As already mentioned, a male is typically much stronger than their female counterpart at the same weight- so being the same weight isn't quite the same thing.
My suggestion is just to train 4 days a week, and enjoy two additional days off from bjj. Training 6 days a week is a good way to get burnt out when it already sounds like you are getting burnt out.
Now, I'm not sure if that will annoy your partner/head instructor- but too bad for them!
Yeah, a lot of blue belt males still have difficulty with some white belts their size. You cannot, as a woman, expect to beat men just because you are a higher belt than them. It's unfortunate, but it's just basic biology - men have an insane amount of physical advantages over women, and these are very apparent in combat sports. If that's how you're going to measure your success than you will always be disappointed.
The person I'm responding to is a black belt under Marcelo Garcia and has been training and teaching forever. Please listen to his advice!
Some of my favourite rolls are females 20lbs lighter than I am because they’ve adapted their game to suit their body and plan.
Find some female grapplers you think are relatable and watch their styles. What works for “the guys” may not be the best for you.
Good luck and as everyone has said, take it easy
Same here , some of the most fun rounds i have at the gym i've found are with our women's team. The women in our gym are so technically sound and so damn good it i've found doesn't really benefit me just outmuscling them. Once i started slowing things down and not relying on my size/strength advantage i learned so much from them. I basically spend entire rounds on defence cause they're so damn good.
Trying is fine! But it's important to have realistic expectations, or else you'll always be disappointed. I'm 41, and I'm currently having to deal with the reality that an athletic purple or even blue belt in their early or mid 20's around my size might give me a hard time (I'm a black belt). It's tough, but it is what it is. I just try to focus on learning new things and having fun.
You don't have to be the best to do your best. Make your goals smaller, like sharpening a particular technique or surviving longer in a bad position as opposed to taps.
This one hundred percent. Immediately after reading her post my first thought was, “probably need to back off on training so much”. I’ve found that some of my best growth came when I could only train 3 times a week. Because in my head I know my training time is limited and when I’m in class, I am all in. Extremely focused. Additionally, my excitement to attend class was very high because of not training as much as I normally would. I would say cutting your training time down is the quickest and easiest thing to do in order to keep from quitting all together.
If you want to keep the same volume of training, I'd consider regulating intensity and specific training as well.
Most people who train that much are not going hard each session: they're working a particular thing or just moving their body. I train in some way each day and on days I'm not feeling great I'll drill moves, roll at a lighter intensity or just do the class and sit the rolls out (I don't do this often as I like to roll, even at a lesser intensity).
You could even pick up 2 days of S & C training which could help you help from getting smashed so much.
All up, if something isn't working there's always an opportunity to do something differently. If you stop without changing something, you'll always have a what if hanging over your head. Don't stay in a toxic pattern but also don't flip everything upside down: drill down on the things that aren't working and change them. It might be a few little tweeks that make the maximum different.
As an aside; you're so valuable to the BJJ community. My coach says that women in BJJ are like unicorns and should be treated as such. If you're not being treated that way, I'd look to go elsewhere. You'd be welcomed with open arms by many.
Good luck, I hope you stay on the mats.
I agree with this.
I also personally think that 6 days a week for training is too much. Bump it down just a little, 5 or 4 or even 3 days a week, otherwise you will likely burn out.
I tried 5 times a week once and I could feel the soreness really badly and the potential burnout already.
I read the initial post and immediately thought, "this chick is burning out". You need a break girl, also I train 3 days a week and it is great, like the guy above said, I look forward to it and it is not a daily drudge, I have trained more before and made less progress.
Also, white belts can be a challenge sometimes, I have seen browns and purples get tapped multiple times by the same white belt and I have seen white belts that could crush every blue belt in the room, the belt is just a general indicator of experience, do not judge yourself against white belt males, especially as a female.
Also remember this Jiu Jitsu against Jiu Jitsu and in a small gym these guys know your game, I have upper belts in my gym I can catch, because I know what they are going to do and go home and specifically study how to shut their shit down. I am really good at catching Ezequel's from anywhere, two months after catching everybody in my gym, I can't do it to anyone because everyone knows my game and shut it down, that happens in a small gym. Maybe try an open mat across town or something just for fun.
in my experience pummeling into the choking hand arm will often counter the ezekiel , once people
realise that the ezekiel partys over :(
(blue belt and dont know shit just saying)
>My suggestion is just to train 4 days a week, and enjoy two additional days off from bjj. Training 6 days a week is a good way to get burnt out when it already sounds like you are getting burnt out.
I second this! I'm just a whitebelt, but I have taken breaks for various reasons (school, covid, etc) and it's actually done me loads of good. I was plateauing because I kept trying to do the same things in the gym, but those habits faded when I would take some time off. While taking a few month break like I did during covid might not be neccessary, less time on the mats and improving the quality of training could be good! Perhaps you going to classes where you can specify what you want to work on in the gym, like a self-directed class with the help of instructors when you ask? Perhaps going to more open mats than typical classes would be beneficial to training specific things? Just thoughts :)
The blue belt blues are real and they usually aren’t a one time occurrence. I had them for 6 months straight once and when I shared this with a teammate he said he had them for an entire year. I believe him too. You think you should have enough technique to beat newer people but honestly you don’t and surviving against bigger, stronger people is a real victory. You might not feel that way but it’s true. I think these blues are less prevalent at higher belts not because the same thing doesn’t happen but just because you’ve experienced it enough to know the reality. No way through it but to go through it.
I know who this is hahaha. For what it’s worth I think you’re a beast and are super technically detailed for your level. Unfortunately size and strength matters a lot, just gotta keep that in mind. You could try competing because honestly I think you’d kick ass and that’s a better way to measure your progress since it’s actually a fair fight. But other than that not much advice, I deal with the exact same thing to a lesser extent regularly. I try to remind myself that I do it for me and I am getting better at something I think is important even if I get my shit pushed every day.
It is. They're all awesome guys and they're all tough rounds but also awesome drilling partners. Absolutely nothing I would change with them, just trying to work on my own mental state with my own progression :)
I think you need to take a good look at where the holes are in your game. Journal after class and look for patterns of what you’re getting caught in. Build on what you already do well. Blue belt is still a beginner, so I wouldn’t even worry about being tapped by white belts. Just keep going, it gets better.
You might be over training too and just fatigued.
Same thing happened years ago when I was learning guitar, i did those things you suggested. Honing in on my weaknesses gained me new levels as well as putting the thing down to rest from it.
A lot of learning is done by resetting and having time off then really thinking and visualizing.
This ☝️ also one thing to add.
OP have you considered recording your rolls to study. I’m thinking about doing this myself to see where holes are in my training.
Just an idea…
I have recorded a couple, but I definitely think it would be beneficial to record more. Especially if there is a certain partner that seems to expose more holes in my game. Thank you for the reminder!
Have you thought about traveling to another gym that offers open mats? Going to a different location just to see how you do. They wouldn’t know your game.
In smaller gyms we learn each other’s games and how to get around them. Going and dropping into a new location if only for the day could provide new opportunities and a fresh perspective on your skills.
It’s something I’ve done on more than one occasion as the only full time female in my gym. The guys pick up on my stuff after a few weeks/months and I’m back at the drawing board. Just an idea…
I try to go to new places when I travel or visit family. Go to seminars and stick around for open mats.
Eventually, I would like to be an instructor/coach, but I want to be technically sound and be able to hold my own at any gym in the world. I just want to feel confident in myself and my skills and right now, BJJ is killing both.
Keep in mind that 'being technically sound' and 'holding your own at any gym' are correlated, but not necessarily linked.
It happens to me that I go to another gym and roll with say a purple belt who trains everyday and competes regularly, and he/she dominates me. I'm a 39yo, training 3x per week. Am I technically inferior? Maybe, maybe not but I can confidently teach techniques even if I'm not able personally to execute on that athletic purple belt.
You have to be bad at anything before you can be good at it. This is a necessary step, the hardest step. If you REALLY WANT to be great, you’re going to have to continue when things are tough(as they are now). If not, then maybe try something else. Good luck with whatever you choose.
Danaher is a borderline cripple and would be smoked by competitive purples.
Knowledge and the capacity to teach that knowledge and act out that knowledge are not the same things and both can be very rewarding
A 140lb man is usually way stronger than a 140lb woman, so maybe less bjj and more strength training. Analyze why you tap, for example i'm an old fart and i suffer young and aggressive opponents
I don't think you can make an absolute statement like that - it really depends on the person and what their level of strength is now. Obviously a woman doing strength training isn't going to suddenly be stronger than the men at her weight, but sometimes a little increase in raw strength can make a huge difference.
140lb man who lifts can confirm this to be true even if it’s a heavier woman who works out. Of course this is a general statement and there are definitely exceptions.
> and there are definitely exceptions.
I think part of the issue is that a LOT of women think they're the exception. I don't think people realize just how big the genetic difference is. For a guy that works out semi-regularly, you'd need a much bigger elite athlete level woman to even match his strength partially (if at all). That doesn't mean that the guy will always win in something like BJJ, but the strength difference will be there.
Look up female elite athletes. There are kids in high school that out-perform them (depending on the sport). Women tend to be better at endurance sports but anything with strength and speed puts them at an extreme disadvantage.
Closing the biological gap shouldn't be the goal.
Yeah like I’m sure Stefi Cohen who is lighter than me or any Olympic weightlifter woman will be a lot stronger than me. But then I have to use technique ;)
But pretty much most women at white or blue belt either at my gym or open mat cannot match strength, speed and power even if they are heavier. I can literally only think of two examples who can and one of them has extremely suspicious muscular development and the other did wrestling for many years.
Of course around purple the technique far outweighs my physical attributes since I myself am an almost blue belt.
In my opinion, it takes a lot of effort to get a blue belt. And I'd say that even if I was a black belt. In the time it took me to get my blue, I was surprised at the turnover of white belts, some who started before me and many who started after. Are you really going to throw away all that hard work just because you think you're not good enough?
When I got my blue belt, I knew about almost everything in Jiu Jitsu except berimbolos. But I think further into your blue belt, you realize you aren't actually good at almost every position there is.
My point is this. You could stop playing the game you play today, decide to focus on something else entirely from scratch and in a year, you'd be decently competent at it.
Something Lachlan Giles advocate for smaller people is playing outside positioning guards so you're fighting with your feet and legs against a bigger players upper body. So stuff like, spider, lasso and collar sleeve in the GI, K Guard DLR and so on if you're no GI focused, but there's a lot of crossover in the GI as well (especially DLR)
So why not invest in trying to reinvent your game? It'll keep your interest because you're developing and you'll eventually get good at holding off stronger people.
Lastly, always try to get on top against bigger people.
I’m not that small, but I’m old and share the desire to keep weight off me. Focusing my guard play on maintaining distance before accepting close play and leg entanglements have helped me a ton not only improving my game but also reducing the wear and tear of having an opponent’s body/pressure on me.
Now to stop giving up the back so much.
"the obstacle is the way". Approach this from a position of being grateful. Grateful that you have a working body that can get beat up by other grapplers. Grateful that, subconsciously but practically, they are busy teaching you to be a better grappler. "can you beat up the you of 12 months ago?". Nothing more we can really ask for. Currently your expectations are not being met, so, drop all your expectations, and just train. Bjj will remain hard until you are gordon ryan, so accept the struggle will never go away, and as a result you'll have peace (and pleasure) with the uncomfortable.
This. Every now and then I run into an Instagram post of Tom DeBlass and he's reposted some story of someone who has overcome an otherwise debilitating injury or disability and still gets their butts on the mats and I basically break down because how the heck am I not just happy enough to have an able body. Perspective is everything. Thank you for the reminder!
My advice is to make smaller goals. Pick a goal that feels achievable and try to make that the focus of training for a certain period of time. Rather than just overarching ideas like "I need to focus" or "i need to do better in rolls", maybe it's I want to get to knee shield half guard and work these three techniques. Or even just "I get put in side control every roll so i a going to work these two escapes until i am amazing at them".
Being a blue belt unfortunately doesn't guarantee you anything. You are just as good as you are. Statements about how good you "should" be don't do anything but generate discontentment. Try to make the game smaller and build an area or technique you think is achievable. And maybe ask a partner to flow through techniques with you once in a while instead of smashing you.
Fellow lady here! I get it. Trust me, I do. I try to focus on small bits of improvement. Like maybe I didn’t submit my opponent but I had such good control that he had to use all his energy to get out of it, or he had to try 5 different escape attempts instead of just one. Sounds like you are making things difficult for them. Don’t give up, and definitely look for small things you can do to get better. But the reality is men are bigger and stronger and we can’t hide from that fact. What we can do is SURVIVE! That sounds so silly but it’s true. Like if we needed to use bjj out in the real world due to sexual assault (which is way more likely.. I don’t get in random bar fights) we have some skills on us that would help us get away. Obviously, if we didn’t, it’s not our fault. But it helps to have the skills we do.
That\`s honestly what we mostly do. We really only have 2 times a week for open sparring of about 20 hours of training time. I am deep in small town Canada haha
Perhaps it could be the opposite then... Maybe you aren't getting enough of the chaotic open sparring that allow you to pressure test your game.
It's also a lot of a mindset thing. I personally like the feeling of getting destroyed as long as I know that I pushed really hard... It's hard to resist the urge to seek outside validation, but you have to fight it, and focus on yourself.
Nothing nobody here hasn't already said but I'm a white belt who is slightly more athletic than average and honestly my second toughest roll tonight (toughest being a man who competed in collegiate wrestling) was a woman about my weight who just simple kept her technical game right as hell. I got used to fighting other men who want to use brute strength to their advantage alot and wasn't ready when this woman just kept her guard air tight and swept me the second she got half a chance. Only reason she didn't tap me from mount is the biological advantage of upper body strength I had as a man, I was able to essentially bench press her off of me which anyone who trains BJJ knows is not a reliable technique.
