I thought I had a good ankle lock after 6 months, then I realized after a year it was shit and then I thought I had a good ankle lock...

After A year and a half I realized my ankle lock at 1 year was shit and for some reason I thought I had a good one at a year and a 1/2 in....

And after 2 years I finally feel like I have a really good ankle lock and understand different mechanics and variations be it breaking pressure more of the shin, or tearing pressure on the achilies or toe hold pressure towards the end of the foot to snap the foot off... and started combining all 3 mechanics into a single footlock that is way more technical....

And I am sure a year from now I will think my current straight ankle is shit. This seems to be a constant thing in jiu jitsu...the moment think you finally got good at something 6 months later you realize you were not nearly as good as you thought or not anywhere near as good as you could be.

People might be able to word shit in a fancy way but the reality is nothing can cheat time and training itself...some other people might train all day though everyday and after 2 or 3 years they might have trained more then someone whos been training 5 or 6 years and that's ok also.

I feel like as soon as I started letting people "work" against me even if they might be slightly "better" then me overall it forced me to get so much better at being in horrible positions I never allowed myself to be put in most of the time and as soon as I got out of them I am still able to work on my offense I just slightly delayed my offense to force myself to get better at all my other weaknesses. I hope one day I can do that Rickson thing where he let someone just pick a fully locked submission then manage to turn it around on them and tap them out with the submission they chose to attempt on him. Whenever the day comes that I can do that to most blue belts then I will feel like I've achieved some greater understanding of jiu-jitsu. lol I feel like that will be my future goal of purple one day is to be able to do that however unrealistic it might be.

I've always found the best benefits to doing tournaments is improving where I'm weakest at which in losses your opponents normally show you your weak points...I then thought well how can I get the same benefit in training...and I realized trying to win or just toy with people offensively your way better then was not very beneficial for this at all. I was able to start getting a similar benefit by letting people try to force there game plan and what they thought they were good at and instead of trying to run away from there A game I wanted to go straight into there A game so I could improve my defenses to it and make my weakest points slightly stronger and slowly as all your weak attributes get better all of a sudden you start having more time to do whatever you want when you choose to try to learn something new or get creative if you can just keep the ego in check not to care when people think they are besting you even when you could best them....let them think they are beating you if they can't realize the difference. Who cares.

That's another thing I have noticed is some people's entire confidence in jiu-jitsu itself is greatly affected by how well they preform. When they get submissions I can see they are really happy about it and when someone else get's the best of them they are down about it and they are lazer focused on victory at all costs. I think this mindset will destroy your ability to get better at jiu-jitsu quicker as that mindset will lead you to just doing what you think you know that works best for you instead of exploring and allowing yourself to be put in these bad situations that are needed for you to actually get better by acquiring more information that actually does allow for you to get better at what your not good at but also better at what you are actually good at.

If I ever make it to purple I am sure I am going to have to allow some blue belts to run all over me to figure some stuff out and I am not going to care one bit if they tap me and think they are magically better then me because of it. It's about that endgame of finally getting to a point where my weakest link in the chainmail defensively is stronger then anyone's offensive ability to break through my armor.

Oh a magical weapon in this mental war is to learn not to care about what other people think. If you truly don't care what other people think without being a dick...then it is very hard to be influenced by ego or winning and then can just focus on your own personal goals. At white belt I know I have it made because you don't really have anything to lose but it's also annoying when higher belts take it easy on you at the start of every roll and also trying to figure out a way to get them to try harder without trying to hurt there ego or be rude because of a stupid belt color as if a white belt "beats" them for real or maybe they are just being more aggressive then they may shy away from rolling with them again because they are embarrassed or not wanting to train at a certain level of intensity which only hurts both people involved as both parties need to have these rolls.

Also some people have the mindset that you can't learn anything from say a White Belt or a lower belt. But to me that is like saying you can't learn anything from a homeless person or a prisoner. You can learn lot's of things from these people...even if it's mostly just things not to do...they may actually have some wisdom as well from time to time that could be valuable depending upon how you think about things one thought can lead to another and then another. I've learned a lot recently from brand new white belts asking me questions and just because they asked me a question it forced me to think of something in a different way and forced me to problem solve something that I already thought that I knew but analyzed it to such a greater extent it led me to think of things I never thought of before and then improved my own jiu-jitsu simply by someone else asking me a question that I thought I already knew the response to.

Yeah, I think most people get impostor syndrome to at least some degree. In the 14 years I've been training (and even longer that I've been online), this question has come up constantly, so it is clearly a very common feeling, which is a little reassuring.

I have hated being promoted, every single time. My gut reaction has always been "oh fuck, I was just getting used to the last belt." As a school owner now, a higher belt does at least have its use in terms of marketing, but it for sure makes impostor syndrome worse. I already have that from teaching.

The way I deal with it is by saying to myself that it isn't my job to worry about my rank. That's down to my instructor. If they think I'm a whatever belt, then as I trust my instructor's judgement, I must indeed be that belt.

I've felt ready, eager even, for every belt promotion... until it actually happened and then I had that sinking feeling.
Do I actually deserve it?
Can I live up to the expectations of x belt?

I feel like each belt has a 'growing into' phase which seems to last roughly as long as it takes to get promoted to the next belt.

At the end of the day we trust our coaches to guide us and decide when we've reached milestones and deserve promotions.

