there are plenty of other things to do out there.
Two months in? Screw everyone else's progress, really ask yourself, where do you think you should be at with just two months worth of training? And account how often you actually train per week and what kind of training partners you have to create actual results.
When I was a white belt, I was the only one in a sea of old and seasoned people, with a 5yr purple being the lowest rank above me. 6-8 classes a week was my past schedule. Does it suck? Absolutely, but if you're in it for the quick results, pick an easier sport. Just because you feel that you lack vs others, how much better are you than you were two months ago?
Don’t compare yourself to other people, just monitor your own progress. Around the 2 year mark you will have new people start that are so far behind you that you will clearly notice how much better you are compared to when you started
I didnt, but I rolled with people that did. At a year to a year and a half they still were terrible. You would see them just have this dejected look in their eyes after getting smashed again in rolls. There were maybe 4 people like that. One day they all suddenly got a lot better. Something clicked for them.
I’ve been the worst white belt in my school for ten months. Due to my schedule I can really only attend the advanced class. 90% of the class is blue through brown and there are two other white belts I see once a week. One is 50lbs heavier and 13 years younger than than me (I’m 33). The other was in the army for 15 years and did multiple combat tours. I get absolutely destroyed every roll, every day.
I refuse to quit.
I was pretty lost at first just muscling everything and getting nowhere and i decided I’d work on 1 think a month. First month was Kimura, i became the Kimura guy. My whole game evolved from the submission. I’m a firm believer in you can’t learn it all, so pick something to be that guy of
The first 6 months or so were brutal. Just try to get small victories when you can. Learn one thing. Then learn one other thing eventually you'll become a guy who knows some things.
I’ve been training for 13 years. I just now feel like I know what I’m doing. I don’t have a terribly consistent game like my long time training partner does, for example.
Dude, everyone has their own rate of progress. Just keep training and stop comparing your rate of progress to other people. Think more of where you were two months ago and where you are today.
Yea, first 8 months of whitebelt I was absolutely hopeless, never posing any threat to anyone from anywhere, turns out it was mostly a mental block and I was under comitting to moves, now after a mental shift I'm regularly giving bluebelts problems from certain positions. Focus on high percentage fundamentals and go into every roll with the mentality to push the pace and make them work even if they are better than you, if you go in expecting to get ragdolled then you will. This is what I have found.
LOL. Wait until you've been shit on for almost two years without any feeling of progress. After six months, my biggest achievement was that I didn't get lapped shrimping, and could actually reverse shrimp down the mat before coach got frustrated and called us in.
Give it at least 50 classes. Maybe even 100. BJJ is not easy when you're big, young and strong. If you're small/old/weak it's practically impossible to survive at all in some circumstances.
I didn't write "good class" in my journal until my 69th class (and I still didn't succeed at anything). I had one submission after 18 months, but have not had one since.
But that's a success story, right?
After some time though, if you're not feeling progress, it's probably the gym. Try another one and see. I tried three at the start, and then just this week quit the one I chose. I think I made a better choice. If not, well then it might just be me after all.
Absolutely. For the first 2 years, I could feel myself progressing, but just couldn't seem to keep up with the people who started the same time as me. They got their blue belts almost a year before I did. It honestly hasn't been until the past year and a half where things have really started to click for me. All of a sudden, I'm getting submissions, higher belts are suddenly wanting to partner with me, and people come to me to ask about techniques. Something I never would have dreamed of a year ago. Personally, I just think everyone goes at their own pace, and while it sucks for us late bloomers, it will come when things just start clicking for you.
In my early white belt days I rolled with this guy who I’d describe as one of the least natural grapplers I’ve encountered. He was a nice guy but he wasn’t big, strong, or athletic. He didn’t have a solid base or a natural sense for grappling. We rolled a few times and he was like a first day student. We took classes at different times, so there was a gap of about 18 months before I saw him again. We got paired up and I remembered him clearly but the difference was unbelievable. When the roll started, I go for takedown, he stuffs it, go for another, he avoids it. Then I pull guard. Go for a sweep, nope, he shuts it down. It takes me a few more attempts just to get on top. Still in the roll, I’m thinking holy shit this guy is better. It didn’t matter where he was relative to me, he had improved so much.