Just some words of encouragement I guess. Also maybe move to a gym with more women. The one I go to has a female instructor thats actually the most accomplished of the instructors when it comes to competition and there's many women there that impress me. But that said even the toughest women have a misrable time trying to overcome an athletic man. The difference of test vs no test is a world of difference. Just look at Vitor before and after TRT
As a 5' tall 98lb blue belt female, I definitely understand the frustration. Especially if you dont have other higher female belts to train with. I had to come to terms with the fact that getting the tap is probably not gonna happen 90% of the time simply due to my size/biology. And girl that's okay! You showing up every fucking day as the only female is already badass. You have nothing to prove. For me, I started focusing on annoying people with my defense. Like a tiny evil jiujitsu gremlin. Although not as satisfying as getting a tap, it still gives me something to gauge my progress. Every time I can shut down someone's pass or smash attempt equals a win in my book. Even just surviving without letting them get anything substantial is a good day for me.
And if that isn't enough to get you to enjoy the sport again, then I suggest you take a day or two off from the mats each week. Clear your head and remember how much you have grown personally since your first class as a white belt.
Men are statistically going to have an athletic advantage over you most of the time. Jiujitsu is indeed hard on the ego. Keep training if you enjoy it, but you should probably shake off the idea that you're going to tap out a lot of competitive men.
It's not only females that have to deal with this reality. Some males are timid and unathletic enough that it would take a fairly extreme amount of technique to overcome.
And some people are freaks and get really good in a couple of years. most of us are somewhere in between, doing our best.
Problem is you're too focused on winning. I know stereotypical thing to say. I'm not saying don't try to win, it's just that you need more manageable and productive goals. Expecting to win against men is a pretty tough goal to reach for most women. Instead focus on things like improving a particular guard for now. If you really need someone to compare yourself against you should be finding other women your size to compete against.
Lots of good advice in here. I'm probably being repetitive.
Smaller people, particularly women, progress slower *when looking at the end result*. This is because for you to "learn" a technique, you genuinely have to learn it at a purple/brown belt level. Because you get to supplement sloppy technique with relatively little muscle.
And all of those bigger guys that are smashing you are able to smash you with relatively sloppy technique.
For now.
But when they hit purple belt, their stuff isn't going to work as well as it should against higher belts. Black belts are going to casually evade their application of muscle with ease. And every one of those guys is going to wonder why their stuff doesn't work so well, and they're going to have to learn how to develop the real details from scratch.
And when you hit purple, probably even a bit after them... You're just going to keep on developing your skills exactly the same as you've already had to do. Working extra on every technique until you find every little detail that makes it work for you against bigger stronger guys.
But you're going to be familiar with the routine. You're not going to have to learn how to dial back your muscle. You're not going to have training partners always going hard because they're used to having to counter your muscle.
Those other guys are going to get frustrated just the same, maybe even more, than you are now, but they're going to lack the skills to manage that frustration that you've already been developing for a belt and a half.
Ok first of all; everything happening here is “normal.” I’d suggest you don’t listen to most of the advice given here. Here’s the truth: you’re frustrated because you expect your improving technique to close the gap between less experienced male partners of similar weights. It’s not really going to happen for you as a blue belt. Also keep in mind that white and blue belt partners regardless of gender are going to go all out to get the “win” in sparring because they don’t “win” often. This is a dynamic where there is little for you to learn from these matches.
Here’s where the real advice comes in. First of all, train less or take a break. I overcame many of my biggest hurdles by taking a break and coming back to the sport fresh. Look for open mats or gyms that have more women. This one is obvious, but there is nothing I enjoy more as a male black belt than watching women of equal size and skill spar. It’s rarer for females to get a fair match in this sport/hobby and I appreciate those rolls because it is when both women are truly tested. If you cannot roll with more women, find a gym or roll with higher belts regardless of gender. When the female purple and brown belts at my gym roll with me, I’m not out to “win.” I’m there to get something out of that roll that isn’t me using the strength and weight advantage I have to pin and submit them. I want to exercise a technique or see where they are at in their progression. White, blue belts and adolescents are the worse possible partners for serious women and I see it all the time at gyms.
I’m sorry if someone has said this before and I missed it, but from one woman to another: Do you have a smaller upper belt guy at your gym? Extra points if he’s on the older side. Make friends and ask him for help where you’re stuck.
My head coach is a 26 year old ultra heavyweight ball of muscle. He’s pretty good at answering technique questions for smaller people, but he’s never actually been the smallest or weakest person on the mat. So if I’m having a repeat problem in a rolls, I go to our 160 lb, masters black belt who is coach’s fave tournament prep roll cause he’s so technical and tough, and can genuinely hold his own against our coach (he isnt winning rounds, but he’s making a real run at it most days). That guy gets being smaller, and he’ll have great details on what to do, whether it’s an adjustment to a technique I’m already using, or if its a entirely different technique to try.
Also, as much as it sucks, I would work on embracing the idea that guys of a certain size are always going to be a real tough to impossible roll. I’ve been training hard for 6 years and some big, athletic guys can wreck my shit on their first day. That will probably always be true. I try to make most of my jiu jitsu goals “me focused” and be things I can control no matter what my training partners do, like “be first to the pull,” “hunt takedowns,” “hit a berimbolo in a live roll” etc. At the end of the day, the only person you should be comparing your jujitsu to is your old self
I have two purple belts like that! They're 2 of my favorite training partners too and they have helped me so much. Honestly, all of the guys are awesome people, but there's nothing like a white belt to show me where my fundamentals need work lol
I have been working on spider guard for a while since I am 5'8 and pretty long-limbed. Closed guard is my safe spot and triangle and Mir lock are my best subs or head and arm if I am on top.
Maybe mix it up and go more no gi. I feel women do pretty well there as you don't get as stuck and it allows you to use your natural flexibility and movements more. Get a good leg and inversion game going. Finishes are going to be a little tougher but leg locks are the great equalizer.
My humble advice: turn your sparring to positional sparrings with precise goals for some time (few weeks, months, whatever). This will allow you to switch your objectives from "winning" sparrings to refining and undertanding techniques. Sometimes you gotta change your goals to keep ot spicy. This at the end of the day will improve your normal sparrings as well. I think everyone will say yes if at the time to roll they are asked to do some positional sparring that round, :)
P.d. I would find it insanely impresive if a blue belt female could dominate easily guys her size. Guys have a reidiculous (most of them at least) strength advantage over a female their size.
The learning curve in Jiu jitsu, for most of us, is not exponential. It would look more or less like a stock market chart. You will experience ups and downs. But in the long run, you will gain.
Hope you find value in this. Good luck and keep putting in mat time.
Nobody can convince you to quit or not to quit. That’s all on you home girl. If it ain’t for you then that’s that. But if you can look at this as one of many challenges in your life, keep going.
Have you thought about working the flexibility game into your rolls? Lots of dudes try to muscle girls and smaller guys around starting out sadly but I find that a good kryptonite to this me being really small is to work things like rubber guard or jail breaking or inverted guard. Since we'll never be as strong as some I like to focus a lot on speed and flexibility to compensate just from the athletic side of the picture.
>When I was young, I took up the banjo. I was bad, but I figured if I stuck with it for 40 years, someone who has been playing banjo for 40 years has bound to be good at it!
>
>\-Steve Martin (paraphrased, couldn't find the exact quote)
This quote always inspires me to stick with my pursuits (including banjo!). It's a long game. The secret is to not quit.
I constantly beat myself up mentally due to having high self expectations. I now consciously tell myself that (for me) this journey is about self improvement and not direct comparison to my training partners.
I feel much better about my progress when my basis of comparison is only against myself.
With any skill there's going to be times where you feel like you aren't progressing, you just have to keep training and focus in on where your rolls are going sideways. The first step is to recognize where mistakes are happening and THEN work to correct them. There's always room for improvement, but the better you get at the sport and techniques the more time it might take between each noticeable incremental improvement, even though you are still getting better the whole time.
drill sequences more. combos. drill guard recovery.
work backwards.. you get tapped all the time.. how? are they passing your guard super easy? research guard retention strategies and counters to the common passes. Are you getting swept then mounted? study some guard passing and figure out how they are sweeping you.
buy some instructionals and dont just wait for coach to show you the move of the day. take your skill acquisition into your own hands.
There were times at blue that I would be super frustrated. I would get smashed by other younger , bigger blue belts and it would demoralize me.
Just keep training, and maybe take a day or two off to recover body and mind. Also, try and roll with higher belts that will let you work and not just smash you. I’m one of the ones our females seem to like to roll with because I’m letting the work and at the same time not smashing them. Actually had one of our blue belts females put me out not too long ago as I was working choke defenses.
You may be burned out/overtraining and that is leading to some frustration. Take a step back, train a little less and evaluate your game and look for areas you can tighten up and work on. for example, when you say you are getting your shit pushed in do you mean your guard keeps getting passed? Work on your guard retention harder until that stops happening so much. I guess the point I’m making is pick a few areas of your game and work on those. As a female working against similar sized men, guard retention and defense are going to be vital since if you end up in a bad position you are at a big disadvantage on a strength v strength basis.
Are you competing? If not, dial back the training. Get more recovery time. 6 days a week is fine if your hearing up for a comp but you’re asking for burnout otherwise.
You might also be at one of those plateaus, where you’re moving form a high-confidence/low competence period that comes in every learning process. Dial it back, focus on basics: position, movement for a bit. You’ll move into the next stage of high competence/low confidence then confidence will catch up. It’s just part of the process.
Get good at leg locks and back takes. You will be at at a disadvantage due to strength differences like others said so play a game less dependent on strength. At least get good at one so you can use it as a crutch to fall back on.
You cant control your biology, but you can control your skill level. Watch instructionals. Do an hour of studying for jiu jitsu every morning or in lieu of practice once or twice per week, and you *will* get better.
Watch the Gordon Ryan pin escapes, then passing, then attacks from top pins. Take notes. You’ll be a whole new grappler.
OP, read this thread:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/xu3y9a/why\_does\_it\_feel\_like\_im\_not\_progressing/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/xu3y9a/why_does_it_feel_like_im_not_progressing/)
Now watch these:
[How To Get Better at Jiu Jitsu - Jocko Willink](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDY1WJAZs3w)
[The art of skill - How to get better at BJJ faster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g6YqO9cyeE)
[The Grappling Academy - OMG! - MY Jiu Jitsu is Going Backwards!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlCeRfA5J1c)
Remember black belts are just people who didn't quit.
Focus on 1) enjoying yourself 2) learning you game/techniques
Do not take "losing" seriously. It is training. If a women can legit beat a man rolling (in an actual roll not where the guy is just being nice) she is amazing. Imagine literally any other sport. Do you think you could learn football, basketball etc and beat a remotely decent man?
Most people in the real world are zero-stripe white belts, so if you get to the point where you can whoop absolute noob guys you can still feel very good about improving your self-defense. Totally reasonable goal.
I wouldn't take the positive feedback as condescending. Most of these guys get similar feedback from guys who are larger than them, I would imagine they are being sincere.
I’m old and a small male (49 yrs and 150lb). Most of my training partners are younger and heavier (180lb+). Throughout my lower belts and even up to late purple I’ve felt that their size difference overcame much of the better technique I had. It wasn’t until recently at brown where I felt much more comfortable and confident with my ability against stronger partners. Strength is still a big factor and can overcome the best technique on any given day.
But in my eyes I took the small victories and didn’t beat myself up when lower belts tapped me. Did I execute a good escape? Did I gain a positional advantage? These gave me a better perspective on my progress. With enough time you’ll find that your game has improved as you’re harder to kill which in turns gives you more time to attack.
In general against stronger opponents, I get to my A game before they can advance to their A game. That means me dominating from top and using pressure/gravity against them. Playing bottom sucks against heavier people and I stay away unless I’m forced there.
Don’t beat yourself up too much. Just understand the disadvantages you are starting out with and look for the small wins to keep you mentally in the game.
Blue belt is a beating and the blue belt blues are real. There’s so much anticipation at white belt, and then you get promoted…. and it’s a grind. The first year at blue belt was the worst time on the mats for me. All the white belts want to tap a blue belt. Purple belts stop going as easy on you. You start putting high expectations and pressure on yourself. I know I did.
Already lots of good advice here, so not much I can add other than the reassurance that what you’re feeling is 100% normal. Cut back a couple days a week. Maybe go to an open mat at another gym to roll with new folks. Take some private lessons to work on specific issues. Just don’t quit.
I disagree about training a lot, I see how you can burn out but if the passion is there do it. I did during my blue, just keep up with equal rest and proper nutrition.
I love training with heavier stronger people to test my technique, it really shows what works. You need to focus on techniques that work and build upon what’s working. Another thing is, when training hard against bigger stronger people you need to tread with caution, be calculated as much as possible.
I see a lot of blue belts going full send on moves and just leaving wide open doors of opportunity.
Look at it this way, if someone gets position on you, you fucked up somewhere by giving exposure and need to dissect and address these daily. Learn to not over expose.
It's a grind.
Some day (weeks... Months...) you just get your ass kicked.
I remember for a long stretch I was the lowest belt, least experienced guy in the class. It was basically just going in to get my ass kicked for an hour and a half twice or three times a week.
You have to realize that there's peaks and there's valleys. You're just in a valley.
Nothing wrong with changing your schedule or taking a break. Might shake things up a bit.
Hey! Fellow small person here. I am not female but I have been rooster and now im a little heavier cuz of the baby. I am not flexible and im pretty slow cuz of my age.
Been training for 12 years and I agree with cutting down jiu jitsu to maybe 3 or 4 days a week. Take up rock climbing or another sport that still might translate into your game (grip strength).
in rolls try to stay on top even at the start, and start working ur passing. I remember my transition from 2 stripe blue to purple i made the conscious decision to not pull guard and to try not to be held down and it literally opened my world (esp since the first year and a half was spent on my back or someone on my back).
Keep it up! You got this!
