Holy crap, I'm a purple belt!

I still can't believe it - last weekend I became a Royce Gracie, Triangle jiu jitsu purple belt! It hasn't fully sunk in yet. (A few days ago, I absent-mindedly said "I'm just a blue belt" and had to be corrected by my training partner).

Not much has changed, really. I roll the same as I did a few weeks ago. I still get tapped by the same people. The old maxim is true - "A belt only covers 2 inches of your ass. It is up to you to cover the rest of it."

Getting promoted by my now black belt instructor Seth Shamp!

In my job as a speech language pathologist, we have a maxim of our own - "Don't teach to test." In other words, the point of therapy is to improve someone's functional communication, not to improve standardized test scores. When therapy is successful, improvement in assessments may be the end result, but it is never the goal. The goal is to help a patient communicate in the world.


I think the same is true in jiu jitsu. Going up in rank is a measure of progress like standardized test results. They both are a nice affirmation. But achieving rank should never be the point of training.  Pedro Valente has said “No one should train for a belt. You should train for the knowledge, you should train for all the amazing benefits that jiu jitsu brings to our lives.”

I train quite simply to get better at jiu jitsu. Sometimes I train with a narrower focus, such as to win a tournament or to learn and incorporate new techniques. But the overall goal is to be just a little bit better than the day before. Changes in color are few and far between in our art, so if they become our goal, we are destined for frustration and discouragement.

My training partners Brad McDonald and De McFadyen got promoted too!

Getting a purple belt has never been the point of my training. Still, it is something that I have wanted from early on. When I was new, I saw purple belts as serious bad-asses. Now I see them as folks who are in it for the long haul and are likely to keep training for life.

So, yeah, I am totally psyched to wear a new color and to have a chance to compete in new divisions. Purple is my favorite color and my belt now matches most of my wardrobe. I am also psyched as ever to keep training for the simple sake of learning jiu jitsu.

My jiu jitsu tree has a purple flower!

My jiu jitsu tattoo

We jiu jitsu folks have an interesting sense of fashion and style. Some proudly wear sport related t-shirts and hoodies whenever it is perceived to be acceptable. (I should emphasize perceived. I have friends that I have known for years and interact with socially on a regular basis, whom I have never seen in non-jiu jitsu clothing. I'm not going to mention names, but cough, cough you know who you are).

I'm not going to claim to be much better. Look closely at this photo, and you'll see one of these kids is doin' her own thing.

dancin' in a gi

But perhaps what separates us most from regular folks is our affinity for tattoos. I have never seen a research study comparing the number of tattoos on jiu jitsu vs. non jiu jitsu people, but I'd venture the ratio is at least 3:1. In fact, I've seen brand new white belts train for a couple of months before they decide they need a jiu jitsu tattoo. If I had a dollar for every day of training missed by a teammate recovering from a tattoo, I might have enough to buy a Shoyoroll gi.

But to me, this is weak sauce. I, too, have long wanted a jiu jitsu tattoo and have put a lot of thought and planning into what I wanted to get. I have had my design picked out for a whole year (read this blog if you don't believe me). But I refused to take time off the mat in order to heal from a tattoo. So I kept waiting. Ours is a high-impact, contact sport and we get hurt inevitably and frequently. At  some point, I knew, I would get hurt enough to make  me take some time off rolling. And that is in fact what happened.

 

I'm not going to say that I'm injured  because I have full confidence that my ankle will heal on it's own within a week or two. But, as it turns out, continuing to roll and kickbox with a swollen ankle was not helping it heal...it was actually making it worse. My ankle was getting fatter and was starting to turn some fun, new colors. It was time to face the inevitable. I needed to take at least a week off of rolling....

...which meant that it was finally time to get my tattoo!

tree of life tattoo

Here's what the design means:

The Celtic tree of life symbolizes balance, harmony, and strength. I chose it because jiu jitsu is a life long journey. Strength and balance are important in the martial art. Trees grow throughout their lives and sustain creatures around them, which is what I aspire to do in my practice.

The kanji read "jiu jitsu." The white and blue flowers represent my white and blue belts, which I have already received. There are also 3 colorless flowers, which I will fill in purple, brown, and black, in due time, with the said promotions.

What do you think? I, for one, absolutely love it! I give props to TJ at Dogstar Tattoo who did an awesome job.

my jiu jitsu tattoo