The gift of being a Beginner at Jiu-Jitsu

Belt promotions, Winning, and Pressure


The gift a beginner has is having no expectations on their performance.

They should welcome mistakes, losing and tapping.

As a student acquires experience and a sense of seniority, they may feel increased pressure to perform or ‘represent’ the level they are at.

These pressures are either self imposed or placed on them by others out of insecurity.

Those who don’t feel such pressures are either monks who have overcome the very notion of pressure itself or have just accepted that they cannot become great at Jiu-Jitsu.

The truth is that everyone can become exceptional.

To reach the top 1% in Jiu Jitsu, all that is required is purity in the desire and desperation to arrive there.

That person will find a way despite all circumstances.

Should a beginner see this period as an opportunity to experiment to discover their natural talents, it will be a period of immense benefit.

Beginner Mind

The greatest gift the beginner has is few, if any, of the higher belts still possess: Beginner mind.

A mind which has not been conditioned by the belief of what works and doesn’t work.  

A mind which hasn’t conditioned itself with the belief of what you are good at or not good at and has the willingness to experiment and learn as much as possible without discounting anything.

While a beginner is constantly confronted with all the things they do not know, this jewel is worth more than all the knowledge they will ever possess.

As a beginner trains, they develop likes and dislikes, interests and content they become averse to.

Should they achieve a blue belt and beyond, they may find themselves stripping this beautiful art down further and further until it exists inside a small box of limitation in favor of immediate gratification.

Turning the infinite to the finite extinguishes the fun out of learning.

This student reaches plateaus and likely grows increasingly disinterested and frustrated by the pressure they put on themselves to perform.

Classes, which only a short period ago seemed compelling, are now experienced as a means to an end to get to sparring and little progress is made compared to when they were a beginner.

While Jiu-Jitsu does become more fun the better you are at it, enjoy your temporary time as a beginner for few, if any, ever arrive back to a beginner mindset.