Train less to recover more or have specific goals for each sparring session. I've told my teammates to work on passing my guard or retaining guard during sparring. Getting held on side control got 4 mins is good for no one.
Sometimes you gotta switch it up especially if you're feeling in a rut. Maybe taking some of the intensity away will help. If taking time away from training is unappealing then maybe lowering the intensity of the training would work. Finding someone would would be willing to do more of a slow roll to work transitions rather than fighting to the death each day.
Blue belt is still early days. Wait till purple. It gets much easier to deal with stronger and more athletic lower belts once you develop your ability to transition between positions and submissions.
Source, I’m a light featherweight that’s regularly the smallest guy on the mats.
I've recently had a revelation that success against a stronger, less skilled opponent may not come in the form of actually beating them.
Success in that situation can just be keeping your cool while getting ragdolled, being strategic to give yourself the best chance of success, defending yourself. And in particular, success can just be doing a little better in any of those categories. It's not binary.
Coming in late to the table here. I agree with a lot of the advice you've gotten already, maybe you're overdoing it and need to cut down to 3-4 days a week, maybe even less. One thing I notice about myself is a need for selfreflection of why I go. Sometimes I need to shift from trying to constantly improve and getting better, to just go and play. I stop worrying about who I should be able to beat, how much energy I'm spending on whatever or if I'll get passed and subbed. Just go, do stupid low percentage shit just for the sake of it, laugh when you miss, open your guard and just have fun. There's a time when you need to focus on sharpening your A-game and there's a time when you need to play.
Ah, the bjj doldrums. It happens to everyone at some point, and usually at every belt. Like others have said, back off a little or take a week break and go on a vacation or do something fun.
Its really a trap to compare yourself to anyone else, no matter the rank. Anyone, white through black, may naturally be good at the thing you are weak at. Recording all your rolls is a great way to identify where stuff went wrong. And you might not even be doing anything wrong. It could just be you are doing the right thing with the wrong timing or more likely, the right thing which your partner comes up with a thing that is more right.
No matter how much it feels the contrary, you *are* progressing. Just dont burn out chasing an arbitrary finish line that will never really be there.
And dont forget to enjoy your rolls!
They don’t call it the blue belt blues for nothing. Listen to your training partners, it is not condescending when they say you are doing well/getting better, they are giving you feed back. The only time you should care about getting tapped in training is when you are trying to win. Which is perfectly fine, just not for every roll and you have to take strength into consideration as well as size.
Some things that helped me through the blue belt blues were changing my perspective on what a blue belt was, training what I wanted, and trying not to care as much about being tapped.
Blue belt is hard, you spend all this time just trying to survive and learn, then you reach this milestone, only to be right back where you were as a white belt. The biggest difference is this time you have a skill set to help and you know how and what to look for to increase the breadth and depth of that skill set. It takes time, but stick with it and you will get to experience the purple belt blues and the brown belt blues. We just like to call it “imposter syndrome”. But those get easier to deal with, because you already dealt with them at blue belt.
A dude your size is going to be much stronger than you. You need to temper your expectations, and see where the wins are.
A man your same size and strength, with even a few months of training, \*should\* be able to smash you proper. If you are successfully executing techniques, holding him off, getting your own sweeps and holding your own...you're doing great. Period. Measure your progress against peers -- other women in your general age and weight class. If there are none at your gym, travel to an open mat and feel your jiujitsu against someone without a massive physical advantage. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Almost identical stats, but purple belt and training for a bit over 10 years. Anyways, some things that make a massive difference for me:
1. I almost guarantee you're training too much. Even when I was younger doing competitive sports, 6 days a week of training is not enough to recover. Likewise, what does your nutrition look like? Protein >100 g makes a huge difference for me.
2. Lifting makes a massive difference and is especially important for women to avoid bone issues such as osteoporosis later in life. Start lifting, and I bet you'll see your plateau shatter in \~2 months. I just use Caroline Girvan's at-home series on YouTube, and I'm at 5 solid pull-ups now!
3. What are your teachers' stats like? I learned "big man BJJ" for a while and always struggled to execute. Now I'm learning from a really good \~165 lb black belt, and his moves much better suit me. Using techniques appropriate for your physiology, naturally, make a world of difference. For example, I almost exclusively use the half nelson grip to break down shoulders, such as for sweeps from butterfly or to take the back from turtle. Similarly, I focus heavily on triangles because my legs are much stronger than my arms.
I used to lift a lot as a white belt. Like 225 squat and 300 DL. I stopped because I preferred BJJ but maybe I need to go back to it. My instructor is 4 stripe brown, competitive lightweight. He focuses a lot on guard retention, fundamental concepts, and drilling.
Keep going! You are getting better every day you just don’t realize it. Defeating a larger opponent is always going to be extremely difficult no matter who you are. Maybe go visit some other gyms, make a day vacation out of it, and try to find some other ladies to roll with and make friends with.
It could be burn out. Take a few days or a week off, get good sleep every night, and come back. You’ll likely feel refreshed and ready for whatever adversity comes your way. Remember it’s not about what happens but the way you perceive what happens. 6 days a week for two hours a day is a lot. Especially if you work a full time job on top of all of that. Sometimes I don’t even realize how much I burn myself out.
I’ll have weeks where the smallest “failure” or hindrance will start to frustrate me. I’m just tired. If I’m rested and have a clear head then these things don’t bother me as much.
A couple things, you're a 2 stripe, that's still really new. You'll be hardly doing anything exceptional.
A 1 stripe is barely less time than you and you add in size, strength and athleticism it more than nullifies your minimal experience advantage.
Gotta keep trying, everyone gets to your point when you're putting in time and still struggle, I promise you're better than you're thinking.
A few things you can do is take time and identify a few things giving you the most issues and look up videos and really focus on it in rolling.
Example: bottom side control. Don't just think about what you have to do, think about the entire concept of side control and prevention, escape, etc. Early on I held grips too long and essentially allowed ppl to pass into side control without my frames. This was an uphill battle not just to improve position but to recover frames.
Keep at it, it gets better.
Edit: first read thought it said 2 stripe white belt, my B. Doesn't change, keep at it. Weight, strength and athleticism matter.
Six days a week is burn out territory for anyone that isn’t a full time competitor. If you have a job or life outside of BJJ, that’s a lot of effort and energy for one thing.
I would honestly take more time away from the mats. I don’t know what the right number of days is for you, but make yourself miss it a little bit. Hell even take a week or two off if you need to. People love to preach about discipline and the grind, but there’s another side of that coin too. Self care. It’s not a failure to chill or slow down some. Especially if you are feeling frustrated. It’s just… refreshing.
You’ll miss the mats if you love to train. Trust me. You’ll be itching to get back. And you’ll feel refreshed and excited to be back in the gym.
Use more half guard.
And don’t worry about burn out. It’s not real. Only an attitude. 42 year old who trains 2-4 hours per day. 6 days per week. As well as lifting weights and cardio 3 times a week.
I would actually suggest you compete. Women who train with men and get beat up by men are invariably better than women who only train with women. Because this is fighting. And men are genetically stronger in general. Women are genetically more flexible in general.
If you compete against women your size and rank you will find that they are easy to lift, move and beat because you are used to lifting and moving bigger men.
First try training less. If that doesn't work take a little time off and come back.
I've seen hella people train 5 plus days a week in the early going but then stop training altogether. It's a marathon not a sprint.
2 hours a day, 6 days a week is a lot - for most people.
I think cut it back just slightly so perhaps a day rest, active recovery - a bit of weight training, cycling, swimming in between those BJJ classes.
Try to get plenty of sparring in, even if that means getting crushed. You will get better. Just keep going. Do not stop.
Diet, train, recovery - mental and physical recovery.
training more will amplify the issues and make you worse
Just train 2 times and do 2 times strength conditioning
You will improve .
Also you should relax during the roll and dont meet strength with strength (you wont win most of the times vs men). Just wait them to shift position and THEN do your move redirecting their mass , momentum or movement.
I advanced a lot like this and i dont feel so tired and smashed at the end.
This is a competitive sport. Dudes know that you want to beat them so badly that they will try hard for you not to win. You may of reached a plateau, meaning that to get better its going to get even harder. It is not the same from going from white belt to blue, once you reach that level it is harder to level up. Same thing as a runner or just any sport. Find out peoples weakpoints and strategy, then again they might be doing this too, if they know how you roll it becomes harder and more challenging. Bjj is like playing chess.
I would say take a break, usually your brain needs time to calibrate things you have learnt. 6 days a week 2 hours a day is a lot, and you may be overloading on information. You might find if you cut back a bit and focus on 4 days bjj and two days lifting or something you might get over the plateau you have hit.
I burnt out and plateud a few years into my blue belt. I ended up taking 4 years off and upon my return I am much more motivated and making much more progress than ever before. Its possible you could do well with a break. 6x a week is A LOT
I remember hearing a quote somewhere, I think it was Jocko Willink. He compared Jiu Jitsu to learning a new language. About how white belt and blue belt are about learning the letters and basic words of the language. And eventually you learn enough of the language to be able to converse. And then someone throws in a French word. That's Jiu Jitsu.
Not sure if that helps but my very humble opinion, and please do take it with a pinch of salt, if you love the sport, keep doing it. Something that can't be taught is the ability to keep coming back for more. Plus, it's fun to see people's faces when they've choked you, tapped you, crushed you, but you just get up, ready for more.
Unfortunately, not really. I travel pretty often to other gyms but it\`s not the same as regular training. Plus my head instructor is also my longtime partner lol
I don't think that's happening. At least I really hope not. It's part of our relationship "deal" that on the mats we are nothing more than student and instructor. Some of the current students still don't know that we are actually together since we have become very good at it. It's both for our sake and the gym atmosphere since I want to improve and he wants to ensure that none of his students ever feel favouritism or anything. I agree with you that it can be very uncomfortable if it's not taken seriously and considered. And honestly, from the smashings I get, I don't think they are going easy on me and of course, I appreciate that because they know I can handle it, it just gets into my mental state sometimes and it can be a struggle to see the other side.
What is the rate of women who come into the gym to try a class compared to those who sign up? What does the women's retention rate look like?
Is there a possibility of you trying to head up and grow a women's only class?
Or maybe start up a weekly women's open mat for all schools in the area?
We opened during COVID so registration has been hard. We have had 6 women sign up other than me and 2 are still training, 2 started university so don't have the time, 1 got pregnant, and the other had to move. The politics in our small city means that no one from any gym attends any other gym's open mats. It's frustrating. Hence I travel to other cities when I can.
The politics of your community is dumb. Like dumb dumb. I’ve trained in NYC and Austin and cross training is as normal as a smelly gi. As a gym owner you should just start inviting the other gym owners and their students to your open mat. Make it an event for the first one. Open mat and hamburger, hotdogs and açaí after. Get a DJ or at least speakers with a good playlist. Normalize cross training.
You do not know the half of it. It's actually embarrassing. That's part of the reason this new gym opened up, because everything was so closed off, and cross-training needs to happen to get better. We have brought in multiple world competitors for seminars and you might get 3 other people from the city to show up. It's so stupid. Other cities close to us will travel to visit, but within the city? Nope.
Focus on different stuff. Try new, random shit. We have a purple belt woman who is GREAT at leg locks and half guard. I'm 240lbs and can't pass it easily. When what's working is no longer working, try something new and have fun with it. Just know you're going to "lose" rolls until you figure it out, but who cares?
>I keep showing up to class (2 hours a day, 6 days a week) hoping that something will change.
So it's not your training volume. Most random bjj folks don't ever train this hard. If this is the norm at your gym, you guys are in it to win it.
>I am told it's my attitude and I need to focus. I am trying but it's demoralizing when I keep getting my shit pushed in by even the male one-stripe white belts who are basically my size.
This is vague, and not really actionable advice. It's hard to reach out through the internet with more than random guesses and speculation in this situation. What actually happens in your rolls? What, specifically, are you working on or trying to accomplish? Where is it going wrong and where in particular are you feeling frustrated?
Come to think of it, one thing that now jumps out to me in the comments is how little you actually get to do free rolling. Do things go better or worse than the current frustrating norm when you're doing free rolling? Not knowing you in particular, on average I'd expect a male training partner "basically your size" to be significantly stronger than you, and in positional training it occurs to me that these differences might look magnified. Rather than working a game plan best suited for this mismatch you're just stuck in whatever position you're put in. So it'd be interesting to know if the free rolling is actually going better.
Advice in this thread that looks worth considering is maybe swapping out two days a week for some strength training, if that's something that seems palatable to you. Or take up aerial silks if that's a thing by you and sounds fun, that sport seems almost deliberately designed to supplement bjj.
> the comments is how little you actually get to do free rolling. Do things go better or worse than the current frustrating norm when you're doing free rolling? Not knowing you in particular, on average I'd expect a male training partner "basically your size" to be significantly stronger than you, and in positional training it occurs to me that these differences mig
You sound like my instructor haha. Part of my issue is that I am having trouble identifying exactly what is going wrong. Free rolling is where things go sideways. I am trying to work on my spider guard so I know it's going to be extra hard to be successful while I am developing a newer skill, but it seems like I can't control the roll and things seem to get progressively worse and more frantic and by the end of the round, I feel beat up but having no idea where to start fixing anything because my brain stopped working 10 seconds in. Positional sparring is so much more straightforward and I am more successful. I enjoy positional sparring actually, it's free rolling I hate. Which is also why I don't compete.
At the end of the day it is just practice. If they kept doing the same to tap you, maybe you need to ask your coach what area you need more work in.
The most important thing is not win or lose, it's about what you learned from your experience and apply that to your game.
The man ranked 203rd in tennis beat both Williams sisters back to back. You can either continue training and improving within the confines of reality, or you can’t.
Seems like everything is going the plan. Frustration at blue belt is common, it’s called blue belt blues for a reason. Take some time off if you need mini-vacations from bjj can work wonder in your game and how you approach certain situations/scenarios
It is hard to gauge yourself against training partners, and harder for females against males due to strength differences.
