5 stripe white belt - growing with your grading
the notion that you are always a white belt or you should keep the white belt mentality regardless of how long you have been training a martial art is somewhat relevant but also a bit daft.
on one hand a white belt is new, you walk into a jiujitsu gym regardless of doing other martial arts (like myself) or not and you quickly (VERY!) quickly realise that all means nothing (well, not nothing but very little depending what other arts you did).
a white belt knows nothing so is open to learning whats infront of them, but! they are usually always too keen to "know stuff", so are always looking for short cuts to get better, short cuts to retain knowledge, short cuts on how to get more taps.
meanwhile i like the notion of growing with your grading, why do we get graded ? some would say belts are irrelevant and only really came along because western people needed something to self acknowledge their progress, whatever reason, i like having a physical representation of progress, that could be new skills, new defences, a new stripe or a new belt, we dont chase the belts but being handed them along our journey is pretty cool.
as a new blue belt i feel more like a 5 stripe white belt, i feel like the knowledge i have is useful for me but so small in the grand scheme of things. Do i know a few things ? yep, do i know how to finish a few flashy moves ? yep, do i still do stupid stuff and get caught in a triangle or RNC, yep, and thats the fun of it all, the constant learning and progress