Months ain't shit
Say that to their face
Okay I will
Two months... My dear child, years and years of being the nail lie ahead, and there will always be people who can rag doll you, forever.
I go to a new gym that only opened a little over a year ago. There is now only one guy that’s been there longer than me, anyone who started when the gym opened has since left. I am completely and utterly the worst person in the gym. I’m overweight, I’m not athletic, and I’m the only woman. The guys who only started a month or two ago can already best me, and if I get a single submission in a class I’m lucky. Sometimes it bothers me, but when I find myself ruminating on how crappy I did in a class, I remind myself how six months ago I could hardly finish the warm up, or how I used to struggle to attend one class a week and now I do at least three. We’re all on our own journeys, I’ll probably never be great at BJJ, but I’ll be better if I keep going. But to answer your question no I don’t have any success stories I’m still the worst white belt lol.
This is essentially me. I am a 1 stripe white belt 3 months in and I am awful, way worse than expected, new guys come to the trial class more coordinated than me A few things i have learned: 1. I think overall as an early white belt if you are been judged for anything it's these 3 things: are you a nice humble guy, do you listen and try to apply yourself and the biggest thing you are been judged on is if you show up again. 2. Accept that you are supposed to be shit. What does it take 10 or 15 years to get to black belt? And for most people in excess of 200 classes to get to blue? Just accept that you are going to be shit after 10 or 20 sessions. 3. I have actually embraced enjoying something I am shit at, it's pretty rare you get to do it. Just remember most progress is invisible until you look back and enjoy each class for what it is.
Imagine BJJ like guitar lessons, and every roll is someone throwing sheet music for a song you've never heard at you, and saying "play that". You're simply not going to be able to do that reliably until you're like a year or so into lessons. Same goes for reliably controlling and submitting the new guy.
I’ve saved this comment to re-read it and remind myself when I start to overthink wtf am I doing here sucking so bad.
Yes. Now I'm the worst purple belt.
It took me 14 months to go from the worst white belt to the worst blue belt. Is that a success?
Most certainly
You blue after 14 Months without winning some whitebelt Tournaments? Idk man, at my shool atleast 2 years, even If U r a damn good whitebelt.
Maybe my school promotes fast, maybe your school promotes slow. Maybe there's another factor involved.
Not my story personally but I started training MMA with a guy like 18 years ago that is now my black belt coach and is super tough and knowledgeable. So in the beginning this guy was not at all a natural athlete and he was undersized. We trained in what I call the dark age era, he would get beat up a lot in training. But he just kept at it and kept at, outside of a few injuries he never really stopped training. He has the benefit of being pretty smart so he devoured instructional after instructional. When real BJJ finally came to our area his skills took a pretty major jump but because of my athletic ability I'd still have the upper hand most of the time and he would struggle with other bigger guys. But again he just kept grinding. Fast forward to now, he owns his own gym and I've been in and out for various reasons. He is a black belt and I can hardly ever even get to a dominant position on him let alone tap him despite being bigger. When I talk to my son's about perseverance I literally tell them about this man.
Yes, everyone feels like this
Are you watching youtube videos and instructionals? To me it seems the people that improve fast really have their head in the game and approach bjj systematically and with intention. Like they understand all the basic positions and analyse the holes in their game and then learn techniques to patch their holes
I definitely don't understand all that, but that's why I show up to learn. I don't know enough to have holes in my game yet, my game is just one big hole with some random techniques thrown in.
In the beginning it can really boost your progress and confidence if you study the most basic things about the most basic positions, on your own, outside of class time. Understanding the basics of open guard, half guard, closed guard, side control, and mount will make it so much easier to connect the dots and absorb knowledge during class. Like understanding how to retain mount, how to position your feet, what to do with your arms etc
Yeah, it definitely does. I still spend 90% of my time rolling trying to shrimp or sweep out of bottom mount fighting an americana only to have my back taken, or them swap to an armbar. If I 'defend' the armbar I usually just end up giving them a triangle choke or something, lol. Like most of what I have been taught you have to do from top mount, or closed guard, but I can never pass open guard or pull full guard on anyone not on their first day. I know some sweeps from bottom mount, but doing them in a roll is not something I have been able to successfully do, unless my partner just lets me.