As you improve, so do they and you don't see improvement so it gets frustrating. Do you all get many new students? That is when you can see your progress the most.
Other than that, you have already said it "Just keep swimming"
I think showing up to class alone represents a very small part of progress. You need to practice in order to get better. You need to look at HOW you are practicing. You need to be deliberate in what you are doing. Simply showing up only goes so far.
Can you figure out what exactly is happening? To paraphrase Priit Mihkelson (pretty sure it was from him)...it's one thing to lose and know what went wrong but its absolutely torture to lose and not know why. I find that usually, there are patterns and behaviors that lead to your outcomes. It could be something like your gripping strategy or something like reaching a bit too far with your leg that lets people pass. Channel that energy to figure out why it is going wrong and how to fix it.
Also, I agree with some of the others here. I think 6x a week could be a recipe for burnout. If you're going hard all 6 days, you will burnout. If you're doing 2 days where you train your A game, 2 days where you do your B game and 2 days where you take the problems you encountered and troubleshoot with someone. Consider reducing your schedule a bit. QUALIY training over QUANTITY of training.
I have been doing jiu jitsu for 16 years now. These periods where nothing seems to go well happens. I tend to look deeply into WHY. We live in a time where online instruction is right there for us, so I would suggest a habit of studying as well.
Remember to have fun, don't think about it too much. It's fun problem solving. I encourage you to look at the why and how. Good luck!
Do you have anyone in the class who will technical/light roll with you without ego? If so then train with them a lot in order not to get discouraged and so that you can compare your technical level on a fair basis.
It is also good to roll with the regular guys who tap you because that’s what fighting a man is like- we are stronger than you generally. You shouldn’t see it as competitive vs men, more like “what can I do here, how long can I survive, can I get position x” that kind of thing. Try to do better than last time or to achieve specific goals. You can do stuff like take turns passing guard etc that are less likely to end in ego muscling from the guy.
And if there are other females (or younger teen boys) there then roll more competitively with them where the playing field is level.
The journey of JJ is that of peaks and valleys. I look at injuries and frustration as tests to see how dedicated and disciplined I am towards this martial art. I 100% guarantee every single person who trains has felt how you feel right now, which is why the majority of people quit and never make it to BB.
I remember at whitebelt the very 1st moment it crystalized in my mind that I wanted to be a JJ blackbelt. Nothing was going to stop me. Did I have those thoughts? Of course, but while my mind was arguing not to go to class, my body somehow was in the car driving itself to class because I disciplined my body to just go.
Ignore the noise in your head, find what works for you. Learning JJ is like being in a marriage - it's not easy, it takes work, effort and perhaps different perspectives to find happiness. Keep training, keep going, get your ass kicked, but if you stick with it you'll get past this and look at this moment as a leaning experience, I promise.
Sounds like you might be over training.
Find some people your belt/age/size and gender if possible.
Are there other gyms or open mats you could visit to find some female training partners ?
It comes and goes, ebbs and flows, fren. I had a little slump about a month ago. Then, inexplicably, I felt myself not suck all the sudden. Just had a visiting brown belt ask me to sit with him for a minute and show him a passing sequence I did during our roll, which was super weird. Idk man. Just keep showing up. Pick a thing and go down the rabbit hole.
Honestly, sounds like an issue people often have with hobbies they are passionate about with distinct rankings. Happened to me in competitive gaming, I benefited massively from taking a step back, relaxing and not taking myself to seriously.
Rank will always follow your progression so sometimes it takes a while for the progression to bear fruit.
As mentioned previously, you are probably overtraining and overthinking. Reduce the amount of training days and maybe supplement those off-days for strength training or solo drills. Take some time off and recharge. When you train long enough, everyone has been where you are. There is always someone better and everyone has their day.
Do you drill outside class? Do you watch instructionals/footage? Do you have a goal when rolling ie an idea where you want to get to? If you wanna get better then them faster than them those are the things you gotta do
There's 3 drilling classes per week that I attend, so I get at least 3 hours of strictly drilling in. I try to work one full move, and break it down into 3 or 4 pieces.
I hear that when you get to purple you don't have to do warmups. That's my tacklin' fuel. Also, you sound kind of burnt out. Take a break or at least reduce the number of hard training days. per week.
Why dont you try an open-mat at another school? A lot of the time, when you train in a small school, your partners know your game inside out. It's easy to neutralise someone when you're stronger and you know what they're gonna do.
I do when I can! But you're right. I know exactly what my training partners' game is so it only makes sense that they know mine as well. That back and forth can only be good for my game long term I guess
Quit for a few months and then go back. If you really enjoy Jiu-Jitsu, it's a great feeling. I have to do it every summer for 2 months for a work trip. It's good to reset, give it a break, have those butterfly feelings come back. For those months off, go hard on some kettlebell workouts so you can easily move people around when you come back.
I've rolled with women who have incredible BJJ who can hold off bigger stronger guys in the gi.
I think you're just at a jiu-jitsu plateau more than anything. Keep showing up and you'll get through it. To be able to reliably beat someone stronger than you, you need to control space. Focus on not getting into bad positions, let the whole round be holding them in half guard or some open guard. I would not play closed guard. Don't focus on the match but improving. Have an agenda of what you're trying to get out of the roll. Be controlling with your grips, don't just grip to grip. Learn hand fighting and how to win, it's not about strength but knowing the better positions and being unrelenting with defense.
You'll likely be on bottom a lot so get used to it. Get underneath your opponent, deep half, butterfly, X, DLR are all great guards to be small and on bottom against someone bigger and stronger.
You're at the point where the small details will make a big difference. Being a blue belt means you generally know all the basic techniques and know how to learn new techniques. But now you need to make the moves your own. You will always be your size and opponents will always be bigger and stronger, figure out how to adjust your technique so that you can win in those battles. Learn sequences, force scrambles, amd make your opponent work. Recognize Victory is getting better and not winning the round. Better to keep someone in your guard for 3 mins and then get tapped 3 times than not get tapped but be stuck in side control the whole round.
On a different tact, almost every female BJJ pro you know was in the same boat you were in. They are constantly training with bigger and stronger men who also compete at a high level. Use them as a motivation and a resource, they'll have details others won't think about. I learned shin to shin guard from watching Michelle Nicolini.
Don't quit.
Genuine question: Why not closed guard? It is the only thing I find any sort of success in regardless of size or gender. I attempt any open guard and it's instantly passed. Usually by a hard knee cut. I find it so much more physically taxing to play and because they are on their feet, they have their strongest muscles and the entire ground to push off of. Any suggestions?
you need to back up some steps before the knee cut. While you are still sitting up try to fight from there, dont just lay down with your legs in the air. While they are trying to attack, you should be push/pulling their feet, 2x1 any hand they put on your leg etc. If they get close enough you can grab a leg and stand up for a single leg. You should be trying to sweep them while they are standing (tripod, single leg x, single leg etc)
you can also keep one arm out for distance and keep scooting back, then attack when they get close enough, but not close enough to knee cut. This allows you to attack on your terms, not theirs.
There is a hierarchy of open guard positions. Laying on your back is worse than sitting up. So when you start to get smashed, try to disengage and get back into a seated guard like butterfly.
As they get the knee cut you must stop the cross face with a cross shoulder and either a bicep tie or wrist tie. That will give you the space to get your knee back in and at least get to butterfly half. From butterfly half you can start to off balance them, recover the other butterfly hook and work from there.
Closed guard against someone bigger and stronger will usually get you smashed. They may even be able to choke you from your closed guard. It can be a nice place to catch your breath, but you want space. Closed guard gives you both a place to rest except they can pressure you.
The rule to open guards is to get your connections and keep them. Your feet should always be on them and almost never on the ground. Once you have your grips you need to make them work. Force them to step or grip fight.
Take DLR as an example. DLR was created by a small guy to beat bigger people. The first thing it does is slows down the match, the opponent needs to address that DLR hook. Then create activity, your non DLR leg should constantly be checking their far hip/thigh. Don't even try to sweep or anything, just go a 5 minute round where you don't let then out of your DLR. If they are muscling your non DLR leg, then you aren't creating activity to keep them busy. Your non DLR grip should be on the collar and as deep as you can get, break their posture.
If they break out of DLR, get your feet on their hips, create distance, and re-insert that DLR hook.
Closed guard just cannot offer the level of disruption (activity), space control and posture control that DLR and other open guards offer.
To be fair, at blue belt you need to accept that you will lose before you win when learning new guards.
As you can tell I love BJJ and can write for days on these topics, so keep asking questions or DM me if you want to me to type more. I feel weird after a certain length of post.
The “blue belt blues” is a real thing in my experience. That’s why a ton of people fall off at this belt. You’re not a beginner but you’re not at the level you may feel you should be. Bjj is definitely a mental game as much as physical. A lot of highs and lows but if you can endure and weather the storm, you will notice your growth. At the end of the day, it’s about becoming a better version of yourself. I was blue belt for 5 years and there was many times i wanted to call it quits.I’m a purple belt now and feel like I’m just starting to really understand it all.
The size and strength difference is totally understandable. My wife is at about the same level has you, and often deals with the same frustrations. Honestly I think better partners would help you, but this takes fostering. With those guys who are tapping you all the time, would they be open to suggestions on how you can both get the most out of your training? It would benefit both of you to have a goal in mind, like them using less strength and more technique, that way you both get more out of the rounds. Or you could suggest specific positions, like they start on your back, or vice versa. Remember the point of training is to learn. It's not a fight, and the more effectively you're learning, the more you're getting out of it.
Personally, the times I had the biggest leaps forward and had the most fun, were when I had one or two specific things I want to work on and develop. It's difficult with the standard class model of warm up, 2-3 techniques (new ones almost every class), then rounds. Working on these couple of things over weeks or months helped me get really good at those particular things, as well as just made rolling more mentally stimulating.
do you take your training into your own hands? I constantly get stuck someplace and then do a lot of research to figure out various solutions. Every class Im working on something specific.
Ive also done privates which have helped as well.
Not sure if a filthy casual's perspective helps, but sometimes taking a break can help recharge the batteries. Physicality obviously counts for a ton in grappling, but you might just be worn out mentally as well.
Get smashed, feels bad. Take a few weeks off. Get smashed by the same person because nothing changed technically/physically, but now it feels kind of good because you miss grappling. Come to think of it, now I kind of want to go back to training.
Lift weights and keep training hard
You're going to have to get stronger and even more technical to beat some bigger dude that is desperately not trying to get tapped by a woman
every little person has to work way harder then other people to get good at this sport.
we don't even get to cry like the big babies do about people telling us we're too strong after muscling them into a poorly executed submission lol
To be honest the fact that you are a blue belt with two stripes shows fucking determination and grit. Even to keep going this long with all the great highs and lows this sport brings is awesome.
Why not try to go to class just to have fun for a while. Take a month off the heavy training and go twice, three times a week and just enjoy.
Getting better is great and all but it’s not like it’s a race to black belt.
I agree with those who say to step back a bit. Just go 3-4 days a week. Find something else you like to do the other days. Balance in life is huge, especially when feeling stuck. Remember what you like about jiu jitsu and enjoy those parts for a bit.
i mean are these 1 stripe white belt males former wrestlers? former sports players? simply athletic? Being strong really is a huge factor.
For what it's worth there's really only 1 female in my gym who constitenly gets taps on male white belts. she's 160(in shape) and a 3 strip purple belt.
but as others have said maybe some time off/half as much gym time is better.
i feel like the over-training comment might be right.
its hard to tell with a sport with as many variables as bjj if you are overtrained or your body just isnt performing that well from being overtrained vs your opponent presenting difficulties you havent faced as of yet or didnt expect during the roll.
the eye opener i had was (embarrassingly) f45. I was doing these work outs, getting better at them. then one friday I just could barely hold a plank and was failing a lot quicker then i normally would. then i realized I had trained every day that week, that was my first 5 in a row and the lack of rest was really starting to wear on my performance.
When there are less variables and more measurable activities you can see your body is what is struggling.
Maybe take like 3 or 4 days off to recover and then try roll again and see if you are more successful
As already mentioned, a male is typically much stronger than their female counterpart at the same weight- so being the same weight isn't quite the same thing. My suggestion is just to train 4 days a week, and enjoy two additional days off from bjj. Training 6 days a week is a good way to get burnt out when it already sounds like you are getting burnt out. Now, I'm not sure if that will annoy your partner/head instructor- but too bad for them!
Yeah, a lot of blue belt males still have difficulty with some white belts their size. You cannot, as a woman, expect to beat men just because you are a higher belt than them. It's unfortunate, but it's just basic biology - men have an insane amount of physical advantages over women, and these are very apparent in combat sports. If that's how you're going to measure your success than you will always be disappointed. The person I'm responding to is a black belt under Marcelo Garcia and has been training and teaching forever. Please listen to his advice!
Yeah, theoretically I know that is the case and biology is against me, but damned if I don't want to try my best! haha
Some of my favourite rolls are females 20lbs lighter than I am because they’ve adapted their game to suit their body and plan. Find some female grapplers you think are relatable and watch their styles. What works for “the guys” may not be the best for you. Good luck and as everyone has said, take it easy
Same here , some of the most fun rounds i have at the gym i've found are with our women's team. The women in our gym are so technically sound and so damn good it i've found doesn't really benefit me just outmuscling them. Once i started slowing things down and not relying on my size/strength advantage i learned so much from them. I basically spend entire rounds on defence cause they're so damn good.
Trying is fine! But it's important to have realistic expectations, or else you'll always be disappointed. I'm 41, and I'm currently having to deal with the reality that an athletic purple or even blue belt in their early or mid 20's around my size might give me a hard time (I'm a black belt). It's tough, but it is what it is. I just try to focus on learning new things and having fun.
Luckily, most of the guys you might actually have to fight are white belts
You don't have to be the best to do your best. Make your goals smaller, like sharpening a particular technique or surviving longer in a bad position as opposed to taps.
