#130: 16 Years to Black Belt [Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #130 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “16 Years to Black Belt.”

That’s right. It took me 16 years to receive my black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. That’s a long time getting tapped, smashed, and crushed!

Am I bitter about it taking so long? Not at all! That’s the road I chose to walk.

You see, the truth is I love Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but it’s never been my main priority. My #1 martial art is Kung Fu San Soo. Everything else I pursue is intended to enhance that. And BJJ has definitely enhanced my Kung Fu!

So, do I recommend that you train in BJJ, too? Yes, I do! I’ve talked about its benefits before in podcast #34: Facing Death and in this video about sparring. But, of course, that’s just my opinion. You do whatever you need to do to be your best.

Still, check out this podcast anyway. Whether you’re a black belt now or on the road to one, the advice I share in this episode will help you, too.

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16 Years to Black Belt

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TRANSCRIPT

Today, on Fight for a Happy Life, “16 Years to Black Belt”.

Howdy, Ando here from Happy Life Martial Arts. Welcome to episode number 130 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes even a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better.

If you watched last episode, you know that my wife works at home, and she requested that I record these things in my car. Well, today, I’m gonna stay inside, but I am gonna try to keep it down.

But if you see a foot enter the frame here, or a frying pan, that would be her. Who knows, maybe you’ll witness a murder today. Although I don’t think she would publish that. Hard to say.

Anyway, today, I want to make an announcement.

I earned my Black Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Yay for me. Or what’s wrong with you? I say that because it took me 16 years to earn that Black Belt.

I received it from Rigan Machado, the living legend at his Beverly Hills Academy. And yeah, it took me 16 years. Normally, in case you don’t know, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is an art where it could typically take 10 or 11 years. Most of the people I know, it took them about that long.

If you’re a hot shot on the tournament scene, if you’ve had some wrestling or judo in your background, maybe you could do it faster. If you’ve been injured along the way, maybe it takes a little longer.

In my case, sure, I could say that COVID was one of the reasons for slowing me down. The lockdown definitely put a bump in the road.

It’s also true that I moved to Raleigh. But I did join a Jiu Jitsu school when I was in Raleigh. Shout out to Alliance Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in Cary, a fine school if you’re in the area.

So I kept training anyway I could through that downtime. And once things were completely back to normal, I went back at it. Still took 16 years.

So, again, yay for me and what’s wrong with you? The big question is, was it worth it after 16 years? Are you still going to go?

Yes and yes. Absolutely it’s been worth it. And yes, I went right back to class. Just got back a couple hours ago. I got some people, they got me, we’re back in the cycle.

I’ve talked about the benefits of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu before, back in Episode #24. We talked about the facing death and acceptance of death.

I’ve also made a video on how Brazilian Jiu Jitsu actually helped my striking and takedown games, oddly enough. So you might want to check that one out too.

But today I wanted to try to share four new lessons that I haven’t talked about before, which may or may not help you on your journey in the martial arts or outside the martial arts. Starting with number one, what was number one?

Sign up anyway

Let me be clear. I did not want to take Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Like everyone else, I saw MMA when it debuted in the UFC, and sure, I was impressed.

I saw a skill set that I didn’t really have. I felt the vulnerabilities of being taken to the ground and doing stupid things and getting choked out or my arm broken. But still, I put it off for a long time.

I was training in other arts. We did train on the ground sometimes, so I thought maybe that’s enough. But it really wasn’t.

And over time, I knew it, and that voice in my head kept saying, do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. By the time I was 39, that’s when I started to get serious about it. I went to some seminars with some big names.

I had some coworkers who were already into BJJ, and I rolled with them. I flew out to train with my brother even, who was already into this stuff. I also found Stephan Kesting on YouTube. Shout out to Stephan. He has some great videos and online courses.

And for a full year, I immersed myself in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, without actually having to commit to it. And over that year, I learned a lot, and I definitely picked up some skills, but I couldn’t stop that nagging voice in my head saying, you really should make this official and go study.

That nagging voice also belonged to one of my friends, Sensei Dorene. Shout out to Sensei Dorene, who was training at Rigan Machado’s Academy. And she just kept saying for months, you should just come join, come join, come join.

And eventually I did. Now, at the age of 40, tying on a white belt and being the bottom of the pile, that’s a big shot to the ego. I didn’t have to go there. I was already making a living as a martial arts teacher. But still, I chose that as an elective to start over in something new. And it was great.

