I started BJJ sometime in November 2013. I went to an EXPO while I was traveling and got my first BJJ lesson from Caio Terra in a seminar. I had no clue what I was doing. I then visited a few gyms for the next month, so my first month I went to about 10 classes at about 4 different BJJ gyms. I didn't learn so much as just get used to the whole thing. Starting December 2013, I enrolled at my 1st BJJ gym. Along the way I pulled my rib, had to move to another state, and basically take several weeks off at a time. Some months I averaged 18 classes, other times I averaged only 8. One time I think I went to 20 classes in one month.
Today was promotion day for our gym, and I've been attending this gym for 4 months. I came in with 3 stripes and I finally got my 4th stripe. Our gym does not have any formal testing, the instructor just rolls with you and determines if you are ready. One lady started jiujitsu in March, and got promoted to blue belt. Another guy started in June and has 4 stripes. I'm the slowest promoted, but that may also be b/c I moved gyms and my instructor wants to see me coming more to his gym. (There are two guys in my gym who have both been training about 7 years. I would say they are pretty close in dedication, roughly 3-5x week. The first guy is in the military and has moved around a lot. This is his 4th gym in 7 years. He just got his 3rd stripe on his purple belt. The 2nd guy has stayed in this one gym for 7 years straight, and he got his 3rd stripe on his brown belt. They seem pretty equal to me in terms of ability, but who knows I'm just a white belt.)
I have to admit I was a bit disappointed as a few upper belts said that I'll get my blue this time and also that I was the hardest white to submit/best white belt at our gym, etc. Either way, I feel kind of childish admitting that I was disappointed when I'm clearly not in this thing to get promoted. The fact of the matter is that some guys, like Couchjitsu, have taken a lot longer to get promoted to blue and I'm pretty sure he is better than I am so I have nothing to complain about. (Just the rants of a middle aged guy. Heh.)
So here's what I've done so far (all in the Gi):
Classes + Sparring: 188
Hours: 235 hours (I split time between 1 and 1.5 hour classes with sparring a part of every class and/or free rolling afterwards. My guess is that it's about 1.25 hrs average per class)
If I compare this with Couchjitsu who did 526 hours, that's more than 2x as much as I did and he just got his blue belt. At our gym, he'd probably be a 2 stripe blue since most of the guys who have been doing this 2 - 2.5 years are 2-3 stripe blue belts. I noticed that different associations have different average times. For the IBJFF a blue belt seems to average around 1 year, and other organizations like the the USBJJF recommends 96 classes and roughly 1 yr 8 months.
I really like what Couchjitsu has to say on this, that promotions have so much to do with one's training schedule and in my opinion one's ability/instructor whims, etc.
As for technique I'm mostly changing from a submissions/defense based focus to a positional/sweep based one. I know that it's position before submission, but I still kept on thinking of submissions the entire time. From now on, I'll work on sweeps and passing guards/good positions. I'm still a white belt.
A blue belt friend and I talk about class a lot, and we both admit that even though we're both middle aged we're a bit childish on this topic and that it bothers us that we're not better than we had hoped. The journey has been fun, and definitely more important for me than the destination.
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