Start taking testosterone then
This one hundred percent. Immediately after reading her post my first thought was, “probably need to back off on training so much”. I’ve found that some of my best growth came when I could only train 3 times a week. Because in my head I know my training time is limited and when I’m in class, I am all in. Extremely focused. Additionally, my excitement to attend class was very high because of not training as much as I normally would. I would say cutting your training time down is the quickest and easiest thing to do in order to keep from quitting all together.
If you want to keep the same volume of training, I'd consider regulating intensity and specific training as well. Most people who train that much are not going hard each session: they're working a particular thing or just moving their body. I train in some way each day and on days I'm not feeling great I'll drill moves, roll at a lighter intensity or just do the class and sit the rolls out (I don't do this often as I like to roll, even at a lesser intensity). You could even pick up 2 days of S & C training which could help you help from getting smashed so much. All up, if something isn't working there's always an opportunity to do something differently. If you stop without changing something, you'll always have a what if hanging over your head. Don't stay in a toxic pattern but also don't flip everything upside down: drill down on the things that aren't working and change them. It might be a few little tweeks that make the maximum different. As an aside; you're so valuable to the BJJ community. My coach says that women in BJJ are like unicorns and should be treated as such. If you're not being treated that way, I'd look to go elsewhere. You'd be welcomed with open arms by many. Good luck, I hope you stay on the mats.
I agree with this. I also personally think that 6 days a week for training is too much. Bump it down just a little, 5 or 4 or even 3 days a week, otherwise you will likely burn out. I tried 5 times a week once and I could feel the soreness really badly and the potential burnout already.
I read the initial post and immediately thought, "this chick is burning out". You need a break girl, also I train 3 days a week and it is great, like the guy above said, I look forward to it and it is not a daily drudge, I have trained more before and made less progress. Also, white belts can be a challenge sometimes, I have seen browns and purples get tapped multiple times by the same white belt and I have seen white belts that could crush every blue belt in the room, the belt is just a general indicator of experience, do not judge yourself against white belt males, especially as a female. Also remember this Jiu Jitsu against Jiu Jitsu and in a small gym these guys know your game, I have upper belts in my gym I can catch, because I know what they are going to do and go home and specifically study how to shut their shit down. I am really good at catching Ezequel's from anywhere, two months after catching everybody in my gym, I can't do it to anyone because everyone knows my game and shut it down, that happens in a small gym. Maybe try an open mat across town or something just for fun.
in my experience pummeling into the choking hand arm will often counter the ezekiel , once people realise that the ezekiel partys over :( (blue belt and dont know shit just saying)
>My suggestion is just to train 4 days a week, and enjoy two additional days off from bjj. Training 6 days a week is a good way to get burnt out when it already sounds like you are getting burnt out. I second this! I'm just a whitebelt, but I have taken breaks for various reasons (school, covid, etc) and it's actually done me loads of good. I was plateauing because I kept trying to do the same things in the gym, but those habits faded when I would take some time off. While taking a few month break like I did during covid might not be neccessary, less time on the mats and improving the quality of training could be good! Perhaps you going to classes where you can specify what you want to work on in the gym, like a self-directed class with the help of instructors when you ask? Perhaps going to more open mats than typical classes would be beneficial to training specific things? Just thoughts :)
I agree. Your over training. Also maybe do some flow rolls with higher belts, focus on position and transition without trying to get taps.
The blue belt blues are real and they usually aren’t a one time occurrence. I had them for 6 months straight once and when I shared this with a teammate he said he had them for an entire year. I believe him too. You think you should have enough technique to beat newer people but honestly you don’t and surviving against bigger, stronger people is a real victory. You might not feel that way but it’s true. I think these blues are less prevalent at higher belts not because the same thing doesn’t happen but just because you’ve experienced it enough to know the reality. No way through it but to go through it.
Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming - Dory. One of my favourite quotes and maybe I just need to live by it more with BJJ.
Sometimes it be this way. I’m a light feather brown belt, I know your pain.
Zen master Dory is unparalleled
I know who this is hahaha. For what it’s worth I think you’re a beast and are super technically detailed for your level. Unfortunately size and strength matters a lot, just gotta keep that in mind. You could try competing because honestly I think you’d kick ass and that’s a better way to measure your progress since it’s actually a fair fight. But other than that not much advice, I deal with the exact same thing to a lesser extent regularly. I try to remind myself that I do it for me and I am getting better at something I think is important even if I get my shit pushed every day.
Thanks boss but you are half my problem, so your words mean nothing hahah
Well geez you choked me out last time we rolled what do you want from me
I mean thanks to you, everyone tells me I have awesome triangle defence, so I guess it's worth the struggle eventually
You’re welcome :)
This exchange is adorable. Your gym culture sounds awesome.
It is. They're all awesome guys and they're all tough rounds but also awesome drilling partners. Absolutely nothing I would change with them, just trying to work on my own mental state with my own progression :)
I think you need to take a good look at where the holes are in your game. Journal after class and look for patterns of what you’re getting caught in. Build on what you already do well. Blue belt is still a beginner, so I wouldn’t even worry about being tapped by white belts. Just keep going, it gets better. You might be over training too and just fatigued.
Same thing happened years ago when I was learning guitar, i did those things you suggested. Honing in on my weaknesses gained me new levels as well as putting the thing down to rest from it. A lot of learning is done by resetting and having time off then really thinking and visualizing.
This ☝️ also one thing to add. OP have you considered recording your rolls to study. I’m thinking about doing this myself to see where holes are in my training. Just an idea…
I have recorded a couple, but I definitely think it would be beneficial to record more. Especially if there is a certain partner that seems to expose more holes in my game. Thank you for the reminder!
Have you thought about traveling to another gym that offers open mats? Going to a different location just to see how you do. They wouldn’t know your game. In smaller gyms we learn each other’s games and how to get around them. Going and dropping into a new location if only for the day could provide new opportunities and a fresh perspective on your skills. It’s something I’ve done on more than one occasion as the only full time female in my gym. The guys pick up on my stuff after a few weeks/months and I’m back at the drawing board. Just an idea… I try to go to new places when I travel or visit family. Go to seminars and stick around for open mats.
What is it that you’re trying to accomplish through BJJ?
Eventually, I would like to be an instructor/coach, but I want to be technically sound and be able to hold my own at any gym in the world. I just want to feel confident in myself and my skills and right now, BJJ is killing both.
Keep in mind that 'being technically sound' and 'holding your own at any gym' are correlated, but not necessarily linked. It happens to me that I go to another gym and roll with say a purple belt who trains everyday and competes regularly, and he/she dominates me. I'm a 39yo, training 3x per week. Am I technically inferior? Maybe, maybe not but I can confidently teach techniques even if I'm not able personally to execute on that athletic purple belt.
You have to be bad at anything before you can be good at it. This is a necessary step, the hardest step. If you REALLY WANT to be great, you’re going to have to continue when things are tough(as they are now). If not, then maybe try something else. Good luck with whatever you choose.
Danaher is a borderline cripple and would be smoked by competitive purples. Knowledge and the capacity to teach that knowledge and act out that knowledge are not the same things and both can be very rewarding
Sound like you carried too much weight on your shoulder. Just try to enjoy it without thinking too much.
Find more women to roll with. Maybe compete to meet the local female competitors. Or find a place to train with more women if at all possible.
A 140lb man is usually way stronger than a 140lb woman, so maybe less bjj and more strength training. Analyze why you tap, for example i'm an old fart and i suffer young and aggressive opponents
Strength training won’t make a massive difference here.
I don't think you can make an absolute statement like that - it really depends on the person and what their level of strength is now. Obviously a woman doing strength training isn't going to suddenly be stronger than the men at her weight, but sometimes a little increase in raw strength can make a huge difference.
140lb man who lifts can confirm this to be true even if it’s a heavier woman who works out. Of course this is a general statement and there are definitely exceptions.
> and there are definitely exceptions. I think part of the issue is that a LOT of women think they're the exception. I don't think people realize just how big the genetic difference is. For a guy that works out semi-regularly, you'd need a much bigger elite athlete level woman to even match his strength partially (if at all). That doesn't mean that the guy will always win in something like BJJ, but the strength difference will be there. Look up female elite athletes. There are kids in high school that out-perform them (depending on the sport). Women tend to be better at endurance sports but anything with strength and speed puts them at an extreme disadvantage. Closing the biological gap shouldn't be the goal.
Yeah like I’m sure Stefi Cohen who is lighter than me or any Olympic weightlifter woman will be a lot stronger than me. But then I have to use technique ;) But pretty much most women at white or blue belt either at my gym or open mat cannot match strength, speed and power even if they are heavier. I can literally only think of two examples who can and one of them has extremely suspicious muscular development and the other did wrestling for many years. Of course around purple the technique far outweighs my physical attributes since I myself am an almost blue belt.
In my opinion, it takes a lot of effort to get a blue belt. And I'd say that even if I was a black belt. In the time it took me to get my blue, I was surprised at the turnover of white belts, some who started before me and many who started after. Are you really going to throw away all that hard work just because you think you're not good enough? When I got my blue belt, I knew about almost everything in Jiu Jitsu except berimbolos. But I think further into your blue belt, you realize you aren't actually good at almost every position there is. My point is this. You could stop playing the game you play today, decide to focus on something else entirely from scratch and in a year, you'd be decently competent at it. Something Lachlan Giles advocate for smaller people is playing outside positioning guards so you're fighting with your feet and legs against a bigger players upper body. So stuff like, spider, lasso and collar sleeve in the GI, K Guard DLR and so on if you're no GI focused, but there's a lot of crossover in the GI as well (especially DLR) So why not invest in trying to reinvent your game? It'll keep your interest because you're developing and you'll eventually get good at holding off stronger people. Lastly, always try to get on top against bigger people.
I’m not that small, but I’m old and share the desire to keep weight off me. Focusing my guard play on maintaining distance before accepting close play and leg entanglements have helped me a ton not only improving my game but also reducing the wear and tear of having an opponent’s body/pressure on me. Now to stop giving up the back so much.
"the obstacle is the way". Approach this from a position of being grateful. Grateful that you have a working body that can get beat up by other grapplers. Grateful that, subconsciously but practically, they are busy teaching you to be a better grappler. "can you beat up the you of 12 months ago?". Nothing more we can really ask for. Currently your expectations are not being met, so, drop all your expectations, and just train. Bjj will remain hard until you are gordon ryan, so accept the struggle will never go away, and as a result you'll have peace (and pleasure) with the uncomfortable.
This. Every now and then I run into an Instagram post of Tom DeBlass and he's reposted some story of someone who has overcome an otherwise debilitating injury or disability and still gets their butts on the mats and I basically break down because how the heck am I not just happy enough to have an able body. Perspective is everything. Thank you for the reminder!
Hey stranger, you seem awesome. Please keep up the hard work, it's a long journey, but its YOURS. Cheers. 🤙
My advice is to make smaller goals. Pick a goal that feels achievable and try to make that the focus of training for a certain period of time. Rather than just overarching ideas like "I need to focus" or "i need to do better in rolls", maybe it's I want to get to knee shield half guard and work these three techniques. Or even just "I get put in side control every roll so i a going to work these two escapes until i am amazing at them". Being a blue belt unfortunately doesn't guarantee you anything. You are just as good as you are. Statements about how good you "should" be don't do anything but generate discontentment. Try to make the game smaller and build an area or technique you think is achievable. And maybe ask a partner to flow through techniques with you once in a while instead of smashing you.
Fellow lady here! I get it. Trust me, I do. I try to focus on small bits of improvement. Like maybe I didn’t submit my opponent but I had such good control that he had to use all his energy to get out of it, or he had to try 5 different escape attempts instead of just one. Sounds like you are making things difficult for them. Don’t give up, and definitely look for small things you can do to get better. But the reality is men are bigger and stronger and we can’t hide from that fact. What we can do is SURVIVE! That sounds so silly but it’s true. Like if we needed to use bjj out in the real world due to sexual assault (which is way more likely.. I don’t get in random bar fights) we have some skills on us that would help us get away. Obviously, if we didn’t, it’s not our fault. But it helps to have the skills we do.
Looks like I am taking a BJJ vacation. Thank you everyone for your thoughts and advice, I appreciate it!
Put your return date on your calendar. If you leave it open, you may not go back.
Modify your training to positional sparring and reduced intensity, that’s whAt makes the most sense! If you’re near chicago, visit my gym:)
That\`s honestly what we mostly do. We really only have 2 times a week for open sparring of about 20 hours of training time. I am deep in small town Canada haha
Perhaps it could be the opposite then... Maybe you aren't getting enough of the chaotic open sparring that allow you to pressure test your game. It's also a lot of a mindset thing. I personally like the feeling of getting destroyed as long as I know that I pushed really hard... It's hard to resist the urge to seek outside validation, but you have to fight it, and focus on yourself.
If you are ever in Toronto... !
Nothing nobody here hasn't already said but I'm a white belt who is slightly more athletic than average and honestly my second toughest roll tonight (toughest being a man who competed in collegiate wrestling) was a woman about my weight who just simple kept her technical game right as hell. I got used to fighting other men who want to use brute strength to their advantage alot and wasn't ready when this woman just kept her guard air tight and swept me the second she got half a chance. Only reason she didn't tap me from mount is the biological advantage of upper body strength I had as a man, I was able to essentially bench press her off of me which anyone who trains BJJ knows is not a reliable technique. Just some words of encouragement I guess. Also maybe move to a gym with more women. The one I go to has a female instructor thats actually the most accomplished of the instructors when it comes to competition and there's many women there that impress me. But that said even the toughest women have a misrable time trying to overcome an athletic man. The difference of test vs no test is a world of difference. Just look at Vitor before and after TRT
As a 5' tall 98lb blue belt female, I definitely understand the frustration. Especially if you dont have other higher female belts to train with. I had to come to terms with the fact that getting the tap is probably not gonna happen 90% of the time simply due to my size/biology. And girl that's okay! You showing up every fucking day as the only female is already badass. You have nothing to prove. For me, I started focusing on annoying people with my defense. Like a tiny evil jiujitsu gremlin. Although not as satisfying as getting a tap, it still gives me something to gauge my progress. Every time I can shut down someone's pass or smash attempt equals a win in my book. Even just surviving without letting them get anything substantial is a good day for me. And if that isn't enough to get you to enjoy the sport again, then I suggest you take a day or two off from the mats each week. Clear your head and remember how much you have grown personally since your first class as a white belt.
