Gui Mendes Calls Blue Belt the Hardest Stage of BJJ

World champion Gui Mendes says blue belt is the toughest period in a practitioner's journey, and that his main point is that expectations change.

Advice: look only at similar backgrounds

Mendes tells students to focus on themselves and avoid comparisons. If you do want to check whether you are progressing fast enough, he suggests finding someone who started from a similar place. "We all have different backgrounds and we have different paths," he said.

Where the frustration comes from

White belts know they are beginners, so they ask little of themselves. At blue, that changes. Students start to form a picture of the level they should have reached and compare themselves with other blue belts in the academy.

Mendes calls this probably the most difficult phase if your thoughts are not well organized. "It's where you're going to feel frustrated the most," he said.

The unfair comparison

He gives two cases. One person begins as a child at five and reaches blue at fifteen, after ten years on the mat. Another begins as an adult, in their twenties, thirties or forties, and gets blue in a little over a year.

Put side by side, the adult naturally has a thinner base than the person who trained for a decade. Mendes says he has seen many people become disappointed or judge their own path by this kind of unfair comparison. Often, he says, they end up quitting or losing motivation.

Source: Bjj Eastern Europe