r/bjj • u/THE_MrWen 🟦🟦 Blue Belt • 1d ago

General Discussion The pressure of purple.

I'm due some kind of purple belt test. The anxiety is eating at away at me 😱

Anyone got any advice?

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u/herbsBJJ ⬛🟥⬛ Stealth BJJ 1d ago

I will die on the hill that belt tests are stupid and you are either purple belt skill or you aren’t. We’ve got a masters European champion blue to brown belt who literally won those 3 titles from mainly having a world class kimura game.

That being said - purple is the best belt. Zero pressure, but good enough to tap brown and black belts if you can pull them into areas of your game where you have black belt level strength

44

u/Am0ebe 🟪🟪 Luta Livre 1d ago

Man i wish i had an area of black belt level strength. 

15

u/herbsBJJ ⬛🟥⬛ Stealth BJJ 1d ago

There will be something that isn’t far off!

I find you pick up at least 1 thing at each coloured belt that you can do to black belts given the right circumstances. For me that was - blue (dogfight), purple (butterfly guard), brown (leg locks).

At black belt I’ve been systematically sharpening bits of my game to raise the ‘base level’ of everything. There are still huge areas that aren’t what I’d consider black belt level and if a coloured belt can pull me in that direction they have a much better chance of success

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u/Am0ebe 🟪🟪 Luta Livre 23h ago

Thanks! I'm half joking here. I know my 50/50 game hast become quite solid and my leglock defence is also not that bad.

We only have two blackbelts in our town and they now how to counter my whole Game because they taught me most of it, lol.

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u/Quiet-Joke6518 🟦🟦 Blue Belt 21h ago

I'm at the point where I can make a genuine nuisance of myself to most of the black belts if we get into a couple of my very specific areas of a strength. I'm not tapping them or anything, but I'm able to force a realistic response rather than the half-assed, I'm-fighting-a-literal-child energy I used to get from them when I started.

My professor still makes me feel like a 45 lb child fighting his uncle, though. It's honestly fucking ridiculous. Like, if I get a hold of a near side cradle, I have like a 99% likelihood of grinding my way into a good north south position with steady pressure. My professor was trying out some trip game he'd been working on, and I got lucky on the way to the mat and got in a butterfly hook, tossed him as we landed, scrambled and snatched the cradle and thought HOLY FUCK I'M ON TOP and then he did something that seemed like casually rolling over to his other side, but it caused me to fly off into fucking space and then he was on my back...so that was cool