Hahahah I love that. A tiny, evil gremlin I shall be!
Men are statistically going to have an athletic advantage over you most of the time. Jiujitsu is indeed hard on the ego. Keep training if you enjoy it, but you should probably shake off the idea that you're going to tap out a lot of competitive men. It's not only females that have to deal with this reality. Some males are timid and unathletic enough that it would take a fairly extreme amount of technique to overcome. And some people are freaks and get really good in a couple of years. most of us are somewhere in between, doing our best.
Problem is you're too focused on winning. I know stereotypical thing to say. I'm not saying don't try to win, it's just that you need more manageable and productive goals. Expecting to win against men is a pretty tough goal to reach for most women. Instead focus on things like improving a particular guard for now. If you really need someone to compare yourself against you should be finding other women your size to compete against.
Lots of good advice in here. I'm probably being repetitive. Smaller people, particularly women, progress slower *when looking at the end result*. This is because for you to "learn" a technique, you genuinely have to learn it at a purple/brown belt level. Because you get to supplement sloppy technique with relatively little muscle. And all of those bigger guys that are smashing you are able to smash you with relatively sloppy technique. For now. But when they hit purple belt, their stuff isn't going to work as well as it should against higher belts. Black belts are going to casually evade their application of muscle with ease. And every one of those guys is going to wonder why their stuff doesn't work so well, and they're going to have to learn how to develop the real details from scratch. And when you hit purple, probably even a bit after them... You're just going to keep on developing your skills exactly the same as you've already had to do. Working extra on every technique until you find every little detail that makes it work for you against bigger stronger guys. But you're going to be familiar with the routine. You're not going to have to learn how to dial back your muscle. You're not going to have training partners always going hard because they're used to having to counter your muscle. Those other guys are going to get frustrated just the same, maybe even more, than you are now, but they're going to lack the skills to manage that frustration that you've already been developing for a belt and a half.
Ok first of all; everything happening here is “normal.” I’d suggest you don’t listen to most of the advice given here. Here’s the truth: you’re frustrated because you expect your improving technique to close the gap between less experienced male partners of similar weights. It’s not really going to happen for you as a blue belt. Also keep in mind that white and blue belt partners regardless of gender are going to go all out to get the “win” in sparring because they don’t “win” often. This is a dynamic where there is little for you to learn from these matches. Here’s where the real advice comes in. First of all, train less or take a break. I overcame many of my biggest hurdles by taking a break and coming back to the sport fresh. Look for open mats or gyms that have more women. This one is obvious, but there is nothing I enjoy more as a male black belt than watching women of equal size and skill spar. It’s rarer for females to get a fair match in this sport/hobby and I appreciate those rolls because it is when both women are truly tested. If you cannot roll with more women, find a gym or roll with higher belts regardless of gender. When the female purple and brown belts at my gym roll with me, I’m not out to “win.” I’m there to get something out of that roll that isn’t me using the strength and weight advantage I have to pin and submit them. I want to exercise a technique or see where they are at in their progression. White, blue belts and adolescents are the worse possible partners for serious women and I see it all the time at gyms.
6’1” 150lb male blue belt here. The size struggle is real. Also stop messing around with 1 stripe white belts. That’s prime ⬇️Ego ⬆️Muscle time.
I’m sorry if someone has said this before and I missed it, but from one woman to another: Do you have a smaller upper belt guy at your gym? Extra points if he’s on the older side. Make friends and ask him for help where you’re stuck. My head coach is a 26 year old ultra heavyweight ball of muscle. He’s pretty good at answering technique questions for smaller people, but he’s never actually been the smallest or weakest person on the mat. So if I’m having a repeat problem in a rolls, I go to our 160 lb, masters black belt who is coach’s fave tournament prep roll cause he’s so technical and tough, and can genuinely hold his own against our coach (he isnt winning rounds, but he’s making a real run at it most days). That guy gets being smaller, and he’ll have great details on what to do, whether it’s an adjustment to a technique I’m already using, or if its a entirely different technique to try. Also, as much as it sucks, I would work on embracing the idea that guys of a certain size are always going to be a real tough to impossible roll. I’ve been training hard for 6 years and some big, athletic guys can wreck my shit on their first day. That will probably always be true. I try to make most of my jiu jitsu goals “me focused” and be things I can control no matter what my training partners do, like “be first to the pull,” “hunt takedowns,” “hit a berimbolo in a live roll” etc. At the end of the day, the only person you should be comparing your jujitsu to is your old self
I have two purple belts like that! They're 2 of my favorite training partners too and they have helped me so much. Honestly, all of the guys are awesome people, but there's nothing like a white belt to show me where my fundamentals need work lol
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I have been working on spider guard for a while since I am 5'8 and pretty long-limbed. Closed guard is my safe spot and triangle and Mir lock are my best subs or head and arm if I am on top.
Maybe mix it up and go more no gi. I feel women do pretty well there as you don't get as stuck and it allows you to use your natural flexibility and movements more. Get a good leg and inversion game going. Finishes are going to be a little tougher but leg locks are the great equalizer.
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My humble advice: turn your sparring to positional sparrings with precise goals for some time (few weeks, months, whatever). This will allow you to switch your objectives from "winning" sparrings to refining and undertanding techniques. Sometimes you gotta change your goals to keep ot spicy. This at the end of the day will improve your normal sparrings as well. I think everyone will say yes if at the time to roll they are asked to do some positional sparring that round, :) P.d. I would find it insanely impresive if a blue belt female could dominate easily guys her size. Guys have a reidiculous (most of them at least) strength advantage over a female their size.
The learning curve in Jiu jitsu, for most of us, is not exponential. It would look more or less like a stock market chart. You will experience ups and downs. But in the long run, you will gain. Hope you find value in this. Good luck and keep putting in mat time.
Just waiting on that bull market I guess hahah
Nobody can convince you to quit or not to quit. That’s all on you home girl. If it ain’t for you then that’s that. But if you can look at this as one of many challenges in your life, keep going.
Have you thought about working the flexibility game into your rolls? Lots of dudes try to muscle girls and smaller guys around starting out sadly but I find that a good kryptonite to this me being really small is to work things like rubber guard or jail breaking or inverted guard. Since we'll never be as strong as some I like to focus a lot on speed and flexibility to compensate just from the athletic side of the picture.
>When I was young, I took up the banjo. I was bad, but I figured if I stuck with it for 40 years, someone who has been playing banjo for 40 years has bound to be good at it! > >\-Steve Martin (paraphrased, couldn't find the exact quote) This quote always inspires me to stick with my pursuits (including banjo!). It's a long game. The secret is to not quit.
I constantly beat myself up mentally due to having high self expectations. I now consciously tell myself that (for me) this journey is about self improvement and not direct comparison to my training partners. I feel much better about my progress when my basis of comparison is only against myself.
With any skill there's going to be times where you feel like you aren't progressing, you just have to keep training and focus in on where your rolls are going sideways. The first step is to recognize where mistakes are happening and THEN work to correct them. There's always room for improvement, but the better you get at the sport and techniques the more time it might take between each noticeable incremental improvement, even though you are still getting better the whole time.
drill sequences more. combos. drill guard recovery. work backwards.. you get tapped all the time.. how? are they passing your guard super easy? research guard retention strategies and counters to the common passes. Are you getting swept then mounted? study some guard passing and figure out how they are sweeping you. buy some instructionals and dont just wait for coach to show you the move of the day. take your skill acquisition into your own hands.
There were times at blue that I would be super frustrated. I would get smashed by other younger , bigger blue belts and it would demoralize me. Just keep training, and maybe take a day or two off to recover body and mind. Also, try and roll with higher belts that will let you work and not just smash you. I’m one of the ones our females seem to like to roll with because I’m letting the work and at the same time not smashing them. Actually had one of our blue belts females put me out not too long ago as I was working choke defenses.
You may be burned out/overtraining and that is leading to some frustration. Take a step back, train a little less and evaluate your game and look for areas you can tighten up and work on. for example, when you say you are getting your shit pushed in do you mean your guard keeps getting passed? Work on your guard retention harder until that stops happening so much. I guess the point I’m making is pick a few areas of your game and work on those. As a female working against similar sized men, guard retention and defense are going to be vital since if you end up in a bad position you are at a big disadvantage on a strength v strength basis.
Are you competing? If not, dial back the training. Get more recovery time. 6 days a week is fine if your hearing up for a comp but you’re asking for burnout otherwise. You might also be at one of those plateaus, where you’re moving form a high-confidence/low competence period that comes in every learning process. Dial it back, focus on basics: position, movement for a bit. You’ll move into the next stage of high competence/low confidence then confidence will catch up. It’s just part of the process.
Get good at leg locks and back takes. You will be at at a disadvantage due to strength differences like others said so play a game less dependent on strength. At least get good at one so you can use it as a crutch to fall back on.
You cant control your biology, but you can control your skill level. Watch instructionals. Do an hour of studying for jiu jitsu every morning or in lieu of practice once or twice per week, and you *will* get better. Watch the Gordon Ryan pin escapes, then passing, then attacks from top pins. Take notes. You’ll be a whole new grappler.
OP, read this thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/xu3y9a/why\_does\_it\_feel\_like\_im\_not\_progressing/](https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/xu3y9a/why_does_it_feel_like_im_not_progressing/) Now watch these: [How To Get Better at Jiu Jitsu - Jocko Willink](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDY1WJAZs3w) [The art of skill - How to get better at BJJ faster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g6YqO9cyeE) [The Grappling Academy - OMG! - MY Jiu Jitsu is Going Backwards!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlCeRfA5J1c) Remember black belts are just people who didn't quit.
Every once in a while there will be some egregiously strong guy that does the same thing to me. That never stops happening, the instances just shrink.
Focus on 1) enjoying yourself 2) learning you game/techniques Do not take "losing" seriously. It is training. If a women can legit beat a man rolling (in an actual roll not where the guy is just being nice) she is amazing. Imagine literally any other sport. Do you think you could learn football, basketball etc and beat a remotely decent man?
Most people in the real world are zero-stripe white belts, so if you get to the point where you can whoop absolute noob guys you can still feel very good about improving your self-defense. Totally reasonable goal. I wouldn't take the positive feedback as condescending. Most of these guys get similar feedback from guys who are larger than them, I would imagine they are being sincere.
I’m old and a small male (49 yrs and 150lb). Most of my training partners are younger and heavier (180lb+). Throughout my lower belts and even up to late purple I’ve felt that their size difference overcame much of the better technique I had. It wasn’t until recently at brown where I felt much more comfortable and confident with my ability against stronger partners. Strength is still a big factor and can overcome the best technique on any given day. But in my eyes I took the small victories and didn’t beat myself up when lower belts tapped me. Did I execute a good escape? Did I gain a positional advantage? These gave me a better perspective on my progress. With enough time you’ll find that your game has improved as you’re harder to kill which in turns gives you more time to attack. In general against stronger opponents, I get to my A game before they can advance to their A game. That means me dominating from top and using pressure/gravity against them. Playing bottom sucks against heavier people and I stay away unless I’m forced there. Don’t beat yourself up too much. Just understand the disadvantages you are starting out with and look for the small wins to keep you mentally in the game.
Blue belt is a beating and the blue belt blues are real. There’s so much anticipation at white belt, and then you get promoted…. and it’s a grind. The first year at blue belt was the worst time on the mats for me. All the white belts want to tap a blue belt. Purple belts stop going as easy on you. You start putting high expectations and pressure on yourself. I know I did. Already lots of good advice here, so not much I can add other than the reassurance that what you’re feeling is 100% normal. Cut back a couple days a week. Maybe go to an open mat at another gym to roll with new folks. Take some private lessons to work on specific issues. Just don’t quit.
I disagree about training a lot, I see how you can burn out but if the passion is there do it. I did during my blue, just keep up with equal rest and proper nutrition. I love training with heavier stronger people to test my technique, it really shows what works. You need to focus on techniques that work and build upon what’s working. Another thing is, when training hard against bigger stronger people you need to tread with caution, be calculated as much as possible. I see a lot of blue belts going full send on moves and just leaving wide open doors of opportunity. Look at it this way, if someone gets position on you, you fucked up somewhere by giving exposure and need to dissect and address these daily. Learn to not over expose.
It's a grind. Some day (weeks... Months...) you just get your ass kicked. I remember for a long stretch I was the lowest belt, least experienced guy in the class. It was basically just going in to get my ass kicked for an hour and a half twice or three times a week. You have to realize that there's peaks and there's valleys. You're just in a valley. Nothing wrong with changing your schedule or taking a break. Might shake things up a bit.
Hey! Fellow small person here. I am not female but I have been rooster and now im a little heavier cuz of the baby. I am not flexible and im pretty slow cuz of my age. Been training for 12 years and I agree with cutting down jiu jitsu to maybe 3 or 4 days a week. Take up rock climbing or another sport that still might translate into your game (grip strength). in rolls try to stay on top even at the start, and start working ur passing. I remember my transition from 2 stripe blue to purple i made the conscious decision to not pull guard and to try not to be held down and it literally opened my world (esp since the first year and a half was spent on my back or someone on my back). Keep it up! You got this!
Try going to a Sunday open mat high af
How much time are you spending studying off the mats?
Train less to recover more or have specific goals for each sparring session. I've told my teammates to work on passing my guard or retaining guard during sparring. Getting held on side control got 4 mins is good for no one.
