It’s going to get harder. As a white belt, charting your progress is continually up and to the right.

Especially if you’re in a system like Gracie Combatives. Our white belts don’t spar¹, so it’s basically like winning every single time you attend class. We get plenty of hate from students at other schools, but I suspect that’s more about wanting to be “right.” It’s obvious to me that white belt sparring is a bad idea, even for the white belts that have some success. But success is not always good.

It’s helpful to take a step back and think about your jiu-jitsu journey.

When I think about my adult students over the years, all the quitters were white and blues. They have their reasons. I believe most of them just didn’t think about the cost at all. Instead, the cost confronted them suddenly, and then they decided it wasn’t worth it.

Consider the cost to get to mastery. What do you think it’s going to take to get a black belt? What about purple belt? Spend a little time thinking about that.

Ask yourself some questions. These may help:

• How’s your training going? Do you feel more prepared to defend yourself today, compared to you six months ago?
• Are you having fun? What makes it fun?
• Are you getting bored? Why?
• What is your goal with training jiu-jitsu? Do you remember why you started?
• Do you have goals?
  • If not, when’s the last time you had success with something where you just kinda winged it?
  • If yes, is the way you’re approaching training the way to achieve them?

This is a five to ten-year project.