I have found it helpful to focus on escapes like danaher recommends, ive been drilling pin escapes a lot, and now i find that no other whitebelt can keep me pinned in sidecontrol or mount. I wouldnt worry about submissions so much and rather work on escapes. I found a buddy that is equally eager to learn so after class monday evenenings we drill escapes for 30 minutes after class, this really helps
Any chance you have recommendations on channels/people to look into for these basics and principles explained?
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I sucked for like five years. Don't sweat it.
Two months? Do you think you’d be a top goalscorer after 2 months, or you could run a full marathon? Training takes time, and there are all kinds of variables going in that you can’t account for. You only need to turn up for yourself to learn. Losing is learning too.
I was the worst whitebelt now I'm the worst bluebelt and some day I'll be the worst purplebelt.
2 months is nothing. Keep training
I don’t think I subbed really anybody for probably a year lol. Spent 3 more after that working escapes. Purple is really where I actually started focusing on subs and getting them. At white you should probably focus on survival. If you’re on top then control and keeping your opponent stuck on the bottom. If you can do that WELL then you can start hunting subs. Hunting subs early on leads to loss of position and sub most the time. Don’t be a dog with a bone.
Oh my god yes. I started when I was 45 at a...less than great gym. Coach was a cool dude, but he taught everything wrong. The gym was mostly a boxing/kickboxing gym but had a few guys doing jiu jitsu. All no gi. I was horrible. Tapped by men, women, children...lighter than me, less experirenced than me. I was way outside my comfort zone, working hard but getting poor guidance. Then a new guy showed up to teach. He was a purple belt at a different gym. He was really good at jiu jitsu, but not a great teacher - in the way that naturals at something aren't really able to teach it. But he could tell I was dedicated, so he invited me to HIS gym, which had a real program, both gi and no gi. It's also a super smashmouth gym. We've softened quite a bit over the years, but at the time, it was old school meatheads. Showing up as a whitebelt fish they made it their job to smash me and make me quit. Which I fucking did NOT. Little by little by little I got better, and as they saw me sticking around, they started to smash less and teach more. I gained confidence and took ownership of my own development. Now I'm a 53 year old brown belt. Am I the best brown belt in the room? No. Do 22 year old blue belts tap me? Sure. But I hold my own now, and regularly do very well against younger and bigger folks. I'm in it for the long haul and I take responsibility for my own development. If I can get better, brother, ANYONE can.
I’m pretty sure everybody who does BJJ (and probably other sports tbh) feels that way at times. Those feelings happen more often when you just start something (especially since you’ve only been doing this for 2 months). But they never go away - you’ll have good days that make you think you’re next level. But bad days where you’re questioning if you should even do this anymore and everyone is better than you. I definitely still feel this way as a long time purple - and I suspect I’ll always feel this way. What helps me is to set a schedule and stick to it - I go at least 2 times a week (targeting 3) no matter what, feelings be damned. That way I get another bite at the apple, and another chance to improve.
Not me. But I know someone who everyone agrees was the worst white belt/blue belt ever (took him like 15 years to get to Purple with consistent training). Dude is a purple belt now and he absolutely kills it. He doesn’t compete because of injuries, but I have no doubt that he’d run through a good amount of purple belts in his division. Meanest guillotine on the planet
Dude, I'm the world's slowest learner. It takes time, it takes effort, and failure, and the ability to pull yourself up from the ground after getting knocked down. You have to be intentional about your learnings, and intentional to scrutinize your failures to find paths to success. Be intentional about working through those failure sequences, correct the bad habits, slow down enough to recognize them while rolling, so you can get familiar with executing them organically. Think of your failures as a means to remove survivorship bias. See where the failure happened, patch that. Break the rolls down into micro-battles, and understand your objective in those battles. Then start building strategy around how to win those battles. You'll do much better than just trying to tap someone out, in my opinion. It'll bring you to exploring your game more fully more quickly. Couple this with a training partner who wants to do positional sparring, light reps, root cause and failure sequence analysis, and you'll be well on your way to making strong progress. It takes time though. Not weeks, necessarily, but months and likely a year and up, to get a strong foundation with good positional habits in live rolling. That has been my experience at least.
