Sweep4-2 said:

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One or two classes I think. Got a bunch of tape and some old wrestling shoes and made it work.

Of course, this same approach to 'healing' is how I broke my right pinky finger 2x in 2 weeks. And why it now only straightens halfway.

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haha.....Not to laugh at your pain, but I have that exact same injury.

You must be very talented or working very hard to get two stripes in 6 months. It took me over a year of 3 days a week to get a single stripe. Congrats!

Where do you train? A stripe every 3-4 months at white belt doesn't seem odd. Most folks will spend 1-2 years at white belt at most.
2-3 years at blue
2-3 at purple
2-3 at brown
Black belt after 7-10 years training. (All depending upon how much you train)

Btw, buddy taped my pinky toe and did 4 classes last week. Only a few twinges of pain when planting on the outside of that foot.

Maybe I'm just not very natural. Lol

Any good open mats on the northwest 610 loop on Saturdays?

The Green Dragon said:

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You must be very talented or working very hard to get two stripes in 6 months. It took me over a year of 3 days a week to get a single stripe. Congrats!

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Thank you, talented I am not, but I would say I work hard when I'm in there. Perhaps your gym has a higher standard? I'd say 6 months is average for most of the people at my gym though I've seen some get there quicker and some take longer depending on how often they show up and how quickly they pick things up. For me it's always dependent upon what we work on, some things come quicker than others. There's definitely a jump in skill from 2 stripes to 3 stripes in our gym. I can really tell a difference when sparring with a 3 stripe or higher vs 2 and lower. That seems to be the line where guys smaller than me have little trouble with me. I can get the occasional win vs them but it's rare.

Yeah, the 3-stripe white belts seeming better is normally just a function of A) slightly more training time and B) being the minimum rank invited to roll with the advanced class. And the disparity in skill seems huge, but it's small in the grand scheme of things and quickly bridged once you're both rolling in the advanced class.

In my experience, the class in which someone trains (fundamentals vs advanced) and the # of times they train per week is a much bigger difference maker than the belt level, stripes, etc.

Max Power said:

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The Green Dragon said:

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You must be very talented or working very hard to get two stripes in 6 months. It took me over a year of 3 days a week to get a single stripe. Congrats!

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Thank you, talented I am not, but I would say I work hard when I'm in there. Perhaps your gym has a higher standard? I'd say 6 months is average for most of the people at my gym though I've seen some get there quicker and some take longer depending on how often they show up and how quickly they pick things up. For me it's always dependent upon what we work on, some things come quicker than others. There's definitely a jump in skill from 2 stripes to 3 stripes in our gym. I can really tell a difference when sparring with a 3 stripe or higher vs 2 and lower. That seems to be the line where guys smaller than me have little trouble with me. I can get the occasional win vs them but it's rare.

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Took me 6 months to get my first stripe. I got my Blue Belt at 14 months.

Yeah, it took me right at a year to get my blue belt and I was really rolling well. And then I was a blue belt for a little over 4 years, which seemed like forever at the time and my rolling was hot and cold depending on the day.

Looking back, I still think blue belt was both the most challenging belt as well as the one during which I learned the most.

Blue - 2 years
Purple - 3 years
Brown - 3 years

And it's gonna be a real long time for black

I looked back into mine, and I was a brown belt for four years also.....but it felt way shorter than when I was at blue (mostly because I was terrified of getting promoted haha):

-White: 1 year
-Blue: 4 years
-Purple: 3 years
-Brown: 4 years
-Black: Late 2019 - Present

Sad day yesterday - ended up in a weird, unintentional arm bar during a scramble and likely tore my bicep tendon . Anyone have experience with a similar injury/surgery/recovery and getting back to training?

Sorry to hear that. Hopefully you can get healed up without an extended repair/recovery.

I'm not familiar with that kind of injury/recovery, but my experience with several others (hernia repair) is to take 3x longer to return than the doctor says (as most doctors think BJJ is the same as Tai-Chi or TKD).

Wall Street Journal Article;

https://www.wsj.com/articles/jiu-jitsu-mark-zuckerberg-9aff7dc1

Curious to know if any of you are considering this tournament. I'm thinking about it.

Its tough to find 50+ Blue Belts that compete but this is a big enough tournament that there might
be someone to roll with. Could be fun.

You thoughts?

https://ibjjf.com/events/world-master-ibjjf-jiu-jitsu-championship-2023

There will definitely be someone to roll with there, and they will be pretty dang good.
(Think 50 year old former wrestler/military guys on a steady diet of HGH looking to reclaim some of their glory days good)

I was just promoted to purple belt, so I'd like to get a year or two of experience at this level before I try any large tournaments. Dealing with some major imposter syndrome right now!!

Apache said:

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There will definitely be someone to roll with there, and they will be pretty dang good.
(Think 50 year old former wrestler/military guys on a steady diet of HGH looking to reclaim some of their glory days good)

I was just promoted to purple belt, so I'd like to get a year or two of experience at this level before I try any large tournaments. Dealing with some major imposter syndrome right now!!

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Seen plenty of those. Man, I would just like to roll at tournament every once in a while with my/our approximate skill level. Not some dude that should be a brown belt but his academy is sandbagging.....

@Apache - Congrats on the Purple belt.

Apache said:

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There will definitely be someone to roll with there, and they will be pretty dang good.
(Think 50 year old former wrestler/military guys on a steady diet of HGH looking to reclaim some of their glory days good)

I was just promoted to purple belt, so I'd like to get a year or two of experience at this level before I try any large tournaments. Dealing with some major imposter syndrome right now!!

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Congrats on the Purple Belt!!

