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TFS#66: Details No One Shares
No one owes you a belt promotion. But you owe it to yourself to give your best efforts.
Wayne Terran
August 13, 2023
No one tells you about how to get promoted.
The easiest way to manage this idea is to ignore the promotion itself and focus only on your Jiu-Jitsu.
That’s not wrong, but that’s also not putting in the full work.
I’m going to share a few tips that can increase your chances of getting promoted.
But before we begin, let’s make it clear:
It isn’t about being promoted. It’s about doing the right things to learn the right skills to become worthy of promotion.
What you don’t have control over
You don’t have control of when your instructor promotes you.
Maybe your instructor is a “pay to promotion” type person…which is probably a red flag and a topic for another day.
Every professor has their own methods of promotion, so your buddy at another gym might be promoted on different standards.
But here’s what I can say that will apply to generally most instructors:
Your promotion is based on your own potential.
When you’re new to a gym, instructors will watch you and assess your abilities and determine what your potentials are.
Training consistently helps them make a better evaluation since you’re giving them more information to based their evaluation off of.
What you do have control over
You have control of how you train.
The best way to let your instructor know that you want to be promoted is to show them (without telling them) that you care about your Jiu-Jitsu.
In other words, be genuine in your training.
Let’s face it, everyone can become a black belt, it’s just a matter of time.
How much time? That answer depends on so many variables that it’s not worth diving into right now.
But…how to increase those odds are worth exploring.
We live in a time where genuine efforts matter. We try to judge our neighbors based off of their genuine actions. We want to shop from companies that genuinely care about the quality of their products.
The same goes with our personal actions, our genuine efforts will attract better results because that’s what we’re working towards.
Being genuinely invested in your growth will eventually lead to your desired outcomes.
Here are some small (but highly impactful) steps you can take to make you more eligible for promotion:
Ask questions to instructors and upper belts
Drill before/after class
Be a supportive teammate--even if you don’t compete
Give honest feedback to instructors
Talk to instructor about diet, supplemental workouts, or note taking
The list is quite long but these are the main steps I’d focus on.
Also, depending on how your instructor responds to your questions is telling of how much they are invested in your well being…but that’s a subject for another week.
Closing Remarks
Simply put, be genuine with your training.
Care about improving your skills, being a better teammate, and a better influence to the people around you.
No one owes you a belt promotion. But you owe it to yourself to give your best efforts.
For The Dedicated
→ For white belts: Don’t wait for it to fall into your lap, make it your own.
→ For blue belts: If you’re due for that purple belt, understand it comes with more than what you expect.
→ For back attacks: You’ve got to the best position in BJJ…so here are some great attacks you can chain.
→ For lower belts: End up in closed guard but realize you don’t have good mechanics? Here’s a great place to start.