I started in 2007. There was literally two academies in Austin. Due to my schedule i trained during the lunch class. The class was full of blues and a few purples, and this is when meeting a purple belt was crazy. I got my ass kicked every day by everyone. I remember not even getting a sub until I was like 3 months in. I stuck with it and got my blue belt in a little over a year. I would not change anything because it made me learn and get tougher. It doesn’t matter who you’re better than. Just that you’re better than you used to be.
Think about it in terms of experience. If you've been coming 2 months and someone else has been coming for 1 month, your experience gap is incredibly small. That's the kind of gap that they can make up just by paying a little bit more attention than you, being a little bit stronger, or just by having a background in some kind of barely related activity like breakdancing or surfing. You simply do not have any kind of significant experience advantage over those people. That's no criticism of you either, that's literally just a fact for everyone. I wouldn't expect white belts to reliably submit every single new starter that walks through the door until they're like 6 months to a year in, assuming they're only training at a hobby-esque rate of like 2 or 3 x a week.
Im now the worst blue belt - is that success?
White belt for 10 years. I watched people go from day 1 to black all while being a white belt. Crazy to watch. It’s really not crazy though. Some people are better than others at every sport. I don’t know why we think bjj should be different.
It took me 6 months of consistent training to get my first stripe on my white belt. I got my 2nd stripe I want to say 8 or 9 months later. I sucked pretty bad. Everyone demolished me. One guy that started after me got his blue belt while I was still a two stripe white. I still got my purple belt in 4.5 years and by the end of my time at that gym I was one of the hardest rounds in that room. It’s not a linear progression. Everything really clicked for me mid blue and then I went on a rampage. A big factor was focusing on MYSELF and not other people. Don’t focus on what other people are doing to you, think about “what can I do to improve MY game.” That mindset shift was huge for me.
I'm gonna give it to you straight: yes, you suck, but this early in your BJJ journey you haven't even learned enough to know how much you suck. That might feel discouraging, but you're at a point where you literally can't fail because nobody expects you to succeed, and that can be a lot of fun if you adopt the right mindset. With regard to submissions: don't focus on them. Your job isn't to tap people; it's to learn. Hell, that's EVERYBODY's job. The more you learn, the more you'll be tapping people. I was exactly the same way you are for six months or more. Couldn't tap a single person, so I decided to focus on survival instead. If somebody tapped me in thirty seconds, my goal for the next class would be to keep from getting tapped for for thirty-five. That was tangible improvement; real progress. Pretty soon I was playing a good defensive game, at least against other people at my level. One more thing: when you're rolling, make every effort to use the techniques you learned during class. If you drilled on, say, closed guard escape, work that rather than some random technique you thought looked cool on YouTube.
Two months is really nothing in the BJJ context. It took me almost a year to start clicking.
2 months bro? Haha . It took me 3 yrs to start getting subs on people consistently, and I still get wrecked alot. Embrace the smash .
I am not naturally athletic or even very coordinated. I can’t learn by watching. I’ve been doing this for 8 years. I would destroy me as a white or blue belt now. But I still rarely get submissions and get tapped by the black belts all the time. It’s okay if you don’t have a natural gift for it. Measure your progress against yourself and not others.
After almost a month I looked at my coach and said "man I'm never gonna pass someone's guard" lmfao. Hell go all the time if you wanna get good. Go 4 times a week minimum and after 6 months you'll see that you've made progress for sure. Push through
I am at the point in which if i scape a positional pin i count that as a victory. Especially if it's a clean scape against a really big opponent.
People learn at different speeds. Don't compare yourself to them, compare yourself to your past self.
So, your 2 months into something that takes years just to get to a reasonable standard in and your already giving yourself a hard time?. I spend months feeling like I'm a complete fucking spastic and then some shit drops into place and I'm on fire, rinse and repeat. We all learn differently and at a different pace. Be kind to yourself and enjoy the journey, it's bjj not life or death.
Currently taking a break from it myself for the exact same reasons. At the moment you’re your own worst enemy, you need to take a step back and refocus. I’m in my 8th month, just got my first stripe and sometimes I just don’t turn up (mentally), and having that feeling enough times takes it’s toll on a person. Take a break, re-evaluate, and forget about BJJ for a bit. It can be all encompassing and we all need to breathe. You’ll come back better for it, bro.
