The Decision to Promote
Earning and receiving your blue belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a big deal. It is the first large milestone in any practitioner’s Jiu-Jitsu career. I recently had the privilege of promoting one of my first students, Karen Vieth, to blue belt.
Deciding who to promote, when to promote them, and for what reasons, is of equal gravity and importance to the promoting instructor as receiving the belt is to the student. When my students train at other academies, compete, or travel, I want them – and people interacting with them – to feel that they have earned their belt and embody their rank. Both on and off the mats, my students don’t merely represent themselves, but are also representatives of Sanctuary Jiu-Jitsu, the larger Caio Terra Association, and ambassadors of the art and sport of Jiu-Jitsu in general. For all of those reasons it is very important that the individual being promoted is worthy of their belt and the accompanying responsibilities. After two years of training, learning, competing, and pushing through the myriad ups and downs of Jiu-Jitsu – and life in general – I knew that Karen was ready for blue belt.
Karen’s Beginning
Karen first became interested in Jiu-Jitsu while training Hwa Rang Do, a martial art that she had been training for years. Part of Hwa Rang Do is learning basic grappling skills and submissions, but its main emphasis is on standing and striking. Karen found herself enjoying learning and training the grappling aspect of Hwa Rang Do more than anything else. She naturally sought out a martial art that focused solely upon that aspect of combat. My long standing student Ryan invited Karen in to try out a class. One of her older Hwa Rang Do training partners was also currently training with us, further impressing upon Karen the legitimacy of our art and our academy.
I remember meeting Karen for the first time and like most people who aren’t familiar with Jiu-Jitsu – but have a background in a more traditional martial art – she seemed skeptical of its efficacy upon a single viewing. She was, however, immediately intent upon asking me questions. I was showing an over/under guard pass, where you lift your hips and drive your shoulder into your opponent’s hip or sternum in order to immobilize their hips and pass. She immediately asked, “Why are you lifting your hips so high? I was always taught that your hips had to be low for proper pressure to be applied.” Immediately I knew I had somebody who was interested in the technical details of the art, and that soon she would be hooked. Soon enough, she was.
The Journey
Karen threw herself into Jiu-Jitsu with the same passion and emotional intensity that she brings to nearly everything in her life, from her political activism and campaigning, to her running and marathon training, to her writing, to her career as a teacher in the Madison Metropolitan School District. In everything that she does, Karen cares intensely about her performance, personal growth, and her ability to positively impact and inspire others. Jiu-Jitsu is no different. After joining us, it was rare the class that Karen was absent.
Soon after beginning training Jiu-Jitsu, she started to compete. Every competition, she was on the podium. Like many of us, she gravitated towards a particular style (guard) and a particular technique (the triangle choke). Many of her matches, Gi and No Gi were won by triangle, or lost because her triangle was successfully defended by her opponent. She learned from the matches she won as much as she learned from the matches she lost. More importantly, she saw Jiu-Jitsu competition not solely as a stage upon which to prove herself, but as a means to improve herself.
Trial by Fire: the ups-and-downs of Jiu-Jitsu
All upper belts know Jiu-Jitsu is the most amazing art and sport in the world. It teaches us things about ourselves and others that we would never otherwise know. It shows us our true potential, and the power of practice. But it is hard. Very hard. Like most people who reach the two-year mark, Karen hit a plateau. She became frustrated in her perceived lack of progress. So often we forget that in Jiu-Jitsu our teammates are usually progressing at the same rate that we are, so our progress isn’t as obvious as it would be if we had a steady rotation of fresh and untrained beginners to practice on. Our best attacks become easily defended by our daily training partners who are adjusting their game to counter our own. At this point Jiu-Jitsu can become far less fun and start to feel more like a chore. Professor Caio has talked about this in many of his seminars and interviews, because it is such a big cause of the rate of attrition at the blue belt level. We forget the reason why we started training Jiu-Jitsu: to have fun, to learn, to improve ourselves, and even if we are getting smashed and choked every day (as many of us were at white belt) it’s still amazing to be on the mats every day.
The Plateau
Karen, like many others at this point, saw this as a sign that she wasn’t improving and was stagnating. Her attitude changed. Her emotional intensity and persistence kept her coming day after day, despite it being overwhelmingly obvious she didn’t want to be there. So, I had a long and difficult conversation with her. I let her know that I was there to help her, but also to do what a coach does and correct the attitudes of athletes when they have gone awry and are leading to negative habits that affect themselves and their teammates. We talked about how she was stuck in a pattern of negative thinking and that was hindering her from becoming the leader on the mats that she truly was, and could be. I told her that she was holding herself back, and that if she wanted to be a leader, she had to act like one. She was resistant at first – as most of us would be in that situation – but she sucked it up, pushed through, and I believe she took to heart what I had said.
The Transformation
Almost like a switch, her attitude changed. Most importantly, on some days I could tell that she was still struggling with her attitude, but this time she was aware of it and was very obviously working on it. That is the spirit of Jiu-Jitsu, and martial arts. To identify a problem, and attack it head on with our bodies and minds. We aren’t perfect in our execution, but we try and improve every single day. I saw this new awareness in Karen, and saw her desire and ability to change for the positive. It was time for promotion.
I don’t partake in any belt promotion rituals like the gauntlet, or throwing, or choking. We train and learn Jiu-Jitsu, so that is typically what I do on a night I am going to promote somebody: train with them, hard. Normally I train with my students at about 40 – 60% capacity. I am always trying to match the technical ability, strength, and cardiovascular capacity of my partner. That way I can remain in that optimal zone where my skillset is being challenged along with that of my partner. So when I turn that up, and roll with more intensity, my students are often surprised and taken aback.
On this particular night we were rolling seven six-minute rounds, and on the sixth round Karen had rolled with a relatively new student. When the seventh round came, I partnered with Karen and turned up the intensity. Somewhere during the roll my knee caught her face and bloodied her lip. I apologized of course, and like she always does she smiled, laughed, and said it was fine. That’s another thing, Karen is tough as nails, has a gas tank like an ultra-marathoner (because she is one), and has never complained about an injury. After the round she looked a bit shell shocked and I called for the class to line up, as usual at the end of a class.
After my closing remarks, I talked about how I like to roll: “I usually roll very controlled, but sometimes I need to bloody the lips of my blue belts … Karen, please step forward.” Immediately the class erupted in applause. I thought Karen had missed my comment, but she was actually apprehensive about stepping forward. She was struggling, like a lot of us do, with internal questions as to whether or not she deserved the promotion. But, she stepped forward and her eyes welled. Karen wears her heart on her sleeve, and it’s something you can always count on: the honesty of her presentation.
As I tied her new belt around her waist I lauded her for her attendance, perseverance, competition merits, leadership skills, toughness, commitment, and intense passion for self-improvement and Jiu-Jitsu. She later told me that she thought I was rolling so hard with her as a punishment for doing something “wrong” with a beginner in the previous round.
A New Role, and a New Chapter
Since her promotion, Karen has truly stepped into the role of a blue belt. She consistently provides an example of what it means to be a student of the martial arts, while also showcasing her ability as a team leader. She comes to every single class she can, consistently logs her training hours, asks questions every opportunity she has, competes regularly, makes a point to do private lessons, organizes team functions, assists me in scheduling, cross trains weekly at Chosen Few to improve her no gi game, and still applies her trademark emotional intensity and passion to everything that she does, on and off the mats. I am incredibly proud and humbled to have the opportunity to share the mats – and my Jiu-Jitsu – with Karen, and to have her represent Sanctuary Jiu-Jitsu as a blue belt.
