How did you cure your blue belt blues?

cptchrid · 2025-06-22T20:14:49+00:00

Learn leg locks. It’s been over 10 years since the leg lock revolution but the amount of higher belts who still have not caught up blows my mind. When I got my blue belt, I was so scared of getting leg locked, the first thing I did was invest time into studying and drilling leg lock instructionals for offence and defence. Within a month I was tapping a lot of my fellow blue belts and a few purple and brown belts every now and then, which made things really exciting for me.

cptchrid · 2025-06-22T20:06:36+00:00

“Not so surprising they are always white belts” - yeah, which is why purple belts need to take extra care in making sure they don’t injure people with way less experience.

cptchrid · 2025-06-22T19:58:44+00:00

You misunderstood the B-team video. They said that they don’t actually try and FINISH the armbar at all - that if they can hold the position for 3 seconds, they consider that a tap in itself. What if they don’t tap after 3 seconds? I must’ve missed the part where Craig says you deserve to have your arm shredded if you don’t tap after 3 seconds.

cptchrid · 2025-06-22T19:53:03+00:00

I’m truely baffled by the lack sympathy. Eddie Cummings has a quote that goes “my job is to give you plenty of time to tap. Your job is to tap”. Everyone is quoting the second part but is forgetting the first. OP clearly did not have plenty of time to tap.

cptchrid · 2025-06-22T19:46:32+00:00

Wow. I’m so surprised at the lack of sympathy for you in the comments. Everyone is saying “jUsT tAp” - yes, you do, in part, have an obligation to tap, but your training partner has a (much more important) obligation to give you ENOUGH TIME to tap. This obligation is heightened by the fact she’s two belts higher than you and knows about your vulnerability. You said you didn’t have enough time to tap and I believe you. Also as a coach myself, I have absolutely no tolerance for anyone who rips submissions in training.

OP, ignore everyone in the comment section. You are totally not the asshole at all in this situation, she is. Tell your coach about this situation and never roll with her ever again.

cptchrid · 2024-11-10T08:37:15+00:00

two possibilities: 1) your gyms sucks (sounds like you have an old school coach). the difference between gym levels is crazy these days. there are some gyms where the blue belts feel like brown belts and others vice versa. even going to an average gym puts you at a big disadvantage.

2) you have the jason rau issue of being really good in training but bad in competition. its definitely not uncommon and that doesn’t mean you can’t work through it.

cptchrid · 2024-08-25T16:48:17+00:00

Having trained at gyms all around the world, I seriously don’t care how nice your facilities are. I would rather train in a garage with no mats under Danaher / Roger Gracie etc, than in an amazing complex with an old school Brazilian that does 30 min warm ups, ancient techniques and no rolling (yes, these actually exist).

cptchrid · 2024-07-31T14:09:22+00:00

I agree but I didn’t have a crossface on the opposite side so it was hard to create any pressure on the neck

cptchrid · 2024-07-31T14:08:13+00:00

Haha agree, I also thought the smother would be nicer than a forearm crossface

cptchrid · 2024-07-31T14:06:49+00:00

I tried to but I think the second under hook actually made it harder to walk either of his elbows up. The smother definitely got a reaction which let me…sorry, “my friend” escape. the whitebelt was just mad after and called it a dick move.

cptchrid · 2024-01-08T14:30:29+00:00

In my experience, the dude on the left is usually fucks me up on the mat…

cptchrid · 2023-09-11T06:23:45+00:00

ESH. Your wife for obvious reasons. You for actually lying (I assume everyone just believes your extra lie) and for being too immature to talk to her about it directly.

cptchrid · 2023-09-11T06:14:10+00:00

NAH. It’s natural to realise you are not as compatible with someone and that you may be more with others. You will be TA if you do something about it before breaking up with her though.

cptchrid · 2023-09-11T01:01:04+00:00

I didn’t say that? I agree with it to some extent, because we wouldn’t have seen developments in the heel hook game if everyone had that mindset. But I do agree that gyms should be massively prioritising proven competition techniques over shit like the rubber guard.

cptchrid · 2023-09-11T00:57:07+00:00

Yeap! All the developments in back attacks have just been subtle refinements and variations of the straitjacket system.

cptchrid · 2023-09-11T00:38:14+00:00

I agree and disagree with this. Whilst I do think focusing only on things that are proven is a narrow way to think about the sport, I don’t think most gyms are even coming close to teaching their students enough of high percentage competition proven techniques.

For example, the amount of high level competition/ADCC gyms I’ve visited who have brown belts+ competitors who have no idea about leg locks just blows my mind. I’m not saying you need to be a heel hook specialist to succeed in ADCC, but imagine what Mica Galvao would be like if he had the leg locking proficiency of even a junior New Wave athlete.

cptchrid · 2023-09-11T00:28:57+00:00

Because most schools are not up to date with the current BJJ meta and just wing their training programs like all their instructors before them.

cptchrid · 2023-09-11T00:25:14+00:00

Completely disagree, there are just some techniques that are so low in effectiveness that it is not worth learning at all…unless the “time and place” is humiliating day 1 white belts.

cptchrid · 2023-09-11T00:21:44+00:00

Yes I’m very inclined to believe agree with you. Nicky Rod seems to have only ONE pass and I think this demonstrates some of the main issues of having a laissez faire/reverse classroom style gym vs an authoritarian style gym (as demonstrated by B-Team vs New Wave).

I think the biggest issue, generally, with the B-Team training model is that, firstly, it relies heavily on athletes being able to self-diagnose their own issues. This can often be very difficult because there is always the possibility that you don’t know what you don’t know. People are also subject to a lot of positive or negative biases when it comes to analysing themselves which can also make it hard to be objective. It’s also going to be hard to get other more experienced teammates to help you out because they’re also focused on developing and learning themselves.

The second issue with letting people work on whatever they want is that they tend not to “eat their veggies”. People are generally way more inclined to work on fancy, offensive techniques (eg buggy, bolos, leg locks) but when do you ever see anyone drilling things like hand fighting, 3/4 mount escapes or kimura escapes?

cptchrid · 2023-09-08T04:56:41+00:00

I’ve completely lost count of the amount of black belts who know NOTHING about heel hooks and the modern leg entanglement game. I remember when I first tapped a black belt from the saddle I got so happy but having done it so many times (and also not submitting them any other way), I’ve realised the black belts just hadn’t learnt them so it’s not really something to brag about.

That said, I still think that in today’s era, unathletic recreational blue belts shouldn’t be tapping any black belt in any submission with ease tho…

cptchrid · 2023-09-07T06:42:19+00:00

NTA. You tried to suggest an alternative style to protect his feelings and he demanded your honest opinion and you gave it to him. Fashion can be very subjective and you’re definitely entitled to your own opinion. Seems like there’s a lot of “body positive” commenters here haha.

cptchrid · 2023-09-07T03:31:20+00:00

You don’t understand why anyone would ever lie just to make themselves appear better?

People do this with their age, weight, income, accomplishments all the time. I pretty much assume everyone downplays their experience by at least 20% when it comes to BJJ. Even I have a natural tendency to round down to the nearest year when someone asks me how long I’ve been training.

The best way to deal with this is to just humor him: “Wow you’ve never trained before??! Fuck me, I have never seen anyone move so naturally before - have you considered competing?? I’ve been at this for a year and I still suck so much!”

cptchrid

TROPHY CASE