After five long years, the day I received my blue belt arrived last December. I am publishing this post in May. I deliberately wanted to wait a little before I started to write about this new phase in my BJJ life, wanting to let the news sink in a bit for myself first.
Also, I have had a pretty intense spring getting used to my MS diagnosis (I’m still doing fine), an ever evolving cavalcade of other health crap (again, fine), and dealing with family stuff. On top of that I injured my shoulder on the first of April by sticking my arm too far between my rolling partners legs, and was taken out of action for a while with that. Even with the rehabilitation period gave my more time for reflection, it wasn’t the super productive baby blue belt spring I would have preferred. But let’s go back to last December.
The big day
I will always be enough of an outsider in any community I belong to that I am very aware of the artificial nature of symbols. A stripe or a belt or even a medal are, in the end, just objects, and the joy BJJ brings outnumbers the value they carry for me. And yet, most of us like to be acknowledged for our hard work and to receive appreciation from others. I’m not immune to that either, and yet I had underestimated how poignant the graduation would feel.
It was nearing Christmas and our side of the tatami was brimming with teammates. Our gym had just received ten new blue belts. ”I saved this one for last, in case I would got emotional,” Coach said as he retrieved the eleventh from his big bag of belts. Anni, one of the lucky owners of a brand new blue belts, nudged me. I looked at the floor and shook my head. In the past, I had once hoped for a stripe on my white belt I didn’t receive, and after that I had stopped making any assumptions about graduations.
”This person has all the reasons — not even excuses, but reasons – why they might not train at all. And yet they are here several times every week. They are someone all of us could learn a thing or two from.”
I’m sure Coach said something else too, but words disappear easily from memory, what remains is the atmosphere they create. ”It is my pleasure to grant this belt to Sohvi Hellsten”, he finished, and I stumbled to my feet, laughing and crying at the same time.
”Know what the best bit is?” I asked Coach as he was tying my new belt. ”For the past year I could actually visualise this day arriving.”
”Well, now we are here”, he said. I squeezed Coach. A rather silly picture exists of that moment. Then he took a step back. ”I’m going to take you down now.”
Yes, dear diary. Our gym is not too big on grand gestures, but the black belts present taking down new graduates is a thing. I was in the enviable position of already having a spinal cord injury, so Coach, Joni and Santtu quite sweetly chose techniques where I was tipped over instead of having to catch a flight.
An hour of congratulating, hugging and struggle-hugging (sparring) followed, but like these things happen, I have very little memory of that bit.
How does it feel to have a blue belt in BJJ?
Good question. I can tell you what it feels like to have a blue belt in BJJ after 5 years of training mostly regularly: both exhilarating and touching for a few days, and then it’s mostly back to business as usual. I still had a lot of BJJ to get better at. I don’t find it that mystifying that many hobbyists quit BJJ at blue belt (though the ”disappearing blue belt” memes obscure the fact that white belts come and go with much greater frequency, which is also understandable). If you have grinded 1–2 years to not be a white belt anymore, being kicked upstairs can be pretty disillusioning when jiu-jitsu itself doesn’t get any easier.
At least in my five white years, I had already gone through several up and down phases in my training, broken an ankle, lived through lockdowns and had a 6-month voluntary hiatus while I waited for a COVID vaccine. I am still firmly in the camp that I will probably do BJJ as long as I am physically able to. So no blue belt blues here for now.
When I received my new belt – the first one I didn’t buy myself – I could appreciate it as a recognition of the hard work I’d put in BJJ and of (finally) having reached a stage where my BJJ ability is well-rounded enough to not be considered a complete beginner anymore.
Because I cannot lie, some elements of these five years were very, very hard. I’m not even talking about injuries or lack of fitness or the times I felt a bit lonely in a room full of people, or having to tune out the alt righters in the scene. It was having to drill the same fundamentals year after year and realising I’d ignored something essential about a topic all the previous times I’d been taught it. The times life outside BJJ was so tumultuous that class was just about survival and ignoring the outside world for 90 minute chunks. Seeing peers in the community receive their purple belts when I was still a white belt. Everyone’s journey is their own yadayada, but I still couldn’t help but wonder if I honestly had it in me to get good enough. Just like before I had won my first competition match, when I had wondered if someone like me actually could win one. I could.
I think my coaches were pretty bang-on in estimating when I was ready for a new belt. You see, for a good chunk of my years training, I could not imagine myself getting there. It was somewhere around four years when something clicked and sparring wasn’t 90% suffering or clinging anymore. It might feel nice to be surprised by a belt. Personally, I had grown enough self-esteem to feel like I was ready for blue (and coloured belts competition categories), no matter how much I liked to joke about being a forever white belt.
Like I said above, my first spring as a blue belt has not gone the way I had hoped. It has included many things that are a distraction to giving my all in training (shoulder situation, other health admin, visits to family to help deal with stuff, no competing debut). And yet I’m okay with that, as I still keep training. I might not absorb everything I’m taught brilliantly, but the good habit of keeping to show up is there. Insert dissappearing blue belt joke of your liking here.
What they don’t tell you about receiving a blue belt
A list to finish, just because I like them.
- If you train regularly and your gym has a pretty flat hierarchy, by now white belts will start asking you for advice if you are not a total mean dick. Think carefully what to tell them, and also when to decline from offering any.
- For some new white belts who have never known you as a white belt, you are one of the people who is probably some kind of half-wizard. That can feel very weird.
- The joke about upper belts not going easy on you anymore is funny because it is true. It’s okay.
- You get to tap to lower belts for the first time in your BJJ career. This is also very okay.
- If you mainly do no-gi, remember to buy a blue rash guard. Otherwise no-one knows you’ve been promoted.
- People you haven’t seen in a while might congratulate you on the belt, and you are so used to being blue that you don’t understand what the fuss is about.
- You didn’t have to buy the belt you received at promotion, but as you are laundering the belt after class (right, right???) you need to buy additional ones.
- Just because you can wristlock now doesn’t mean you remember you can in the middle of the roll.
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