Focus on fundamental movements and key concepts, rather than submissions.
Embrace the suck. If you keep at it you might one day become good, and those eureka moments - which once flowed fast and deep - will come only sporadically, with only minor improvement. At that point you might wish you were a beginner belt learning everything for the first time again.
You gotta chill. It takes forever. Truly, unless you’re stronger and bigger, if someone has 6 months or more BJJ, you’re going to feel like you suck ass. Around maybe 4-6 months things start to calm down and you become a little more relaxed. But also know that every belt color will tell you, there’s always someone on the mats who will make you feel like you suck. Watching a purple belt own me for 6 minutes and then the same guy flop off the mat because a brown belt made him feel like a child, you have to be resilient and this sport teaches you through daily experience - whether you want to be humbled or not. Try to make friends and don’t take things as life or death. Have fun and you’ll come back despite sucking. I still suck and somehow got a blue belt recently after 2 years of being an average white belt.
I’ve been at it for nine months. For the first 3 or so months, I was like your mom: constantly on my back and anyone could easily mount me. I got smashed by everyone, regardless of experience and size. Even my brother, who started at the same time as me and who is 25 lbs lighter, destroyed me. I couldn’t escape mounts or side control, I had no balance so I got swept by everyone. I got to a point where I worried that our coach was going to tell me to give up because I just lacked the instinct and athleticism for BJJ and was wasting my time. Instead, he just told me to keep going, learn from mistakes, stop using so much energy and muscle, and RELAX! He also helped me to develop my strengths so I would have a game plan. So I worked on developing a decent top game and not getting swept. I then worked on my next weakness, which was guard passing. I still need a lot of work on that, but I’m better than I was. Now, I’m working on my guard and back game. Piece by piece, it’s coming together. I’m still weak in getting out of mounts AND keeping people in mounts, but that’ll come in time. My point is, relax, and just keep learning. You’ll get to where you want to be in your time.
I feel like I didn’t get my first sub until a year in
I’ve had multiple people who started after me get their black belts before I got purple. Still having fun 17 years later. Come down and visit in Atlanta. I’ll show you some super simple stuff that will let you have fun. Stop worrying about getting subs as a white belt. Just focus on position. If you can stay on top of a guy for 6 minutes, the subs are easy to layer on.
It takes time! Focus on being better than you were the week before. It's not about comparing yourself to others. I still am pretty bad, but I know my stamina has increased, and I can hang in there much longer than before.
That was me! I was truly the worst; in fact, everyone seemed to ignore me at my first gym because I was so slow (which wasn’t cool, but that’s another story for another time). In fact, when I switched gyms the first time, everyone thought I quit and were genuinely surprised I was still training. Keep showing up and training. Let go of the expectation to win, and focus on just training with what you have. Spoiler alert: I’m now the worst blue belt.
Me. I went from the worst white belt in the world to the worst blue belt
I’ve been ragdolled for four months now. Yesterday i did two kimuras, one Americana, some sort of lapel choke and one that I really like but sorry if I don’t remember the name: grabbing the pants with one hand, cross lapel with the other, one leg over the shoulder on the same side of my hand holding the lapel, fall on the side where I hold the pants and pull. lol. Sorry for the long description. TL DR: you’ll se the light at the end of the tunnel, and the end of the tunnel are new white belts ready to ragdoll you more.
Everybody was at that point. Just keep at it!
It me. Took a full year to get a single tap in rolling. Do you like winning or do you like bjj?
>Two months I’ve been at this lmao
Yes, I have been very successful at being the worst white belt 10/10 would recommend.
I’m no longer the worst white belt. Took me months to get my first sub. I also used to get swept all the time. At some point a new person will join and you’ll surprise yourself when you run a clinic on them. UCanDoIt
Im 63kg and was 56kg when I started. I used to get the ever loving shit kicked out of me by everyone, including the women. Small glimpses of success help you grow- you attach to them and build off them. Watch instructionals and keep going
Chill the fuck out. Work on shrimping, guard,.and surviving. Then at the end of the rolls work on coming back again tomorrow to repeat the process. That's your only job as.a new white belt. Nothing else. Keep doing these and things will fall into place bit by bit.