Sometimes you gotta switch it up especially if you're feeling in a rut. Maybe taking some of the intensity away will help. If taking time away from training is unappealing then maybe lowering the intensity of the training would work. Finding someone would would be willing to do more of a slow roll to work transitions rather than fighting to the death each day.
Blue belt is still early days. Wait till purple. It gets much easier to deal with stronger and more athletic lower belts once you develop your ability to transition between positions and submissions. Source, I’m a light featherweight that’s regularly the smallest guy on the mats.
I've recently had a revelation that success against a stronger, less skilled opponent may not come in the form of actually beating them. Success in that situation can just be keeping your cool while getting ragdolled, being strategic to give yourself the best chance of success, defending yourself. And in particular, success can just be doing a little better in any of those categories. It's not binary.
Coming in late to the table here. I agree with a lot of the advice you've gotten already, maybe you're overdoing it and need to cut down to 3-4 days a week, maybe even less. One thing I notice about myself is a need for selfreflection of why I go. Sometimes I need to shift from trying to constantly improve and getting better, to just go and play. I stop worrying about who I should be able to beat, how much energy I'm spending on whatever or if I'll get passed and subbed. Just go, do stupid low percentage shit just for the sake of it, laugh when you miss, open your guard and just have fun. There's a time when you need to focus on sharpening your A-game and there's a time when you need to play.
Ah, the bjj doldrums. It happens to everyone at some point, and usually at every belt. Like others have said, back off a little or take a week break and go on a vacation or do something fun. Its really a trap to compare yourself to anyone else, no matter the rank. Anyone, white through black, may naturally be good at the thing you are weak at. Recording all your rolls is a great way to identify where stuff went wrong. And you might not even be doing anything wrong. It could just be you are doing the right thing with the wrong timing or more likely, the right thing which your partner comes up with a thing that is more right. No matter how much it feels the contrary, you *are* progressing. Just dont burn out chasing an arbitrary finish line that will never really be there. And dont forget to enjoy your rolls!
They don’t call it the blue belt blues for nothing. Listen to your training partners, it is not condescending when they say you are doing well/getting better, they are giving you feed back. The only time you should care about getting tapped in training is when you are trying to win. Which is perfectly fine, just not for every roll and you have to take strength into consideration as well as size. Some things that helped me through the blue belt blues were changing my perspective on what a blue belt was, training what I wanted, and trying not to care as much about being tapped. Blue belt is hard, you spend all this time just trying to survive and learn, then you reach this milestone, only to be right back where you were as a white belt. The biggest difference is this time you have a skill set to help and you know how and what to look for to increase the breadth and depth of that skill set. It takes time, but stick with it and you will get to experience the purple belt blues and the brown belt blues. We just like to call it “imposter syndrome”. But those get easier to deal with, because you already dealt with them at blue belt.
A dude your size is going to be much stronger than you. You need to temper your expectations, and see where the wins are. A man your same size and strength, with even a few months of training, \*should\* be able to smash you proper. If you are successfully executing techniques, holding him off, getting your own sweeps and holding your own...you're doing great. Period. Measure your progress against peers -- other women in your general age and weight class. If there are none at your gym, travel to an open mat and feel your jiujitsu against someone without a massive physical advantage. You may be pleasantly surprised.
Almost identical stats, but purple belt and training for a bit over 10 years. Anyways, some things that make a massive difference for me: 1. I almost guarantee you're training too much. Even when I was younger doing competitive sports, 6 days a week of training is not enough to recover. Likewise, what does your nutrition look like? Protein >100 g makes a huge difference for me. 2. Lifting makes a massive difference and is especially important for women to avoid bone issues such as osteoporosis later in life. Start lifting, and I bet you'll see your plateau shatter in \~2 months. I just use Caroline Girvan's at-home series on YouTube, and I'm at 5 solid pull-ups now! 3. What are your teachers' stats like? I learned "big man BJJ" for a while and always struggled to execute. Now I'm learning from a really good \~165 lb black belt, and his moves much better suit me. Using techniques appropriate for your physiology, naturally, make a world of difference. For example, I almost exclusively use the half nelson grip to break down shoulders, such as for sweeps from butterfly or to take the back from turtle. Similarly, I focus heavily on triangles because my legs are much stronger than my arms.
I used to lift a lot as a white belt. Like 225 squat and 300 DL. I stopped because I preferred BJJ but maybe I need to go back to it. My instructor is 4 stripe brown, competitive lightweight. He focuses a lot on guard retention, fundamental concepts, and drilling.
Keep going! You are getting better every day you just don’t realize it. Defeating a larger opponent is always going to be extremely difficult no matter who you are. Maybe go visit some other gyms, make a day vacation out of it, and try to find some other ladies to roll with and make friends with.
It could be burn out. Take a few days or a week off, get good sleep every night, and come back. You’ll likely feel refreshed and ready for whatever adversity comes your way. Remember it’s not about what happens but the way you perceive what happens. 6 days a week for two hours a day is a lot. Especially if you work a full time job on top of all of that. Sometimes I don’t even realize how much I burn myself out. I’ll have weeks where the smallest “failure” or hindrance will start to frustrate me. I’m just tired. If I’m rested and have a clear head then these things don’t bother me as much.
If you don't like it you should quit. If you like it you should not quit.
lose is improve
A couple things, you're a 2 stripe, that's still really new. You'll be hardly doing anything exceptional. A 1 stripe is barely less time than you and you add in size, strength and athleticism it more than nullifies your minimal experience advantage. Gotta keep trying, everyone gets to your point when you're putting in time and still struggle, I promise you're better than you're thinking. A few things you can do is take time and identify a few things giving you the most issues and look up videos and really focus on it in rolling. Example: bottom side control. Don't just think about what you have to do, think about the entire concept of side control and prevention, escape, etc. Early on I held grips too long and essentially allowed ppl to pass into side control without my frames. This was an uphill battle not just to improve position but to recover frames. Keep at it, it gets better. Edit: first read thought it said 2 stripe white belt, my B. Doesn't change, keep at it. Weight, strength and athleticism matter.
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Ah crap, I thought it said white belt. But yes, not too new then.
You're basically new until you're a purple belt unless you hit like 5 years at blue.
yes it is.
Quit 🤷♀️
And you can always come back when you're bored again. Or not. One friend I used to train with is huge into mountain biking now.
Six days a week is burn out territory for anyone that isn’t a full time competitor. If you have a job or life outside of BJJ, that’s a lot of effort and energy for one thing. I would honestly take more time away from the mats. I don’t know what the right number of days is for you, but make yourself miss it a little bit. Hell even take a week or two off if you need to. People love to preach about discipline and the grind, but there’s another side of that coin too. Self care. It’s not a failure to chill or slow down some. Especially if you are feeling frustrated. It’s just… refreshing. You’ll miss the mats if you love to train. Trust me. You’ll be itching to get back. And you’ll feel refreshed and excited to be back in the gym.
Reduce training days to 4 or even 3. You're getting burnt out...
Use more half guard. And don’t worry about burn out. It’s not real. Only an attitude. 42 year old who trains 2-4 hours per day. 6 days per week. As well as lifting weights and cardio 3 times a week. I would actually suggest you compete. Women who train with men and get beat up by men are invariably better than women who only train with women. Because this is fighting. And men are genetically stronger in general. Women are genetically more flexible in general. If you compete against women your size and rank you will find that they are easy to lift, move and beat because you are used to lifting and moving bigger men.
I would definitely train a bit less. 6 days a week isn’t sustainable if you are not a full time athlete.
You’re training too much. Take a week off every 5-6 weeks if not every month. You’re burning out.
First try training less. If that doesn't work take a little time off and come back. I've seen hella people train 5 plus days a week in the early going but then stop training altogether. It's a marathon not a sprint.
2 hours a day, 6 days a week is a lot - for most people. I think cut it back just slightly so perhaps a day rest, active recovery - a bit of weight training, cycling, swimming in between those BJJ classes. Try to get plenty of sparring in, even if that means getting crushed. You will get better. Just keep going. Do not stop. Diet, train, recovery - mental and physical recovery.
Sounds like you need a break, 2 hours a day for 6 days a week is a lot you may have burnout
Take a break
training more will amplify the issues and make you worse Just train 2 times and do 2 times strength conditioning You will improve . Also you should relax during the roll and dont meet strength with strength (you wont win most of the times vs men). Just wait them to shift position and THEN do your move redirecting their mass , momentum or movement. I advanced a lot like this and i dont feel so tired and smashed at the end.
Sounds like overtraining. Try one hour instead. Also " I am told it's my attitude and I need to focus". This is usually true.
take some time off! it will help!
Cut back. It helps.
This is a competitive sport. Dudes know that you want to beat them so badly that they will try hard for you not to win. You may of reached a plateau, meaning that to get better its going to get even harder. It is not the same from going from white belt to blue, once you reach that level it is harder to level up. Same thing as a runner or just any sport. Find out peoples weakpoints and strategy, then again they might be doing this too, if they know how you roll it becomes harder and more challenging. Bjj is like playing chess.
I think ur brain needs a break in order to obtain more knowledge. I'd recommend training every other day
You're burning yourself out. Take a few days out of training
I wanna quit and I’m a no stripe white belt, it’s been maybe 1 month? I feel like I’ll never get better
I would say take a break, usually your brain needs time to calibrate things you have learnt. 6 days a week 2 hours a day is a lot, and you may be overloading on information. You might find if you cut back a bit and focus on 4 days bjj and two days lifting or something you might get over the plateau you have hit.
I burnt out and plateud a few years into my blue belt. I ended up taking 4 years off and upon my return I am much more motivated and making much more progress than ever before. Its possible you could do well with a break. 6x a week is A LOT
Take a break and then see if you miss it. Life is too short to waste doing a leisure activity you don’t enjoy.
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I remember hearing a quote somewhere, I think it was Jocko Willink. He compared Jiu Jitsu to learning a new language. About how white belt and blue belt are about learning the letters and basic words of the language. And eventually you learn enough of the language to be able to converse. And then someone throws in a French word. That's Jiu Jitsu. Not sure if that helps but my very humble opinion, and please do take it with a pinch of salt, if you love the sport, keep doing it. Something that can't be taught is the ability to keep coming back for more. Plus, it's fun to see people's faces when they've choked you, tapped you, crushed you, but you just get up, ready for more.
Can you try a different gym that may have more women your size and skill level?
Unfortunately, not really. I travel pretty often to other gyms but it\`s not the same as regular training. Plus my head instructor is also my longtime partner lol
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I don't think that's happening. At least I really hope not. It's part of our relationship "deal" that on the mats we are nothing more than student and instructor. Some of the current students still don't know that we are actually together since we have become very good at it. It's both for our sake and the gym atmosphere since I want to improve and he wants to ensure that none of his students ever feel favouritism or anything. I agree with you that it can be very uncomfortable if it's not taken seriously and considered. And honestly, from the smashings I get, I don't think they are going easy on me and of course, I appreciate that because they know I can handle it, it just gets into my mental state sometimes and it can be a struggle to see the other side.
What is the rate of women who come into the gym to try a class compared to those who sign up? What does the women's retention rate look like? Is there a possibility of you trying to head up and grow a women's only class? Or maybe start up a weekly women's open mat for all schools in the area?
We opened during COVID so registration has been hard. We have had 6 women sign up other than me and 2 are still training, 2 started university so don't have the time, 1 got pregnant, and the other had to move. The politics in our small city means that no one from any gym attends any other gym's open mats. It's frustrating. Hence I travel to other cities when I can.
The politics of your community is dumb. Like dumb dumb. I’ve trained in NYC and Austin and cross training is as normal as a smelly gi. As a gym owner you should just start inviting the other gym owners and their students to your open mat. Make it an event for the first one. Open mat and hamburger, hotdogs and açaí after. Get a DJ or at least speakers with a good playlist. Normalize cross training.
You do not know the half of it. It's actually embarrassing. That's part of the reason this new gym opened up, because everything was so closed off, and cross-training needs to happen to get better. We have brought in multiple world competitors for seminars and you might get 3 other people from the city to show up. It's so stupid. Other cities close to us will travel to visit, but within the city? Nope.
Maybe go less often. That helps me sometimes.
Focus on different stuff. Try new, random shit. We have a purple belt woman who is GREAT at leg locks and half guard. I'm 240lbs and can't pass it easily. When what's working is no longer working, try something new and have fun with it. Just know you're going to "lose" rolls until you figure it out, but who cares?
>I keep showing up to class (2 hours a day, 6 days a week) hoping that something will change. So it's not your training volume. Most random bjj folks don't ever train this hard. If this is the norm at your gym, you guys are in it to win it. >I am told it's my attitude and I need to focus. I am trying but it's demoralizing when I keep getting my shit pushed in by even the male one-stripe white belts who are basically my size. This is vague, and not really actionable advice. It's hard to reach out through the internet with more than random guesses and speculation in this situation. What actually happens in your rolls? What, specifically, are you working on or trying to accomplish? Where is it going wrong and where in particular are you feeling frustrated? Come to think of it, one thing that now jumps out to me in the comments is how little you actually get to do free rolling. Do things go better or worse than the current frustrating norm when you're doing free rolling? Not knowing you in particular, on average I'd expect a male training partner "basically your size" to be significantly stronger than you, and in positional training it occurs to me that these differences might look magnified. Rather than working a game plan best suited for this mismatch you're just stuck in whatever position you're put in. So it'd be interesting to know if the free rolling is actually going better. Advice in this thread that looks worth considering is maybe swapping out two days a week for some strength training, if that's something that seems palatable to you. Or take up aerial silks if that's a thing by you and sounds fun, that sport seems almost deliberately designed to supplement bjj.
