Brendan Higgins

It is not the critic who counts.

Reviewing my much delayed 2nd year doing Jiu-Jitsu.

The Pandemic Killed My BJJ Momentum

If you read my first post Year 1 Review you may recall I never got my 2nd white belt stripe due to COVID. Well, as you can expect, COVID did a lot more than delay the stripe. It essentially shutdown the gym for months, and during that time, I moved away from Pleasanton/Dublin back to SoCal. Then from SoCal to GA. Essentially, I took a 4 year break where I got busy with life and came up with lots of excuses not to go to BJJ again.

Finally, I signed up at a new gym - Ascension Mixed Martial Arts in March 2024.

The First Class (Again)

I considered going to the first class with my 1 stripe, but decided ultimately to basically demote myself. My 1 year of experience, 1 stripe, and ~60 classes from Dublin may as well have been 10 years ago, not 4. I had forgotten almost everything besides the names of positions, the warmups, and a few very basic moves.

Timeline 2024-2025

  • March 2024 - White Belt
  • June 2024 - Green Belt
  • Dec 2024 - Blue Belt
    • March 2024 - Blue Belt Stripe 1

The Academy & Instructors

Fortunately, I can only say positive things about the gym I picked - Ascension. The facilities are clean and utilitarian, basically all you can ask for with BJJ. The owner, Junior Assuncao, is friendly, understanding, and has world class experience as an MMA fighter. All of the other professors/coaches are similarly excellent.

Interestingly, this gym rewarded a green belt (not just for children) instead of using stripes for white belts to denote progress toward blue. So my green belt was essentially a white belt with 3-4 stripes on it when I received it. However, as of Jan 2025 the gym no longer gives green belts for adults and instead switched to the more commonly used system of awarding stripes for white belts, so I guess I was in the last “batch” of people to get an adult-green from this gym. Which is fun because I thought the green belt looked cool.

The Journey - Year 2

Even though I now have my blue belt in BJJ, I still feel like I’m finding my footing – maybe I got it a little earlier than I expected. I think a few things contribute to this feeling:

  • Often being one of the physically smaller guys definitely presents a different challenge when rolling. But I can’t always use size (or age) as an excuse for poor performance.
  • My approach in class is usually more about learning and having fun than being super aggressive. Sometimes I prioritize exploring different positions and seeing what my training partners are working on, even if it means getting tapped.
  • I’m not a natural at BJJ, and that’s perfectly alright with me. Everyone progresses at their own pace
  • I definitely experience some imposter syndrome – I know I’m capable, but sometimes it just doesn’t feel that way on the mats.

Misc

I don’t have any new musings on recovery, supplements, or hygiene from my year 1 post. The only “new” bit of equipment I can comment on is that I sometimes use an “Under Armour Gameday 3-Pad Tanktop” under my rashguard that that has some padding along the ribs/spine. Wearing a padded shirt probably seems kind of lame on paper, but a few weeks into the new gym I got a floating rib injury from a rough knee-on-belly/ribs that messed me up for two weeks. If a bit of padding on my ribs prevents that again and means I can train more, then I’m wearing my rib pads and nobody can tell me otherwise. It offers no real competitive advantage in the gym, so it is what it is.

I also kind of gave up on wearing contacts, I just run off to the edge of the mats and throw on my glasses if I can’t see what’s going on with the instruction.

BlueBelt

You May Also Enjoy