Part I: Knowing Is Half the Battle and Most of the Problem Question: I recently heard someone call purple belt “purple purgatory,” and it seems to fit. When you were a purple belt, did you start to question everything you do? Now that I'm teaching more, I'm really starting to question everything and sometimes I feel that I was a more confident teacher at blue belt. Is that something you experienced? Do you feel that purple belt is a trying period in jiu-jitsu? Answer: I see two questions here. The first relates to whether purple belt seems to be a challenge—a purgatory—in general. The second relates specifically to how, at purple belt, the writer has started to question everything that...

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20-year-old me, Happy birthday! In a few days you will head to Hooters with your friends to watch UFC 79. Besides the epic war that Silva vs Liddell will be, GSP’s win by armbar will plant the MMA and submission grappling bug in your head (spoiler alert, I guess). In a few months your friend Dave will talk you into signing up for a tournament and your life will forever be changed. You will train and compete as often as you can. Everything in your life will begin to go through the “how does this affect my jiu-jitsu filter.” It will seem strange to a lot of your family and friends, but it will make you immensely happy, so stay...

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  The jiu-jitsu world is rich with instructionals, and in the early years, swapping bootleg VHS tapes and tattered magazine techniques—many of which were in Japanese or Portuguese—was the only way schools in remote locations could get new techniques. In those years, remote meant any non-major city that doesn’t have a beach. Today, instructionals are readily available—books, DVDs, magazines, YouTube, webinars, and subscription sites. At the same time, instruction in schools has vastly improved. Seminars are far more accessible. Most schools are run by black belts. Finding an instructor with a large breadth of knowledge isn’t as hard as it used to be, but the instructional industry is still booming. The formats might be different, but we are still seeing...

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It’s that time of the year. A few weeks ago in the United States, families gathered on a special Thursday to celebrate each other and what their thankful for in their lives. But the Friday that follows is just as important. No, I’m not talking about Black Friday shopping. The day after Thanksgiving marks the start of winter sports for high schoolers in the US. For me, that means one thing: Wrestling season. I wrestled for two years in high school. Spoiler alert: I wasn’t very good. I somehow managed to have an above .500 record and make it out of our district to compete in regionals. Even though I didn’t walk away from high school wrestling with a bunch...

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The holidays are upon us! This time of year can often be stressful, and this is true for grapplers as well. The holidays often mean travel and thus a disruption of our favorite method of stress relief: training. While I look forward to seeing far-flung family members on Christmas, I often find myself dreading missing out on training. The solution to this problem is simple: Pack your gi and visit a local jiu jitsu school. Visiting other schools is a great experience that every jiu jitsu student should indulge in, but this can also be a stressful experience, so here are few tips to make visiting schools as smooth and enjoyable process as possible. Know the Rules of the Academy:...

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Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is tough -- physically, mentally, emotionally. Most people quit, and those that don’t can still spend years feeling clueless. If you feel that way, I have good news for you: You’re learning even on those days where nothing seems to go right and you mess up every move you try. We learn a lot from frustrating failures, even when we don’t realize we are. Our brain is chewing on problems, often outside of our awareness, until one day when we have an “a ha!” moment, seemingly out of nowhere. To explain this, let’s talk about your brain and how it learns new skills. First, let me introduce you to two terms: procedural learning and implicit learning. Procedural learning...

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When I was coming up through the ranks in jiu-jitsu, I was routinely the only woman or one of maybe two or three women in class. I trained with anyone who was willing to train with me: man-mountains, scrawny kids, and everyone in between. I was a curiosity in those days, and the male students who ended up having to pair with me were rarely happy about it, at least at first. I felt stupid and awkward when I stopped to notice, so I tried not to. And the high I got from training—the pure joy and flow, which lasted for hours after I finished a training session—was more than worth the challenges. It was even worth the casually sexist...

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When jiu-jitsu tourism was sort of my job, I was in Hawaii training at the BJ Penn Academy. I was still new to the sport, working on getting a blue belt, which meant that I was simply too fresh to understand some of the sport’s biggest challenges. As a white belt, I thought that the hardest parts of jiu-jitsu were things like training consistently, or getting in shape, or having to get used to upper belts beating up on you. Then I met Sam (not his real name). Sam was a local, late 30s, and barely taller than five feet. He was comically round and almost always laughed, mostly at himself. Technically, Sam was a blue belt, but he had...

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I learned how to play Magic the Gathering in 5th grade. It fascinated me then and almost 20 years later it still does today. Recently I realized the same thing that keeps me going back to Magic the Gathering is the same thing that fascinates me about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.For the uninitiated, Magic The Gathering is a trading card game, the first one ever produced. Yes, it’s similar to Yu Gi Oh or Pokemon (but don’t judge it based on that). Magic has been around since 1993 and as of 2015 it has 20 million players worldwide. Magic can be played different ways, but one of the most popular ways to play involves the players creating a 60-card deck that represents...

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Val Worthington is taking questions about jiu-jitsu and life. Submit yours here and it could be featured in the next installment!Question: Can you please discuss how you deal with the peaks and valleys of passion with BJJ? I don't think I have lost my passion but for a few months I have noticed that the mats are not my happy place. Changes in the school, life challenges, new students...all may be reasons. I am not giving up but I am fearful at times, unhappy sometimes, and not sure how much I am learning. Thanks!!!Thank you for this question, though I am sorry to hear you need to ask it. I can guarantee that you are not alone in feeling this way, because...

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