No regrets, of course. Even at 40 years old, thankfully, I was already in shape. I had learned a lot of lessons, I could take some bumps and bruises.

So I found that the process wasn’t as bad as I thought. By the age of 50, I started to notice a bit of a difference, though, between the young, strong, aggressive guys and what I was able to do.

And that’s when the misgivings would start to come in, like, how long do you want to keep doing this? Why are you doing this? Certainly, my wife was always that voice in my head, saying, why do you keep driving over there?

Why do you keep coming home limping? What’s the matter with you? What are you trying to achieve? But I answered all those questions. There was value in what I was doing. I was improving, and so I kept going.

And really, the bigger question is, what’s the alternative? Whatever it is you want to do, what’s the choice? To never do it? To never try? To give it up? I don’t think that’s a great choice.

I think life’s too short. And the sooner you get into something, the sooner it’s either going to start improving your life, or the sooner you’ll know that was the wrong choice and to get the heck out of it.

But at least you won’t wonder about it anymore. Sadly, I have many peers who I’ve come up the ranks with in various arts who’ve dropped out, who have given up, and they can blame their kids or their jobs or their time or feeling older or injuries.

The list of excuses is never ending. But the bottom line is they all dropped out. And honestly, I don’t think they made a great choice.

I don’t see that they’ve replaced the value of martial arts with any other activity. I don’t know what they’re sitting on the couch, as far as I can tell. I think they made a bad choice.

And I’m saying it right to their face, not that they’re watching. But don’t let that happen to you.

My advice, whatever it is that you’re curious about, whatever it is that’s nagging you in the back of your head that you must do, or should at least try, sign up. Are you too old? Do you have the money?

Do you have the time? Will people judge you? Sign up anyway.

That’s the advice. Sign up anyway. Be a grinder. Be relentless. Just keep pushing forward and get in there. If you quit, quit.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to do is quit. The hardest thing is just to sign up. So don’t overthink it. Just go sign up. If it helps, the way I think about it nowadays is–

You don’t have to be the best person in the room to be your best, but you do have to be in the room to be your best. So get in the room.

Sign up. And don’t quit.

Lesson number two.

Focus on skills, not belts

In the beginning, when I started BJJ, I didn’t understand the belt system.

I didn’t care. I was literally going because I felt that vacuum of skill that I wanted to fill. The bottom line was I did not want to do stupid things if I hit the ground. Standing up, I thought I was pretty smart.

When I hit the ground, sure, I could scramble and do my best being a savage, but I knew that somewhere in there I was doing stupid things that would get me caught by someone who actually knew what they were doing.

So my goal going in, literally, in my head I was thinking stop the stupid stuff. Don’t get caught doing stupid stuff. If you beat me in a fight fair and square, so be it.

If you kill me fair and square, so be it. But I don’t want to die doing something stupid. Once I got into the class, I kind of noticed that the blue belts were pretty solid. They were pretty solid. They didn’t seem to be doing stupid stuff. They were beating me.

So I put that in my head like, look, if I could just get to blue belt, however long that takes, let me get to blue belt, and then I feel I will have stopped doing stupid stuff. Let that be my marker. Of course, what happens?

I got to my blue belt, and I was still doing stupid stuff and still getting caught. The vacuum was not full at all. I had not filled anything.

So I said, okay, well, I’ll just keep going. Let me just, I don’t know what the end of this is, but let me just keep going. Years pass. I think I’m getting better, but then again, I think I’m not. By the time I’m awarded a purple belt, I’m still doing stupid stuff and getting caught. All right, I’ll just keep going.

Maybe brown belt is the answer. No, no, it wasn’t. Brown belt, stupid stuff, getting caught. And now, a week old, I’ve received my black belt. Am I overdoing stupid stuff? Absolutely not. I just tapped today. I don’t think that ever ends, at least for me. I’ll be stupid forever.

Degrees of stupid, perhaps I’m less stupid, and certainly I’ve learned how to make new stupid mistakes as opposed to the old stupid mistakes. But there’s always something to learn, which is why, if you’re focused on skills, you’ll always have a good time. You’ll always feel that it was worth going to class.

It’s easy to get distracted by belt drama, or title drama. Why did that guy get a belt and not me? I’m better than him. Didn’t you see me beat him? How did that guy just get a belt? He hasn’t been here as long as I have. He doesn’t care as much as I do. That guy’s a jerk.