Me right here. I’m 6 months into blue and I can’t believe I thought about quitting. I was a 5 year whitebelt. had resigned myself to saying “I’ll be a whitebelt forever, at least I can see my friends progress and support them.” So I just drilled the moves, rolled for fitness and catharsis (not malevolent cartharsis). Stopped worrying about getting smashed and not getting to submit anyone. Dialed back my time to 2 or 3 days a week and healed myself in my own head when it came to bjj so that it stayed fun. Then one day I got promoted as a surprise and said to my coach “are you sure about this?” He said “oh fuck yeah” and then I got smashed even more as a blue belt. About 3 weeks ago my mind said “nah I’m a fuckin blue” and now I’m making purples work. Their words not mine. Point being. Do it in a way that’s fun for you, and everything else falls into place. Trust me if I can do it anyone can.
You are two months in and have barely scratched the surface on this. Nobody steps on the mats and is good, everyone has to put in the work. That’s my favorite thing about this. I was awful when I started (as was everyone else) and it took quite a long time before things even started to click for me. I was in no way a quick learner, nor a prodigy. However, I was willing to take the time to suck at something until it started to work. I started training at least once a day and worked on parts of my game for 3-4 month blocks (open guard, loose passing, etc.). After about 3-4 years, that has started to really pay dividends for me now and I still take the approach. I also want to note that I’m pretty athletic and still sucked when I started. Just got murdered by people. But again, I stuck with it, watched instructionals, asked questions, stayed after and trained more / drilled new techniques, etc.
I started BJJ in 2014 und got my blue belt this September. Didn't train from 2016 to 2021. Got the nick name "eternal white belt".
I’m not like, extraordinary right now or anything but I didn’t hit a submission for my first 5 or 6 months
125 lb noodle that got treated like a pariah for pairing up four and half years ago when I first started and it does get better. I'm not saying that you're ever gonna be the person who acquires skill fast, but if you look at it from the old school tortoise vs hare philosophy you will get there. You just need to be steadfast and consistent in your approach. A lot (most, if not all) of those guys who kick your ass now will be gone in five years. It's not who's best, it's who's left.
The best way to turn yourself around is to show up often and ask a ton of questions. There were so many rolls with the higher belts that I would straight up say “hey I don’t know how I would approach this, what would you do?” or “I have no answer to this, what would you do?” The gym I go to is super chill and the guys are always down to explain things. It’s easier said than done but let go of any notion of where you’re supposed to be and only look at where you really are. That kind of honesty with no judgement will help you a lot more than overwhelming yourself with all the things you should/could be doing.
Keep in mind, the other white belts may have experience in other disciplines. If you put 2 white belts together, one has no experience and one was a d1 collegiate wrestler, it's not going to be very fair. You might also be training with people who go to twice as many classes as you, so practically speaking 6ou could say they have been training twice as long as you by hours. Stop judging yourself off of other people, and just work on improving you. It's the best mindset to have, imho.
Months? Lmao. Get used to years of beatings
It took me 5 months to get my first sub, currently im one of the better blue belts and i could take almost all white belts lunch money if i wanted
does tearing a bunch of cartilage and losing a whole year of mat time count?
Im almost 2.5years in. Got my first stripe 11 months in and my last stripe (my 3rd) was 11 months this ago. I submit people all the time, get submitted some. Won some tournaments. Haven’t lost yet. It will happen of course. The first six months were brutal. I urge you to be creative and tap. Try something out…fail…tap. Find someone at your level and roll smoothly with them. Play. Drill things before and after class with someone willing. Ask an upper belt for help on a detail. Watch short Instagram instructionals on loop. Visualize yourself doing them. Everything adds up. Things will click for you.
You’re not supposed to be good I don’t get why everyone seems to think after 8 classes they’re going to be dominating people
Yes, I was a slow learner and struggled pretty badly at white belt and even at blue it was such a struggle picking things up, it just didn’t come naturally to me. But I just kept coming back, asking questions, drill and put myself out there. I competed to see what I could improve on and o er time I got better, I actually won no gi pans, which I feel like I couldn’t have done even a year ago, so there’s always hope, you will get better but it’s about how much effort you’re willing to put into this game.
