Make Room for Growth

Have you ever felt like you’ve hit a training plateau?

Some people call it the “blue belt blues,” but the truth is, it can happen at every belt. If you’ve been training for a while, it’s almost inevitable that at some point you’ll hit a wall and feel like you’re not getting any better.

Trust me, if you’re consistently training, you are still getting better. Nonetheless, that feeling can still be hard to deal with.

So what can you do? Here are some things I do to keep jiu jitsu fun and to remind myself that I’m still making progress.

Shift your mindset. Create mini goals. Even if it’s the tiniest goal, it’s still important for your brain to recognize it.

Set up some rules for your training, such as, “This week in training, I will always grip first,” or “This one class, I am only working on back escapes.” Extra credit for things like, “I am only allowed to roll using one hand or one leg.” I have had to do that quite a bit to work around injuries! You can get pretty creative with these constraints.

It can be one round, one session, one week, or even longer depending on how much fun you’re having. The important thing is that you are creating scenarios for yourself to focus on. It is not about beating up your training partners. It is about beating your previous self and noticing the changes you’re making along the way.

Take a technique you never do, have some tunnel vision with it for a bit, and then let it go after you notice some shifts in your game. You may not notice anything and realize you need to switch to a different scenario, or maybe you just added something new to your toolbox. The important thing is the effort you’re putting into creating constraints in your own training and focusing on the exercise at hand.

More importantly, acknowledge the process rather than the finish line. Let’s be honest, there’s no finish line in jiu jitsu. We will always be learning something new. So strive to develop a growth mindset, meaning you’re not counting the amount of times you tapped someone. You are really just taking note of the small adjustments you’re making. This type of mindset will make jiu jitsu so much more enjoyable, especially if you’re in a training slump.

So, to end my rant, create specific training constraints for yourself, recognize the tiny shifts in your game, and feel your mindset shift along with it.