What happens after your black belt?

Being 10,000 miles from my instructor for the forseeable future might make the last step of my journey to black belt quite long :) but i'm not sure that it would change the way i approach BJJ initially (other than never being able to relax on the mat).

i already teach (albeit a little more sporadically than i like) where i train and am trying to get back into competition more regularly. I have no delusions of winning the mundials at brown (or black), but i'd like to fight at the mundials and masters/Rio Open next year if possible.
 
personally, i'd first like to prove myself and win the mundials at black level.
 
Oliver Geddes said:
This is aimed more at the senior ranking members of the forum, but all opinions are welcome!

Simple enough...what do you aim to do after you receive your black belt?

Do you want to keep on training for the worlds and the pans and other internationals, knowing that you're probably going to have to train all day every day for at least a couple of years to catch up with the guys who are the best in the world, and maybe you never will? You aren't going to be building a team anytime soon this way, but your BJJ will hit a peak that you'll never be likely to reach any other way.

Do you want to move into MMA, learning other games and adapting your BJJ for a different environment? This way, at least, you will be able to see the progression much more clearly, rather than the inching progress of fine-tuning your already-established jiujitsu game. But maybe your BJJ game will never take for MMA. It's happened many times, and maybe the MMA conversion could hurt your possible progression in your jiujitsu.

Do you want to teach straight away? Start your own school and put the years ahead of you into building a team? You're already good enough at jiujitsu, and you'll get better whilst you're teaching and training day in and day out. You'll probably never make it to being world class this way, but that's not what matters to you, you just want to see your students progress and win their own set of medals.

Or something else?

Faintly curious what people's plans are.

Let's have it, guys!

Take care,

Oli
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I am still training at the same academy, now spending much more time teaching as well. To me it is an honor to teach Jiu-jitsu in Brazil at Gordo Jiu-Jitsu. In combination with Connection Rio, GJJ has athletes from all parts of the World coming through the doors at any given time and this allows me an opportunity to share what has made such a positive effect on my life with many practitioners, in the homeland of BJJ. With teaching and living a Jiu-jitsu lifestyle I am also always learning and refining the Jiu-jitsu that has been passed along to me. Also, both in and out of the academy, introducing people around the World who are intrigued by Jiu-jitsu and the city of Rio de Janeiro to athletes/Professors/practitioners who share similar interests and Brazilian culture through the Connection Rio Podcast. Competing is of interest but not a priority at this point.


Dennis Asche
 
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I still feel like a white belt. Training is #1 priority.
 
A black belt, for me, wasn't really a goal of mine when I started training. I started training to compete. I wrestled for 10 years prior to training in BJJ and there is no belt system in wrestling. I carried that mindset throughout my training and throughout my competitions. When I received my black belt, I didn't change my mindset. Life did. I got married and continued to train for about a year and then we found out my wife was pregnant. My priorities changed overnight. I am just now, 2 years later, beginning to train again. I currently act as an instructor in my spare time but my primary focus is the no gi game right now. I truthfully have no desire to advance my black belt further than where it is. I do want to compete again though. If competition and instruction give me stripes on my belt, so be it. My family will always come first though.
 
lechien said:
somehow, that is just feaking wrong.

maybe in Brasil, you get your BB really fast.

but otherwise, once you spent 10 years on the mats earning that BJJ BB, the search is already over.
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I'm a fan of Saulo but the impression I get from his soundbites, is that he likes to talk like some kind of zen buddha master to sound really smart and profound. I had an instructor who talked like this, and it can be really frustrating when you ask a simple question and he just tries too hard to blow your mind when a straight answer would suffice.
 
I think it really all depends on the goals of the individual. Personally my goals are to train to compete at the biggest comps. Being recently promoted to blue myself i've already competed as a white belt at the worlds and the NY open. Hopefully on my way to black belt i'll continue to compete in these and other tournaments.
 
jesus

continue training if you're having fun

if training is no longer fun then stop. The belt only holds your pants up
 
I started to focus on building my own team as strong as possible. My goals have changed slightly as I spend way more time teaching than I do training, and even when I am training it is for the most part, not against other BB and the reps are spent watching my students and not doing them as much.

I also am at the age of where I want to pass my knowledge on to the next level of guys. I have one brown and a bunch of purples and blues that are my main focus now. I used to compete about 10-15 times per year, but now I do about 3 events if Im lucky. Realistically, I want to compete for maybe 4 more years, if my knees allow me to do so.
 
Epyon said:
27 yr old whitebelt.

Hoping to hit black before 40, and pass the knowledge down to my kids, if/when I have them, and then possibly teach as a side job/retirement income later on in life.
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Damn bro we think alike. I'm a 26 yr old white belt. I want to get to black by around 36 though, want to pass the knowledge down to my kids (girlfriend is 8 months pregnant with my son now), and I want to have the knowledge base of being a BB because I want to train fighters. Right now I train private clients that are mostly former athletes or housewives, but I am working on a deal to train my gym's head instructor BB for his MMA fights. I feel if I have a legit BB that it will help me out immensely in my career and give me different ways to make money while doing what I love and would do anyways. Also I do it for the competition and would like to win a few reputable tournaments over my journey in BJJ.
 
I have been training and competing my whole life, first in wrestling now in jiu jitsu and mma. I know it will be odd when my competiton day are over, but i wlll continue to train just because i enjoy the process learning and mastering specific skills as well as just the physical aspect.

I enjoy teaching as well so i know that will continue to be a big focus. I dont do nearly enough gi training so when my mma career is over i will strap on the gi more often.
 
Lets time capsule this thread and come back in ten years to see how it worked out.
 
Let me break it down for you geeks:

Remember when you hit lvl80 in World of Warcraft? Yeah, it's like that.
 
Fedorzilla said:
Oli, I'm not a black belt and obviously don't have anything to contribute in terms of forward thinking, but given how much you personally compete and love it... do you think you'll ever be able to stop?
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I think I will. But who knows? ^_^

I'm kind of trying to juggle everything on the list at the moment. Ticking the boxes in the certified/certifiable (!) BJJ badass category.

My aim is to compete hard in BJJ until...31 or so. So hopefully I can get four or five mundials in at black. In that time, either you guys will know that it worked out, or I'll be on the highlight reel for some Brazilian phenom once or twice. Either way, it's fame of sorts. ^_^

After that, I aim to do the masters and seniors every year for the rest of my life. I will be the greatest masters champion in history, if I can't be the greatest adult champion in history. We all need a target, and that's mine.

I also want to fight once in pro MMA, just to say I did (this will be post black belt and mostly post-mundials competition, and will hopefully end in approximately ten seconds by submission. Fingers crossed. If I get knocked out brutally, the video will be in the usual place. ^_^).

After all of that, I want to focus on an academy. I want to have my own academy, I want to build a strong competition team, and I want to help grow the competitors from the UK as a group, irrespective of all this teams and politics stuff. I also want to support young competitors who I believe (arbritary, no? ^_^) will be the future of the sport from our country so somewhere down the line, even if I'm not the first UK Black Belt World Champion, I helped the guy who is to get there. I also want to know that every time I take the guys to a competition, that I'm not just there to watch, I'm there to fight, and they can see that I'm willing to back up the trust they've placed in me with results, rather than just words.

...modest ambitions, no? ^_^

Take care,

Oli
 
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