After over a decade, I’ve become competent in the art of throwing someone to the ground and keeping them there even when they don’t want to stay. I then bend their arm the wrong way or get my arm around their neck until they yield.
With it comes the title of “Professor” that people say to me. I thought I would like it much more than I do. I told someone to call me Professor ${user.surname} and they did and it felt uncomfortable.
On the topic, people started showing me more respect the next day I showed up to class. I guess the week before, as a 4 stripe brown belt, you were still talking smack to a fellow practitioner, but if you’re talking smack to a BLACK BELT then that’s territory reserved only for edgelords who spit at authority.
1% of people who step into the gym ever step back out with a black belt. And, as such, I have become the bourgeoisie of the sport. At the top of the hierarchy, I collect a disproportionate amount of submissions. In fact, I get taps I didn’t earn because people often defeat themselves before they spar against me. Like the bourgeoisie, I am prejudice against people of a different color than me. I think blue belt deserve to suffer for the crime of being a blue belt. The middle class (blues and purples) should (LITERALLY) get squeezed by me to give me more submissions. Brown belts think they’re honorary black belts, but they’re not. I’d just as soon call them a lower belt when it comes to line up before and after class and they’re at the front of the line while I’m looking at everyone in line. Not only that, but my Epstein equivalent is all the trips, wristlocks, and belly down submissions I do to brand new white belts while talking smack. I do it in front of everyone else - what are you going to do? I hold all the power in this hierarchy!!
I’d recommend BJJ insofar that fighting is the most fun thing to do ever. It’s very funny the way that nerds who like Japanese culture need to get along with sports gambling enjoyers in order to cooperate under the same roof. I’d recommend much more highly being good at BJJ. I don’t think my ego could take having to rise through the ranks of the sport anymore; if I started today I would plateau around blue belt.
I’ve actually been dealing with this existential question about whether i want to keep going. For the whole time I was getting up to it I wanted it so bad I couldn’t breathe. I’d never relent on feeling like I have to get to the gym and kick ass cause one day it would be mine. Now that I have it I want to transition to striking or get a judo black belt next. What makes it so rewarding to keep going?
For me, it was partly mastering the art, partly passing on what I know. It taught me humility.
I studied the Japanese form and trained in Japan a few times. I had to go there for my final three gradings.
I had to learn massage for my third Dan, I meditated twice a day, and still do.
It sounds weird, but it made me a more peaceful, productive person and helped with most aspects of my life. Happy to discuss it with you if you want to shoot me a DM