After earning my blue belt, I wrote down a whole page of blue belt intentions in my BJJ journal. Mighty positive of me back then to think I wasn’t going to be affected by ups and downs of training or plateaus.
Fast forward 3 months later, I am about a month deep into the blue belt blues. The excitement wore off and the frustration has set in. I’m making white belt mistakes and feel like I am getting worse.
“DENY THE BLUE BELT BLUES”
I don’t even know why I wrote it like that. However, I understand where my mindset was, it was my intention to not experience them by the advice you’ll hear over and over again: Keep showing up. If you show up, you train. If you train, you improve (even if I don’t feel like I am).
Instead of being in denial that I would experience this downslope, I should have had a plan in place in case the blues hit me! Alas, 20/20 hindsight.
HOW I WILL SURVIVE BLUE BELT BLUES
- Journal: After reviewing my journal, I realized that I stopped writing things down after classes. I thought taking video of the techniques would help…it didn’t. There is something about putting pen to paper that makes me think about what we did and recall movements.
- Meditate: I am back on a meditation streak. It helps my to pause my brain and reset.
- Time off: I was forced to take a few days off due to husband’s hectic work schedule. This allowed me to heal up and miss BJJ. I was excited to get back to class.
- Read: I purchased a few books about mindset and fitness that will serve me in the long run, in and out of BJJ.
- Cross train: As a fitness person, cross train has always meant fitness training outside of my sport for balance and injury prevention (strength training, yoga, other form of cardio). Cross training in BJJ apparently means visiting other BJJ gyms for drop-in classes. Within a year, I’ve made it to 2 Girls in Gis events, but would love to train at other places for fun and variety!
- Study: In yoga, the Sanskrit word Svadhyaya means self-study and daily reading of anything that deepens your practice. This practice can cross over to BJJ! Watching videos and reading books can help deepen on my knowledge over time.
Honestly, that list is something I should be doing everyday, not only during the blues. I heard on a podcast that these blues happen at every belt; and the higher the rank, the longer the plateaus. Wonderful. A motto I used when I was a runner was, “Embrace the Suck,” when runs got hard. I will embrace the suck and keep going.
Have you experienced plateaus? How do you overcome them?