It’s so easy to get caught up in that kind of thinking, and it ruins the whole experience. So remember why you signed up. You signed up anyway, right? What did you want? You’ve got to keep that in the front of your head at all times so you don’t get pulled into the life’s not fair routine.

Focus on the skills, and I think you’ll always be happy. Let me ask it this way.

Whatever martial art you may be in right now, if there were no belts, if there were no titles, would you still show up to class?

No uniforms, no belts, would you still train? In my opinion, if your answer to that is, maybe not. No, I don’t think I would. Then you should do something else. This martial arts is just not for you. You’re there for the wrong reasons.

That’s judgmental, I know. Hey, if you just want to get out of the house and do your thing, have some fun, you made some friends, you know, please go. I’d rather that you train than you don’t train, honestly.

But at least be honest about why you’re training and what your goals are. Don’t pretend like you want to be a really good teacher someday or you want to be the best you can be at martial arts.

Just say you have a good time hanging out with your friends. Just say you like having a workout that’s a little different than a treadmill. Nothing wrong with that.

Do your thing, of course. But just be honest about it. If you’re not, then I don’t think you’ll ever actually be the best version of you.

If you really think that you’re there for the skills, but you’re not, you’re there for the drama, you’re there for the fun, you’re there for the workout, you’ll never be the best version of you. Because you’re not, your goals don’t match your effort.

So you’re asking the wrong questions, you’re looking at the wrong things. It’ll be a muddled experience. So be honest.

Number three, third lesson.

Go to class anyway

Go to class anyway. Nothing is easy. There have been a lot of ups and downs on this over these 16 years. Okay, some days you love it. I loved it. Some days I hated it. Some days I couldn’t wait to get to class to try something.

Some days I absolutely did not want to go, see that guy again, have to put up with that person again. Sometimes I was hurt. Sometimes I was healthy. Sometimes I had a lot of enthusiasm. Sometimes I was full of defeatism. I’ll never get this. I’m terrible. I’m too old. I’m too slow. I don’t have the time to practice all these things. Sometimes walking in with confidence. Sometimes plagued by insecurity.

I think this is the nature of all learning. I think that’s just the way it goes. It’s a roller coaster. You gain a little. You hit a plateau. You drop a little. You gain a little bit more. You plateau for longer. You drop a little.

It’s just this roller coaster. But you should know by now that that’s it. That’s for everybody. It’s not just you. It’s not personal. The universe isn’t against you. This is the learning process. And the fact that most people start dropping out on the downs, on the injuries, on the defeated feeling days, that’s what makes rewards so much more fulfilling. Because you stuck it out through the dark times, through the times when there was no motivation other than your drive, your routine, your discipline, to just keep going.

That reminds me of that quote from Woody Allen. “80% of success is just showing up.” Just show up. I don’t care what mood you’re in. I don’t care what state you’re in. I don’t care what’s going on in your life. Just show up.

When you hate it, just show up. You’re out of money, you’re out of time. You’re out of enthusiasm. Just show up. When you show up, good things happen. Surprises happen. Breakthroughs happen.

Sitting on the couch, not a lot of breakthroughs there. Not a lot of rewards sitting on the couch. So, go. Go to class anyway. Whatever excuse you have in your head, whatever. Go to class anyway. And be patient with yourself. You have to give this time.

I gave myself 16 years. I didn’t know it was going to take 16 years to get this part, get this far, but it did. And I’m glad I gave myself this time. I’m glad I was patient with myself. I’m glad I didn’t let the dark times kick me out of the game. Go anyway.

I promise. If you keep going, good things happen.

Number three. What are we on? Three? Four? What are we on? Four? I guess there are five, actually I have five. Fourth lesson.

Count your blessings

This one really hit me late in the game. I’m 56. So this last six months to a year, it’s become increasingly clear to me how blessed I am to even pursue this goal in the first place.

You may not have time. I had time. You may not have the money. I had just enough money. You may not have had a teacher. I had a teacher. And the teacher kept the school open and kept showing up. So I had consistency. What a blessing.

I’ve had good health, more important than anything. I’ve had good health. I haven’t been taken up by an injury, knock on wood. I’ve been able to keep showing up and keep trying. I didn’t really think about that in martial arts in teenager, 20s, 30s. You know, as I started getting my 40s, once in a while it occurred to me.

But definitely right now, I’m just feeling more blessed than ever that I’ve had this opportunity to pursue this. I have to presume that you have some blessings too.