Having said all that, we'd do well to remember belts are just an external system created to recognise our progress (and encourage people to keep training) and only hold as much weight as we allow them to.

No matter how long you’ve been training, there’s always someone who will make you feel like it’s your first day on the mats and you know nothing about jiu jitsu. Happens to me all the time. It’s normal and it will make you stronger if you just accept and embrace it.

That self doubt is good as it fuels you to continue to grow and evolve

All my promotions (stripes and belts) were a surprise. Even though i was happy and proud, I never felt ready. With each promotion, I felt the target on my back getting bigger. When I was awarded my brown belt, it took me a couple weeks for me not to feel nervous stepping on the mats. I can only imagine how I'm going to feel if I ever get my black belt. I'm definitely not in any hurry.

As with everything, in moderation. I can think of many blue belts who quit, at least partly because of the pressure they felt. Then the longer they stayed away, the more pressure they put on themselves. Always sad to see.

But yeah, I do think a small amount of self doubt is healthy, though I'm in the UK where self-deprecation is the norm. In the US, it often seems the opposite is true to an outsider like me: i.e, self-confidence is much more common and celebrated. In the UK it doesn't take much for people to view self-confidence as arrogance. Plus 'tall poppy syndrome', something that's also common in Australian culture, AFAIK.

Yes quite common, but less so these days, at least in bjj in my experience, as the art becomes more open and the sharing of knowledge becomes more the norm.

I think people just need to recognise that there are different styles of BJJ and the rule set massively impacts it.

I have knowledge of leg locks that other clubs wouldn't teach a white belt because NAGA NoGi ruleset is my second favourite. Heel hooks are legal for blue belts and yes i'll be blue as soon as we get unfucked by covid19, i wasn't going to wait until i actually had the blue belt to learn the system. But some people would look at my guard offence and rate me a no stripe white belt in that area. That's ok with me, they just need to realise that that's how i see a lot of the IBJJF competitors leg lock skills. A lot of clubs are orientated towards IBJJF competition and that's their choice, but their blue belts get annihilated in non-IBJJF NoGi.

Butt scoot > two on one hand grip > SLX > Heel hook = 30 second match. I've seen it so many times.

What i'm saying is that if i was on the mats and saw a purple belt get tapped by a white or blue belt, i wouldn't jump to the assumption they were a shit purple belt. The most likely explanation in my mind would be that they rolled with a lower belt because they wanted to practice their weakest area and deliberately took the roll in that direction. After that i'd guess that it was a clash of styles, just because a white belt can heel hook a purple belt, it doesn't make them one.

Yeah, I feel that way all the time. I do wish they would just do away with the current belt system all together - too much emphasis seems to be placed on it. I'd like to see us go back to 'old' school belts. Black meant you were an instructor. If you weren't an instructor, you were a white belt. Many moons ago when I was training muay thai regularly, there were no belt ranks and it was great! Now MT has been Americanized enough to the point that there are now belt ranks (at least at the gym I used to train at). This is a reputable gym with a very reputable trainer as well. I digress...

...but yes, you are not alone. The only advice I can offer you is to maybe study Priit's defensive postures and submission defense, if you haven't already. Once I got good at those, the anxiety to roll with higher belt strangers subsided quite a bit because I knew that even though they could outpoint me all to hell, they probably couldn't submit me. Surviving (and a lot of times doing well against) onslaughts from younger/stronger/heavier tournament champions helped my confidence immensely and I attribute that largely to Priit's postures.

Hey Dave,
I can understand why you might think that way, but in my opinion it is pointless to worry. I am a purple belt like you, too and I am on the mats for 10 years plus and still there are thousands and thousands of people, of course other purple belts, blue belts and for sure strong and young competition whitebelts, who will kick my ass, know more than me and are technically better....There are so many variables to consider, like age, hours on the mat, coach and affiliation, approach (more competitive or more recreational; self defense), etc... Just stay passionate and positive, enjoy learning and training and give your best...at least that is what I do. Just focus on the things you can do to get better under your given circumstances....and if your coach gave you your purple belt, you surely earned it! Greetings, Mirco

One other thought I had is that years ago, when I started down more of a 'conceptual' learning path, I seemed to get better faster. Internalizing concepts like connection/disconnection, push/pull/action/reaction, etc and just understanding 'pressure' in general better. Pressure isn't just something you apply by crushing people into the mat, which is what I though that was for the longest time. It's building up the 'pressure sensitivity' engine and learning how to efficiently apply and deal with pressure. This is something that takes a long time to get the hang of and I'm still working on it! lol The more usage of body weight and angles is another one (pressure!). Speed/strength only lasts for a short time, relative to your jiu jitsu journey as a whole.

I'm at the stage where I'm really trying to pear my game down to absolute essentials because I simple don't have time (especially now) to try to get somewhat decent at 150 techniques. If I can get really super good at 10 techniques and a handful of import concepts that I can execute, then I will be happy.

You suck. But not so as much as others.
There's always a bigger noob.
Enjoy the ride & have a glass of wine.

My real name is Deepak Rao. Does that count as having impostor syndrome?

I reread my last post and realized I kinda strayed off topic.

Next time when when you're feeling Down and Out in Jiu Jitsu Beverly Hills, just remember that you can probably tap out 99% of humanity. :D

Ok, done blathering.