Your relationship to jiu-jitsu will change. It’s supposed to.

In the beginning, it feels like your life is being rewritten. Every class is a breakthrough. White belts laugh about “getting beat up” because it’s exciting. Going from zero to one is a huge leap.

But the high doesn’t last. After a couple years, the breakthroughs slow down. Winning doesn’t feel the same. Sometimes it feels like you’re getting worse, because you see how much higher the levels really go. That’s when people hit the “blue belt blues.” Blue belt can last anywhere from two to six years, or even longer, and the range inside the belt is huge. A fresh blue belt and one on the edge of purple are almost different species. That’s why belts can get tricky. People tie too much of their identity to them.

By purple belt, the changes jiu-jitsu brought into your life aren’t temporary anymore. They’re permanent. When something comes up, you don’t stop and say, “let me apply this lesson from the mat to my situation.” You just live differently. The problems you started with aren’t your problems anymore, because you’re not the same person. Jiu-Jitsu already did its work.

So what keeps you going after year three, four, or five? It won’t be the same things that hooked you at the start. Maybe black belt isn’t even the goal anymore, and that’s fine. The goal becomes training itself. That’s how it is for the people who actually make it to black belt. They’re not chasing the red belt. They just train. Training is who they are.