I got my brown belt last week.
I’m been a purple belt for so long that I thought I’d never write that sentence. Now I’m tempted to follow it with a list of everything I still need to work on. My takedowns could be better. A lot better. I can still get flattened in side control by somebody with a good crossface and underhook. And I know at least one person who will read this and immediately start looking for wristlocks the next time we roll.
But first, I want to give myself a minute to enjoy it. I earned my brown belt, and I’m proud of that.
A promotion means a lot in jiu-jitsu because there’s no shortcut to it. You can’t study for a weekend, pass a test, and suddenly become the person who wears the belt. You have to keep coming back. You get better at something, find out someone else can shut it down, and start figuring out what comes next. Sometimes you’re having fun. Sometimes you’re wondering why a move you hit last month seems to have disappeared from your body entirely.
I’ve been a purple belt since early 2023. In that time, I’ve had good rounds, frustrating rounds, and plenty where I couldn’t tell whether I was improving at all. I’ve competed. I’ve worked on building a game instead of collecting random techniques. I’ve tried to listen when my coaches told me what needed attention. Some lessons stuck quickly. Others required me to make the same mistake so many times that I started recognizing it while I was still making it.
That’s part of what this belt represents to me. It took time, and I kept showing up for that time. It also represents trust. My coach sees something in my jiu-jitsu that says I’m ready for the next rank. I don’t have to pretend I saw every part of my progress as clearly as he did. I can accept the promotion and take the responsibility seriously. As he said when he gave it to me in his thick Brazilian accent, “This belt is a lot of responsibility’.
The funny thing is, you spend years chasing a belt, and then you wake up the next day with the same guard, the same habits, and the same people who know exactly how to give you trouble. The brown belt doesn’t fix my side control escapes. It doesn’t make me faster or erase the holes in my game. If anything, it makes some of those holes easier for me to see.
I think that’s where the pressure can creep in. What if I have a bad round? What if a lower belt catches me? Am I supposed to have an answer for everything now?
I’ve thought about those questions, but I don’t want them running my training. I’ve rolled with higher belts long enough to know they’re still working through problems too. The ones I respect don’t act like being good means never getting caught. They pay attention, adjust, and come back to work on what happened. I’d rather be that kind of brown belt than spend every round protecting an image.
That doesn’t mean the belt means nothing. It means enough that I want to grow into it. I want my jiu-jitsu to become more deliberate. I want better answers when someone pressures me, and I want to be able to create opportunities instead of waiting for my opponent to make a mistake. I want to move more, sharpen my takedowns, and stop letting a tight crossface turn five minutes of misery.
I also want to be useful to the people coming up behind me. I remember what it felt like to be newer and have a higher belt take a minute to explain why something wasn’t working. I can’t teach everything, and I’m still learning plenty myself. But I can give somebody a good round, answer a question when I can, and make space for them to figure things out without acting like I was born knowing how to pass guard.
My teammates are a big part of how I got here. They’re the ones who made me work for positions, punished my lazy grips, let me try things that weren’t ready yet, and showed up again the next night. My coaches kept teaching me even when I was sure I understood something and then proved I didn’t. You can receive a belt on your own waist, but you don’t develop the skills it represents by yourself.
So, now what?
I’ll tie on my brown belt and train. I’ll be proud of it. I’ll have days when I feel sharp and days when somebody makes me question every decision I made after leaving work . I’ll keep trying to close the gaps in my game, and I’ll probably find new ones as soon as I do.
I wanted to earn this belt. I did. Now I get to find out what kind of brown belt I’m going to be.
