First stripe on blue - long journey ahead

Nik123

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So I got my first stripe on my blue today, feeling pretty pumped!

Seems like a long arduous road to purple though, especially at the rate I am training (twice a week).

Any tips on what to focus on through the road to purple?
 
So I got my first stripe on my blue today, feeling pretty pumped!

Seems like a long arduous road to purple though, especially at the rate I am training (twice a week).

Any tips on what to focus on through the road to purple?
I'm the worlds longest blue belt.

I'm in the same boat 1-2 twice a week with long periods off.

Any tips on what to focus on through the road to purple?

Saulo's book has a section for each belt (his website also). Could start there.
 
^ Good to hear from someone in the same boat as me. Had a quick look at Saulo's site, can't seem to find the section on belts etc.

Any chance you could post a direct link?
 
So I got my first stripe on my blue today, feeling pretty pumped!

Seems like a long arduous road to purple though, especially at the rate I am training (twice a week).

Any tips on what to focus on through the road to purple?

The best person to ask is your instructor, who will likely be the most familiar with your strengths and weaknesses. I do this every couple of months.
 
Focus on getting good at the moves you gravitate towards and then work on follow-ups from there. Don't focus on stripes.
 
Why do you think it will be long?
 
I'm the worlds longest blue belt.

I'm in the same boat 1-2 twice a week with long periods off.



Saulo's book has a section for each belt (his website also). Could start there.

I was a white belt for 3845 days
 
Congrats on the stripe. I just got my first blue belt strip a few months ago. It's been very slow progression with injuries and stuff.
 
Congrats- you are at my favorite point of jiu jitsu rank progression (based on my experience so far as a brown belt).
At blue (especially early blue) my goal was to just learn and get exposed to as many new positions and techniques as possible. Dive in to DLR, X guard, 50/50, SLX, Spider, Lasso, deep half guard, etc. Collect techniques, positional concepts, just expand expand expand your knowledge of BJJ.

Later in blue belt- as you approach purple, you can start to refine and consolidate and really develop your "core game". But for now, you need to experiment as much as possible to see what you like and what works best for your body style and personality.

Please know- all this experimentation is going to make you feel like you suck. You are probably decent at a few things now, and can hold your own with blue's, and beat most of the whites. Once you start trying new shit- it isn't going to work well right away. You won't get the DLR sweeps and your guard will get passed. Your spider will suck and you'll tap to people you never would have if you played your "A" game. THIS IS OK. Don't worry about "defending your belt" worry about building the next ones. Even now, I'm really working on RDLR. There are some blue belts who would never pass basically any other guard I would play who are passing it. As long as I stick with it, 6 months from now, they won't. Play the long game.
 
Primary reason being I am able to squeeze in training twice a week at best..

Just keep turning up to training. Consistent 2 classes per week is already plenty. Maybe an open mats rolling on the week end would be ideal.

Blue belt is when you look for techniques that would define your game.

Don't shy to absorb and reject once you get bored of them or once your training partners have recognised that you are using them a lot and therefore they are avoiding them.
 
Congrats- you are at my favorite point of jiu jitsu rank progression (based on my experience so far as a brown belt).
At blue (especially early blue) my goal was to just learn and get exposed to as many new positions and techniques as possible. Dive in to DLR, X guard, 50/50, SLX, Spider, Lasso, deep half guard, etc. Collect techniques, positional concepts, just expand expand expand your knowledge of BJJ.

Later in blue belt- as you approach purple, you can start to refine and consolidate and really develop your "core game". But for now, you need to experiment as much as possible to see what you like and what works best for your body style and personality.

Please know- all this experimentation is going to make you feel like you suck. You are probably decent at a few things now, and can hold your own with blue's, and beat most of the whites. Once you start trying new shit- it isn't going to work well right away. You won't get the DLR sweeps and your guard will get passed. Your spider will suck and you'll tap to people you never would have if you played your "A" game. THIS IS OK. Don't worry about "defending your belt" worry about building the next ones. Even now, I'm really working on RDLR. There are some blue belts who would never pass basically any other guard I would play who are passing it. As long as I stick with it, 6 months from now, they won't. Play the long game.

Thanks man.

While I do fully agree that’s what I should be doing, the struggle at the moment is just refining what I do know given my twice a week training frequency. I feel like a suck even without the experimentation!
 
So I tried throwing in some ‘plan B’ type experimental stuff during a roll today - didn’t pull it off completely but I did give it a good go and felt great. Trying to add a lasso/spider guard to my primary closed guard game. Great tips folks, appreciated.
 
i got my first blue belt stripe in 2009... it fell of around 2013... still wearing the same blue belt.
 
Congrats- you are at my favorite point of jiu jitsu rank progression (based on my experience so far as a brown belt).
At blue (especially early blue) my goal was to just learn and get exposed to as many new positions and techniques as possible. Dive in to DLR, X guard, 50/50, SLX, Spider, Lasso, deep half guard, etc. Collect techniques, positional concepts, just expand expand expand your knowledge of BJJ.

Later in blue belt- as you approach purple, you can start to refine and consolidate and really develop your "core game". But for now, you need to experiment as much as possible to see what you like and what works best for your body style and personality.

Please know- all this experimentation is going to make you feel like you suck. You are probably decent at a few things now, and can hold your own with blue's, and beat most of the whites. Once you start trying new shit- it isn't going to work well right away. You won't get the DLR sweeps and your guard will get passed. Your spider will suck and you'll tap to people you never would have if you played your "A" game. THIS IS OK. Don't worry about "defending your belt" worry about building the next ones. Even now, I'm really working on RDLR. There are some blue belts who would never pass basically any other guard I would play who are passing it. As long as I stick with it, 6 months from now, they won't. Play the long game.

It took me months of getting smashed, passed, guillotined, leg attacked in my butterfly guard before it actually started to work and get my sweeps. Now it's working even better than I would have dreamed of I even inserted some slick subs from it. There's some other blue belts that basically stand up because it's a freaking deadend for them.

The only guard that worked really early is SLX. I do a lot of transition into SLX from the butterfly guard when people lift a leg to avoid the sweeps. It pretty much worked in the first week I put some focus on it. I could very fast get some sweeps from it, leg locks setup, transition to X guard and then sweep...

The worst I ever tried is RDLR, I have only one sweep that actually work from there (a shin sweep) but I need to have the perfect grips and the guy needs to be in the perfect position. Maybe it's because I suck at inverting but RDLR is more like a buffer before my guard gets passed. Maybe it's also because people that make me use the RDLR are better than me.
 
Also,

I just received my purple belt Saturday - after a long long time at blue (off and on training).
 
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