If you have the time to be listening to this, presumably you have some time that you can work on yourself as well. You can train a little bit. You can watch a video. You can wrestle around with a pillow on the floor. You can maybe get to a class. Even if it’s once every couple of weeks, that’s better than nothing.

Chip away. Count your blessings. Really be grateful for what you have. And use every bit of it while you can. Life may change. It may change for me.

I may not have the time, the health, or the money, or the opportunity. So I’m just so happy that I stuck with it this far. Whatever you have right now, milk the hell out of it.

Use everything you’ve got. The bottom line is–

There’s probably someone with less than you who’s doing more than you.

That thought haunts me all the time. Someone who’s not as blessed as I am is being far more prolific and productive than I am. So get in there. Use what you got.

Alright, I think this is the fifth lesson. My math is all screwy. This is the fifth lesson. The fifth lesson is–

Write your own adventure

You know, I probably could have gotten the Black Belt faster in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu if I had made it more of a priority. I may have joined a different school where maybe the standards weren’t as high. I could have attended more classes at the school that I do go to, for sure. I could have competed. I could have gotten a tattoo that says “BJJ for life” to show how serious I was.

There are a lot of things I could have done to speed up that timeline. But you know what? For me, BJJ, like I said, has never been my main art. It’s never been my number one priority. It’s always been a supplement to the other arts that I love and the other arts that I’m already training in. So I was happy just to make some time for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

So in a way, part time art, part time rank. I’m totally fine with that. Someone said that to me back when I was in Aikido classes. I did Aikido for three years when I was younger. And I felt a little bitter at that time because there were people who had started at the same time I did, went to the same camps.

But they might have gone to a couple more classes than I did on the regular. And the teacher told me, he said, well, part time art, part time rank. Because at the time I was also in Taekwondo, which had my full attention. Aikido was something on the side, my supplement, which I enjoyed very much. But to be fair to the art, I was not 100% in. So same here.

I have no bitterness about it. Fact is I was already a Black Belt. I’ve already got Black Belts in Taekwondo and Shotokan and Kung Fu San Soo. So coming in, that’s why I didn’t care about belts so much in BJJ. I was literally there for the skills that I felt I was lacking.

For me, the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu was an attribute builder. It made me more comfortable with proximity, pressure, breathing under pressure, stress, being able to manage stress, pain of a different kind than just getting hit, but being squeezed and being crushed, being able to solve physical puzzles on the fly.

For me, I treated, and still do treat Brazilian Jiu Jitsu like lifting weights or going for a run. When you go for a run to work on your cardio, that’s not martial arts in and of itself, but it enhances my training in martial arts. I lift weights nowadays, made that part of my life again. And that is not martial arts, but it enhances my ability to train in martial arts.

So I see Brazilian Jiu Jitsu the same way. It is not my A-game. It’s not my first plan in a self-defense situation. But the skills and the qualities that I’ve developed training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu absolutely have enhanced my self-defense skills. Which is why I would recommend it to anybody in the martial arts.

Point is, I did it my way. Paul Anka, Frank Sinatra, I did it my way. It may have been a slower path. It may have at times been a frustrating path if I let myself get caught up in drama. But the fact is, I never left a class of BJJ unhappy.

I was always glad to make that drive. Even if I was tired, even if I was hurt, even if I was being a baby, I was always happy. So, march to the beat of your own drummer.

Write your own adventure. The real trick here is to play your game. Whatever martial arts means to you, however it fits into your life, whatever skills it’s giving you, that is your story.

No one else is a duplicate of you. So you cannot possibly completely relate to anyone else in that class. Someone else wants to be a champion, they’re going to have a lifestyle that’s suited for that.

Someone else is there to be a teacher someday, that’s going to be their path. Someone else is just trying to get away from their kids a couple of times a week. Let them do that.

You just focus on your adventure. Write your own adventure. Listen to your own drummer.

I say again, the trick is to play your game, not someone else’s. If you’re still alive, you still have goals, you still have some fire in your belly, then get back in that game. Play the game as hard as you can.

Just play your game. That’s not just the secret to winning. That’s the secret to a happy life.

Okay, that’s all for now. I hope that sharing some of these thoughts for my journey will help you on yours. That’s why I record these things, you know.

If you’ve got something to share, hey, maybe you can help me. Please leave me a comment, or shoot me an email over at ando at senseiando.com. I would really appreciate the help.

Until next time, smiles up, my friend. Let that smile be your shield and your sword. Keep fighting for a happy life.