On February 26th of 2015 I received my Purple Belt. I’ll be honest, it didn’t hit me like I imagined it would. I felt overjoyed for a moment, but I was busy and kept hustling and moving along with my life. I didn’t go telling my friends, I never slept with my belt, I never complained it took me forever, none of that.

Me with my Instructor Carlos Zapata and some awesome training partners.

I’d be lying if I said none of that mattered to me at one point. I was a very frustrated and upset white belt with a chip on my shoulder. I felt like I deserved to have a blue belt because of all the things I was doing for the gym early on in my jiu-jitsu journey. At one point I could tap purple belts as a white belt, but I barely knew jack shit about guard, since I came from a year or two of wrestling.

I let it get to me, and when I sparred with upper belts I would go ham. I wasn’t looking to learn from them, I was looking to give them the business, to choke, armbar, or kimura them as fast as possible. Grind them into the ground till they just gave me something.

This is the worst way to learn as a white belt, but it is very typical. One day during an instructor’s course my teacher Carlos Zapata looked at me and said,(loosely quoted, it’s been a few years) “You know why you don’t have your blue belt? You never use guard. You’re always on top, you never practice from the guard, you just need to pull guard all the time and get better at it”

This hit a nerve in me, coming from a wrestling background, I felt like he was telling me I should always be in bad positions. In wrestling we were always taught to stay in good position and fight your ass off the ground as quick as possible if you got taken down. I slowly learned that what he was saying wasn’t “get into bad positions all the time”, but “get into a bad position and feel comfortable”, this allows you the ability to calmly and effectively find your way to a better position without wasting a lot of energy.

This is when I got really good. I literally stopped caring about getting a belt. This is when I truly started jiu-jitsu. Before I was just bullying people and making their life hell. After I got the big picture belts didn’t matter, the only thing that mattered was getting better and becoming controlled in all positions, because once you can keep your head in any position you truly have a clear mind and can see the opening and practice new moves as you grapple.

Just a quick reflection on my Journey so far, hope it was a nice read for you

Otto The Mat Rat.