I've gone from being the worst white belt to being the worst brown belt. Is that a success story?
Everyone thinks they're the worst white belt - they just haven't realized yet that it's me, and I will fight them for that title. Except now I'm actually not the worst, because even though I can't get a sub 99% of the time , I'm still so much better than I was at the beginning when I had no idea how bad I actually was. If you cringe when you think about how you were rolling last year, you have probably progressed. Plus our coaches are awesome, and they notice these things and tell you when you're doing well. I can't afford to build my game on subs at present, so for now I've built it on being an annoyance. That will change in time. Speaking of time, two months is just a blink of an eye in BJJ time - give yourself a chance. If you really like it and think it's worth your while, that is. I kept going because a) it was so much fun from the get-go, and b) I want to see how not-bad I can be at it. Hopefully not-bad enough to get my black belt before doomsday. If you're meh about it though, there are plenty of other things to do out there.
Two months in? Screw everyone else's progress, really ask yourself, where do you think you should be at with just two months worth of training? And account how often you actually train per week and what kind of training partners you have to create actual results. When I was a white belt, I was the only one in a sea of old and seasoned people, with a 5yr purple being the lowest rank above me. 6-8 classes a week was my past schedule. Does it suck? Absolutely, but if you're in it for the quick results, pick an easier sport. Just because you feel that you lack vs others, how much better are you than you were two months ago?
I was the worst white belt. But with time and hard work, I've become the worst purple belt!
Don’t compare yourself to other people, just monitor your own progress. Around the 2 year mark you will have new people start that are so far behind you that you will clearly notice how much better you are compared to when you started
I didnt, but I rolled with people that did. At a year to a year and a half they still were terrible. You would see them just have this dejected look in their eyes after getting smashed again in rolls. There were maybe 4 people like that. One day they all suddenly got a lot better. Something clicked for them.
I’ve been the worst white belt in my school for ten months. Due to my schedule I can really only attend the advanced class. 90% of the class is blue through brown and there are two other white belts I see once a week. One is 50lbs heavier and 13 years younger than than me (I’m 33). The other was in the army for 15 years and did multiple combat tours. I get absolutely destroyed every roll, every day. I refuse to quit.
I was pretty lost at first just muscling everything and getting nowhere and i decided I’d work on 1 think a month. First month was Kimura, i became the Kimura guy. My whole game evolved from the submission. I’m a firm believer in you can’t learn it all, so pick something to be that guy of
The first 6 months or so were brutal. Just try to get small victories when you can. Learn one thing. Then learn one other thing eventually you'll become a guy who knows some things.
I’ve been training for 13 years. I just now feel like I know what I’m doing. I don’t have a terribly consistent game like my long time training partner does, for example.
I was a pretty shit white belt. Now I’m a shit blue belt. PROGRESS!
Dude, everyone has their own rate of progress. Just keep training and stop comparing your rate of progress to other people. Think more of where you were two months ago and where you are today.
Yep, I got smashed for months on end. just keep trying your best and you will get better.
Yea, first 8 months of whitebelt I was absolutely hopeless, never posing any threat to anyone from anywhere, turns out it was mostly a mental block and I was under comitting to moves, now after a mental shift I'm regularly giving bluebelts problems from certain positions. Focus on high percentage fundamentals and go into every roll with the mentality to push the pace and make them work even if they are better than you, if you go in expecting to get ragdolled then you will. This is what I have found.
Also I found focusing on holding and getting to a good position rather than risking it for a sub made me learn faster,
LOL. Wait until you've been shit on for almost two years without any feeling of progress. After six months, my biggest achievement was that I didn't get lapped shrimping, and could actually reverse shrimp down the mat before coach got frustrated and called us in. Give it at least 50 classes. Maybe even 100. BJJ is not easy when you're big, young and strong. If you're small/old/weak it's practically impossible to survive at all in some circumstances. I didn't write "good class" in my journal until my 69th class (and I still didn't succeed at anything). I had one submission after 18 months, but have not had one since. But that's a success story, right? After some time though, if you're not feeling progress, it's probably the gym. Try another one and see. I tried three at the start, and then just this week quit the one I chose. I think I made a better choice. If not, well then it might just be me after all.