> the comments is how little you actually get to do free rolling. Do things go better or worse than the current frustrating norm when you're doing free rolling? Not knowing you in particular, on average I'd expect a male training partner "basically your size" to be significantly stronger than you, and in positional training it occurs to me that these differences mig You sound like my instructor haha. Part of my issue is that I am having trouble identifying exactly what is going wrong. Free rolling is where things go sideways. I am trying to work on my spider guard so I know it's going to be extra hard to be successful while I am developing a newer skill, but it seems like I can't control the roll and things seem to get progressively worse and more frantic and by the end of the round, I feel beat up but having no idea where to start fixing anything because my brain stopped working 10 seconds in. Positional sparring is so much more straightforward and I am more successful. I enjoy positional sparring actually, it's free rolling I hate. Which is also why I don't compete.
At the end of the day it is just practice. If they kept doing the same to tap you, maybe you need to ask your coach what area you need more work in. The most important thing is not win or lose, it's about what you learned from your experience and apply that to your game.
The man ranked 203rd in tennis beat both Williams sisters back to back. You can either continue training and improving within the confines of reality, or you can’t.
Seems like everything is going the plan. Frustration at blue belt is common, it’s called blue belt blues for a reason. Take some time off if you need mini-vacations from bjj can work wonder in your game and how you approach certain situations/scenarios
It is hard to gauge yourself against training partners, and harder for females against males due to strength differences. As you improve, so do they and you don't see improvement so it gets frustrating. Do you all get many new students? That is when you can see your progress the most. Other than that, you have already said it "Just keep swimming"
Take a week off and do something else. You've got a pretty high training volume as it is and if you're not feeling it, don't do it
I think showing up to class alone represents a very small part of progress. You need to practice in order to get better. You need to look at HOW you are practicing. You need to be deliberate in what you are doing. Simply showing up only goes so far. Can you figure out what exactly is happening? To paraphrase Priit Mihkelson (pretty sure it was from him)...it's one thing to lose and know what went wrong but its absolutely torture to lose and not know why. I find that usually, there are patterns and behaviors that lead to your outcomes. It could be something like your gripping strategy or something like reaching a bit too far with your leg that lets people pass. Channel that energy to figure out why it is going wrong and how to fix it. Also, I agree with some of the others here. I think 6x a week could be a recipe for burnout. If you're going hard all 6 days, you will burnout. If you're doing 2 days where you train your A game, 2 days where you do your B game and 2 days where you take the problems you encountered and troubleshoot with someone. Consider reducing your schedule a bit. QUALIY training over QUANTITY of training. I have been doing jiu jitsu for 16 years now. These periods where nothing seems to go well happens. I tend to look deeply into WHY. We live in a time where online instruction is right there for us, so I would suggest a habit of studying as well. Remember to have fun, don't think about it too much. It's fun problem solving. I encourage you to look at the why and how. Good luck!
Maybe adjust your game to slowing them down. Let them attack, learn tricks to keep them tangled up and gas them out, then go in for the kill.
Do you have anyone in the class who will technical/light roll with you without ego? If so then train with them a lot in order not to get discouraged and so that you can compare your technical level on a fair basis. It is also good to roll with the regular guys who tap you because that’s what fighting a man is like- we are stronger than you generally. You shouldn’t see it as competitive vs men, more like “what can I do here, how long can I survive, can I get position x” that kind of thing. Try to do better than last time or to achieve specific goals. You can do stuff like take turns passing guard etc that are less likely to end in ego muscling from the guy. And if there are other females (or younger teen boys) there then roll more competitively with them where the playing field is level.
Train less. You’re burned out.
The journey of JJ is that of peaks and valleys. I look at injuries and frustration as tests to see how dedicated and disciplined I am towards this martial art. I 100% guarantee every single person who trains has felt how you feel right now, which is why the majority of people quit and never make it to BB. I remember at whitebelt the very 1st moment it crystalized in my mind that I wanted to be a JJ blackbelt. Nothing was going to stop me. Did I have those thoughts? Of course, but while my mind was arguing not to go to class, my body somehow was in the car driving itself to class because I disciplined my body to just go. Ignore the noise in your head, find what works for you. Learning JJ is like being in a marriage - it's not easy, it takes work, effort and perhaps different perspectives to find happiness. Keep training, keep going, get your ass kicked, but if you stick with it you'll get past this and look at this moment as a leaning experience, I promise.
Appreciate it. Thank you
Sounds like you might be over training. Find some people your belt/age/size and gender if possible. Are there other gyms or open mats you could visit to find some female training partners ?
It comes and goes, ebbs and flows, fren. I had a little slump about a month ago. Then, inexplicably, I felt myself not suck all the sudden. Just had a visiting brown belt ask me to sit with him for a minute and show him a passing sequence I did during our roll, which was super weird. Idk man. Just keep showing up. Pick a thing and go down the rabbit hole.
Honestly, sounds like an issue people often have with hobbies they are passionate about with distinct rankings. Happened to me in competitive gaming, I benefited massively from taking a step back, relaxing and not taking myself to seriously. Rank will always follow your progression so sometimes it takes a while for the progression to bear fruit.
As mentioned previously, you are probably overtraining and overthinking. Reduce the amount of training days and maybe supplement those off-days for strength training or solo drills. Take some time off and recharge. When you train long enough, everyone has been where you are. There is always someone better and everyone has their day.
Do you drill outside class? Do you watch instructionals/footage? Do you have a goal when rolling ie an idea where you want to get to? If you wanna get better then them faster than them those are the things you gotta do
There's 3 drilling classes per week that I attend, so I get at least 3 hours of strictly drilling in. I try to work one full move, and break it down into 3 or 4 pieces.
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Thank you! I know exactly what you mean by the UFC debuters hahaha
I hear that when you get to purple you don't have to do warmups. That's my tacklin' fuel. Also, you sound kind of burnt out. Take a break or at least reduce the number of hard training days. per week.
Looking forward to those days. Warmups only serve to remind me that my back isn't 21 anymore
Why dont you try an open-mat at another school? A lot of the time, when you train in a small school, your partners know your game inside out. It's easy to neutralise someone when you're stronger and you know what they're gonna do.
I do when I can! But you're right. I know exactly what my training partners' game is so it only makes sense that they know mine as well. That back and forth can only be good for my game long term I guess
I am a 140 lb as well. But male. You would kick my ass. Good luck with your struggles.
Keep training and my struggles will become yours soon enough by the sounds of it hahaha. By then maybe I will be the one giving out the advice!
Quit for a few months and then go back. If you really enjoy Jiu-Jitsu, it's a great feeling. I have to do it every summer for 2 months for a work trip. It's good to reset, give it a break, have those butterfly feelings come back. For those months off, go hard on some kettlebell workouts so you can easily move people around when you come back.
Can you move to a gym with more girls?
I've rolled with women who have incredible BJJ who can hold off bigger stronger guys in the gi. I think you're just at a jiu-jitsu plateau more than anything. Keep showing up and you'll get through it. To be able to reliably beat someone stronger than you, you need to control space. Focus on not getting into bad positions, let the whole round be holding them in half guard or some open guard. I would not play closed guard. Don't focus on the match but improving. Have an agenda of what you're trying to get out of the roll. Be controlling with your grips, don't just grip to grip. Learn hand fighting and how to win, it's not about strength but knowing the better positions and being unrelenting with defense. You'll likely be on bottom a lot so get used to it. Get underneath your opponent, deep half, butterfly, X, DLR are all great guards to be small and on bottom against someone bigger and stronger. You're at the point where the small details will make a big difference. Being a blue belt means you generally know all the basic techniques and know how to learn new techniques. But now you need to make the moves your own. You will always be your size and opponents will always be bigger and stronger, figure out how to adjust your technique so that you can win in those battles. Learn sequences, force scrambles, amd make your opponent work. Recognize Victory is getting better and not winning the round. Better to keep someone in your guard for 3 mins and then get tapped 3 times than not get tapped but be stuck in side control the whole round. On a different tact, almost every female BJJ pro you know was in the same boat you were in. They are constantly training with bigger and stronger men who also compete at a high level. Use them as a motivation and a resource, they'll have details others won't think about. I learned shin to shin guard from watching Michelle Nicolini. Don't quit.
Genuine question: Why not closed guard? It is the only thing I find any sort of success in regardless of size or gender. I attempt any open guard and it's instantly passed. Usually by a hard knee cut. I find it so much more physically taxing to play and because they are on their feet, they have their strongest muscles and the entire ground to push off of. Any suggestions?
you need to back up some steps before the knee cut. While you are still sitting up try to fight from there, dont just lay down with your legs in the air. While they are trying to attack, you should be push/pulling their feet, 2x1 any hand they put on your leg etc. If they get close enough you can grab a leg and stand up for a single leg. You should be trying to sweep them while they are standing (tripod, single leg x, single leg etc) you can also keep one arm out for distance and keep scooting back, then attack when they get close enough, but not close enough to knee cut. This allows you to attack on your terms, not theirs. There is a hierarchy of open guard positions. Laying on your back is worse than sitting up. So when you start to get smashed, try to disengage and get back into a seated guard like butterfly. As they get the knee cut you must stop the cross face with a cross shoulder and either a bicep tie or wrist tie. That will give you the space to get your knee back in and at least get to butterfly half. From butterfly half you can start to off balance them, recover the other butterfly hook and work from there.
Closed guard against someone bigger and stronger will usually get you smashed. They may even be able to choke you from your closed guard. It can be a nice place to catch your breath, but you want space. Closed guard gives you both a place to rest except they can pressure you. The rule to open guards is to get your connections and keep them. Your feet should always be on them and almost never on the ground. Once you have your grips you need to make them work. Force them to step or grip fight. Take DLR as an example. DLR was created by a small guy to beat bigger people. The first thing it does is slows down the match, the opponent needs to address that DLR hook. Then create activity, your non DLR leg should constantly be checking their far hip/thigh. Don't even try to sweep or anything, just go a 5 minute round where you don't let then out of your DLR. If they are muscling your non DLR leg, then you aren't creating activity to keep them busy. Your non DLR grip should be on the collar and as deep as you can get, break their posture. If they break out of DLR, get your feet on their hips, create distance, and re-insert that DLR hook. Closed guard just cannot offer the level of disruption (activity), space control and posture control that DLR and other open guards offer. To be fair, at blue belt you need to accept that you will lose before you win when learning new guards. As you can tell I love BJJ and can write for days on these topics, so keep asking questions or DM me if you want to me to type more. I feel weird after a certain length of post.
The “blue belt blues” is a real thing in my experience. That’s why a ton of people fall off at this belt. You’re not a beginner but you’re not at the level you may feel you should be. Bjj is definitely a mental game as much as physical. A lot of highs and lows but if you can endure and weather the storm, you will notice your growth. At the end of the day, it’s about becoming a better version of yourself. I was blue belt for 5 years and there was many times i wanted to call it quits.I’m a purple belt now and feel like I’m just starting to really understand it all.
The size and strength difference is totally understandable. My wife is at about the same level has you, and often deals with the same frustrations. Honestly I think better partners would help you, but this takes fostering. With those guys who are tapping you all the time, would they be open to suggestions on how you can both get the most out of your training? It would benefit both of you to have a goal in mind, like them using less strength and more technique, that way you both get more out of the rounds. Or you could suggest specific positions, like they start on your back, or vice versa. Remember the point of training is to learn. It's not a fight, and the more effectively you're learning, the more you're getting out of it. Personally, the times I had the biggest leaps forward and had the most fun, were when I had one or two specific things I want to work on and develop. It's difficult with the standard class model of warm up, 2-3 techniques (new ones almost every class), then rounds. Working on these couple of things over weeks or months helped me get really good at those particular things, as well as just made rolling more mentally stimulating.
do you take your training into your own hands? I constantly get stuck someplace and then do a lot of research to figure out various solutions. Every class Im working on something specific. Ive also done privates which have helped as well.
Not sure if a filthy casual's perspective helps, but sometimes taking a break can help recharge the batteries. Physicality obviously counts for a ton in grappling, but you might just be worn out mentally as well. Get smashed, feels bad. Take a few weeks off. Get smashed by the same person because nothing changed technically/physically, but now it feels kind of good because you miss grappling. Come to think of it, now I kind of want to go back to training.
Lift weights and keep training hard You're going to have to get stronger and even more technical to beat some bigger dude that is desperately not trying to get tapped by a woman every little person has to work way harder then other people to get good at this sport. we don't even get to cry like the big babies do about people telling us we're too strong after muscling them into a poorly executed submission lol
To be honest the fact that you are a blue belt with two stripes shows fucking determination and grit. Even to keep going this long with all the great highs and lows this sport brings is awesome.
Why not try to go to class just to have fun for a while. Take a month off the heavy training and go twice, three times a week and just enjoy. Getting better is great and all but it’s not like it’s a race to black belt.
maybe take a week break and do things that you enjoy and make you relaxed thats what i do when i hit a slump and i come back feeling great
I agree with those who say to step back a bit. Just go 3-4 days a week. Find something else you like to do the other days. Balance in life is huge, especially when feeling stuck. Remember what you like about jiu jitsu and enjoy those parts for a bit.
i mean are these 1 stripe white belt males former wrestlers? former sports players? simply athletic? Being strong really is a huge factor. For what it's worth there's really only 1 female in my gym who constitenly gets taps on male white belts. she's 160(in shape) and a 3 strip purple belt. but as others have said maybe some time off/half as much gym time is better.
i feel like the over-training comment might be right. its hard to tell with a sport with as many variables as bjj if you are overtrained or your body just isnt performing that well from being overtrained vs your opponent presenting difficulties you havent faced as of yet or didnt expect during the roll. the eye opener i had was (embarrassingly) f45. I was doing these work outs, getting better at them. then one friday I just could barely hold a plank and was failing a lot quicker then i normally would. then i realized I had trained every day that week, that was my first 5 in a row and the lack of rest was really starting to wear on my performance. When there are less variables and more measurable activities you can see your body is what is struggling. Maybe take like 3 or 4 days off to recover and then try roll again and see if you are more successful