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WHITE BELT WORRIES: A Guide to Evening the Odds in Your First Few Months in BJJ

The Start of Your Journey

First of all, let me start by introducing myself… my name is Arron Howell, a 30-year-old BJJ white belt (yes – a current white belt is writing this!) who began the sport only 4months ago using social media as an online diary of my progress from day one. Why am I writing this article? To give a first-hand account to those beginning their BJJ journey of the decisions, emotions and experiences that you will encounter within the infancy of your chosen sporting life.

Deciding to start BJJ can often begin with what seems like a minefield of choices; starting with which club you should join? All the way up to when you should start competing? Since beginning my journey into this black hole of a sport, I have found that within the first few months you must master the following key decisions in order give yourself a fighting chance of surviving for the long-haul:

Where Should I Train?

The first major decision you will encounter is picking which team/academy to train at. As the sport becomes ever popular, there is now a fantastic array of clubs now across the U.K. and choosing the right one for you will likely make or break your affinity with BJJ. Most clubs will allow you to have a couple of free sessions so I would advise using these to find out which club you feel most comfortable at and to take your time making this decision particularly as you may end up spending more time there than at home!

Why did I choose the Gracie Barra (GB) academy? For me, the initial decision was based on location. A brand new GB academy (GB Keynsham) had opened up five minutes from my house and (with a baby on the way) I was keen to spend as little time as possible traveling to training. However, I cannot stress enough that I have been lucky to fall into a team that suits my needs perfectly. I quite often travel for work and the ability to have access to a large number of GB academies in the U.K. (all following the same curriculum) has enabled me to fit in my training as and when possible.

Looking back on this decision, I was extremely fortunate to pick a club that also suits my character. It wasn’t until I attended a session at our parent club in Bristol that it really dawned on me the impact of the decision that I had made. On meeting Professor Nicolai Holt at the start of the class and explaining that I was from their GB Keynsham club, he then proceeded to introduce me to the rest of the class and told them that “Arron is a guest at this club and that everyone is to treat him like they would a brother”. With that one sentence from Professor Holt I knew that Gracie Barra was the club that I wanted to compete for and eventually take my new-born son to when he is old enough to train.

It is my belief that choosing your club is the most important decision you will make as you will spend hundreds of hours there training and (as a consequence) you should feel completely relaxed within that surrounding. If you want to focus solely on no-gi, or want to join a club where you do not have to compete in order to progress, then you should focus on looking for one from the outset. Matching your own character and ideas with the culture of the team will greatly enhance your chances of succeeding within the sport.

How Often Should I Train?

Once I had committed to the academy, I then spent time trying to figure out how often my team-mates at the club would train so that I could gauge how long it would take for me to progress. So far, I have varied my training, with some weeks going to 4/5 sessions and other weeks attending only twice. I quickly realised that putting pressure on myself to train as often as possible was impacting on other areas of my life and that setting a minimum attendance for myself each week was a better way of enjoying my training. I have now set myself a target of two sessions per week minimum. Therefore, now any extra sessions that I do attend are seen as a bonus for me. This has had a much more positive impact on me mentally, rather than focusing of the number of sessions that I have missed.

Accept that you will not be able to attend every training session and simply commit to a minimum number of sessions per week that suits your lifestyle. As a result, every training session you complete above this number during the week will feel like a real achievement.

Should I Set Training Goals?

Next up is whether or not you should set yourself BJJ goals? I am a massive advocate to setting achievable goals. I began my first month of BJJ training in December 2017 and the start of the New Year seemed like a good time to set myself some goals. I split my initials goals into short, medium and long term. Most people’s first goal in BJJ is to get promoted to blue belt. Although knowing how long this promotion often takes meant that I wanted something more readily achievable to focus on.

My goals set at the of the year were as follows:

Short Term - Compete three times within 2018.

Medium Term - Become a BJJ blue belt.

Long Term - Visit as many BJJ gyms as possible, gaining experience to eventually obtain a purple belt and be able to teach my new-born son at his first kids class.

I have listened to various instructors say that everyone’s goal should be to become a BJJ black belt. Whilst I would love to achieve this, I know that this can take 8-10 years minimum and that all of my goals needed to be quicker to achieve in order to feel like I was progressing. Once I have completed all of my original goals, I will undoubtedly re-assess and aim for the pinnacle achievement within the sport… to be known as a “Professor”.

It has been important for me to set goals that are not too distant and are viable for me. I recommend that you do the same in order to feel that you are making constant progress within BJJ. When these goals are met, make sure that you reward yourself to reinforce this successful behaviour. I suggest buying that new gi you have been looking at as you will soon realise that you can never have too many!

Do I Need to Compete?

Not all academies will expect you to compete and it is completely up to the individual as to whether this is something that they wish to attempt. For me, this was a major part of my BJJ experience to date. As my first goal was to compete at least three times in the year, I needed to start thinking about when I should enter my first competition. Anyone who knows me will quickly understand that I am an all or nothing kind of guy and took part in my first competition after only three months in training. Needless to say I didn’t win, and was submitted in the first round via triangle choke after only one-and-a-half minutes. But strangely, this didn’t deter me and as is commonly said amoungst many BJJ practitioners “you never lose, you either win or you learn”.

I learned several things from my first competition, the main one is that I was at the lighter end of my weight division (medium heavy) and that probably committing to drop an extra couple of kilograms to be able to enter into middleweight would give me that extra edge. The other thing that I learned was that the whole BJJ community was extremely friendly no matter what club they were from. My father had come to watch me compete and he couldn’t understand how the competitors could go from trying to choke each other to almost long lost families members in the split seconds following a fight.

Taking on board these lessons, I entered my second local competition as a middleweight (only 4 weeks later) losing my only fight on points to the eventual gold medallist. This meant that I finished in the joint bronze position (due to a small category). Whilst I didn’t win my match, and getting a bronze medal after losing still doesn’t sit well with me, I was definitely more competitive at this weight and was happy that I could contribute to my team’s standings that day. This odd feeling of gaining a medal after the loss has still not gone away and I don’t think that it ever will. However, I recently had a conversation with my coach (Damien Barrett, a GB Purple Belt) who has reminded me that it is not the result on the day that is the only factor on whether I deserved a medal but it was also the commitment to training, dropping a weight category (which was proved extremely difficult for me) and showing up on the day to compete which was a big milestone that I should not take lightly. I have my next competition booked in 3 weeks time and will be focusing on getting my first win in the sport (like I said earlier… it is important to focus on the small goals!).

Whilst it is not always necessary to compete in order to advance, even attending an event with your team to support them will make you realise what a great sport you have entered in to and that you now have an ever growing extended family!

When Should I Start?

Hopefully none of the above has deterred you from delving into this fantastic sport which I already can’t imagine my life without. It will get you excited, frustrated and addicted all in a heartbeat. You will also quickly realise that you now have a long term commitment to a team and a way of life that no other sport will come close to fulfilling. I hope this article has helped overcome any nerves or apprehensions that you may have and has convinced you that the time to start is now!

Please get in touch with me (see link provided below) to tell me your own personal stories from your first few months within the sport!

Just one last thing from me… good luck!

The above article was written by Arron Howell (BJJ_Journal). Please hit the like button if you enjoyed it and feel free to share.

https://www.instagram.com/bjj_journal/

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