Thank you all!!

I didn't think I deserved it (who ever does) but I stepped up my training to 3 advanced classes per week typically plus 2 hours open mat on Saturdays. Honestly open mats have helped me tremendously... I'm rolling with black/brown belts most of the time. I don't get submissions really, just try to not get tapped. Nailing a sweep on those guys is like winning ADCC at this point.

O.G. said:

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Curious to know if any of you are considering this tournament. I'm thinking about it.

Its tough to find 50+ Blue Belts that compete but this is a big enough tournament that there might
be someone to roll with. Could be fun.

You thoughts?

https://ibjjf.com/events/world-master-ibjjf-jiu-jitsu-championship-2023

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There's a regional IBJJF tournament coming here this weekend and the professors are definitely taking it very seriously. They've been separating the students going to that tournament for a bit more of intensive training leading up to it. Much more than when there's a regional tournament with just the GB schools in the area participating. We have a GB competition next weekend but between work being crazy and summer activities with the kid it makes getting out of town for a day a difficult proposition. We'll have another one of those this winter, which is the first competition I'm planning on entering. I'll have right at about a year of experience under my belt by then. I feel good about my defense, but transitioning to offense remains difficult to me.

I do think my lack of leg flexibility is impeding some of my progress. I've started stretching my hamstrings and hips about 30 minutes each morning. Anyone find any sort of program that helped you significantly improve your flexibility? I've never been a flexible person, I think improving that would benefit me more than getting stronger.

You've got to warm up before stretching to make improvements. Maybe a 1/2 mile walk, then spend some really good time on the specific areas you are targeting. 3 sets of the particular stretch for 30 seconds each, 4x per week.

I had some seriously bad range of motion & the above helped me quite a bit. We used to stretch as a group after BJJ class, but that's kind of faded out.

We need a tournament in College Station. Mandatory attendance for guys on this board, regardless of belt. ...

Apache - Congrats on receiving your Purple Belt!!! You survived the roughest belt (IMO anyway)! Purple belt means you can now be late to warm-ups whenever you want haha (kidding). Keep up the training and stay at that brown/black side of the mat as much as you can.

Max - there are a variety of good resources online for 'Flexibility for BJJ'. IMO it's less about the specific stretching routine and more about just doing it every, single day. When I was a competitive gymnast, I stretched at least 45 minutes a day just doing a random mix of gymnastics and track stretches. And now, anytime I'm watching TV I sit on the floor and stretch.

And yeah, that'd be fun to have a BJJ forum group roll!

This place is having a sale today. Don't know if any of you need rash guards but I've been doing more NoGi lately and only had one.

https://www.rashguardstore.com/

So the past couple of weeks the training schedule here's been impacted thanks to tournaments, holidays, and family stuff. I've only been able to go once a week compared to my normal three times and I noticed a difference mentally. I could feel some anxiety creeping back in recently. I got to roll Monday night and I'll be back again tonight but Saturday is closed for belt promotions. But that's cool because I think a few of the guys from my class will be getting their blue belts. I'll be happy for next week to get here since that schedule will return to normal and I can resume training three times a week. It's crazy to me, in a good way, that I can notice a change mentally depending on my ability to train. Work has been insane for me this year in terms of how busy we are and how stressed I am, rolling has legitimately been keeping me sane. It just helps to reinforce how fortunate I feel to have found this even at this stage in my life. I'm one of the oldest white belts there, nothing comes easy for me, but I couldn't be happier enduring something I'm not very good at.

Just wanted to bring that up in the event there's anyone lurking that's on the fence, give it a shot.

I just tore my pec major tendon from the humerus on 6/24. Surgery is scheduled for 7/20. Likely looking at a 6 month recovery.

Brack99 said:

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I just tore my pec major tendon from the humerus on 6/24. Surgery is scheduled for 7/20. Likely looking at a 6 month recovery.

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How did the surgery go?

I always forget about this thread.

I was recently awarded a purple belt. I didn't want one but now that I'm here I'm trying to rise to the purple belt expectations.

I also sort of started a "gym" at home to save me from having to go to Waco every time I want to train. Rolling exclusively with new people is challenging in a way I guess I hadn't considered. And even teaching the stuff I am good at doesn't come naturally let alone the techniques I only semi confident in. I spend a lot of time considering what to work on and how I want my guys to train. My coach comes through a couple times a month and I have plenty of other upper belts willing to come help.

I guess I have resolved to do it for free for a while because I'm not sure my market will support much right now. And I'm happier beating up white belts than no belts at all.

Brack99 said:

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So far so good. Surgery went well, I've had minimal pain and feeling better each day. I only had to take ibuprofen once today. Happy to be on the mend!

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We've had a couple guys go through the same thing in the last year or so. They said their recovery was pretty straight forward, just tough to sit out the prescribed amount of time.

Yep. I don't sit still too well, so it's going to be a struggle. Only 37 more days of this immobilizer brace!

Glad to hear your surgery went well. One of the guys at our gym tore his pec maybe two years ago. It took him a while to get back into it but he did and is back at 100%. I had my bicep repair about 2 weeks ago and had my 1st PT session yesterday. Also looking at about 4 months to return to training. The silver lining I guess is that all my small, minor/nagging injuries and aches are going to get to heal.

Was given 4 stripes on my purple belt at our promotions this last weekend. Growing into them will give me something to look forward to over the next couple of months.

Thanks! Glad to hear your rehab is going well. I'm a 3 stripe blue and just starting to feel worthy of it. Agreed on the nagging injuries. The rest of my body is feeling great now, but it's going to be rough getting back in BJJ shape after this time off the mats.
Take care,
Brack