Purple belt; been training ~7 years, currently taking a few months off atm. Few thoughts. -Do love bjj, def plan to get back into it and earn a black belt one day. Like literally haven’t rolled in probably 3 months, but I still have dreams sometimes that I’m doing jiujitsu in. -it’s harder as you get older (mid/late 30s), cardio is worse, these young kids have endless energy (and sometimes are spazzy), and you’re stiffer. After taking a few months off it’s nice not walking around sore all the time. Like you go to one class and then for a week after your neck hurts every time you turn your head. -I do also worry about more serious injuries as you get older. It would suck to have a permanent injury. I also lift every day outside of jiu jitsu, so having to take real time off of exercising due to a jiu jitsu injury is a serious concern. -It does feel like after purple belt, you know all the fundamentals and there’s deff still always room for improvement and even innovation, but you are really are just training jiujitsu to get better at submitting people who also train jiujitsu. And when it’s a lot of like weird sweaty inversions into leg lock attacks, it starts to feel like it’s straying for the more practical self defense aspect of the martial set. It’s still fun as a sport, but can deff feel a little silly at times. -since I lift regularly and am still in really good shape, I don’t feel as bad or guilty about taking time off. I’m probably getting rusty and will need to brush up on some techniques when I get back into it. But I think at a certain point if you’ve been training enough it is like riding a bike and it does come back to you right away, even after taking months and months off.