People often put a lot of stock in belt promotions. The belt promotions in Jiu-jitsu are so few and far between that it makes sense that its kind of a big deal when you get promoted, as it only happens a very few times in your Jiu-jitsu career. Obviously, it feels good to be rewarded and acknowledged for your hard work and dedication, so it is only natural to experience a sense of excitement and accomplishment.
But, I'm here to tell you that, in the grand scheme of things, your belt promotion doesn't matter. The belts are a byproduct of your dedicated practice, and a marker of your progress, but they are not, in and of themselves, the goal. Your goal should be to get better at Jiu-jitsu. Don't worry about when you will receive your next belt or stripe. That is solely the responsibility and concern of your instructor. Just train to be a little better than you were yesterday.
If you ask most of the upper belts, they will invariably tell you that they wished that they had more time in the lower belt ranks to hone their skills. Don't be in a hurry. With each promotion, the expectations go up. Honestly, white belt is the best rank, because there are no expectations. You are expected to mess everything up. So enjoy the time spent at the lower ranks. It will make you better when you DO make it into the ranks of the upper belts. Enjoy the journey of Jiu-jitsu, because the reality is, there is no destination! No matter how long you train, no matter what rank you are, there will always be more to learn, and you will always wish you were better than you currently are.
When promotion day is coming up, don't approach it with expectations. Sometimes students get upset because they didn't receive a promotion when they thought that they should. Or, on the contrary, I have also seen students avoid promotion days and even quit training altogether because they didn't want to get promoted to the next belt. Both of these attitudes are short-sighted. Trust your instructor. A good instructor has your best interest at heart and puts a lot of consideration into each and every promotion. It is their job and their desire to help you succeed and they want you to do well. If you don't receive a promotion when you expected to, you should actually take it as a compliment. It likely means that your instructor sees your true potential, and that they expect more out of you that you do of yourself! You should actually be happy that they set a high standard for you, so that when you ultimately do receive that promotion, you know that it is well earned.
As Royce Gracie famously has said, the belt only covers about two inches of your behind; it is up to you to cover the rest! Let's be real, it's just a piece of cloth with some strips of sports tape. What matters is your ability to actually represent that rank on the mat. There is no magic in the belt. If a Jiu-jitsu black belt was to put on a white belt one day to train, would you expect it to somehow diminish their skill set? Of course not! Likewise, putting on a higher rank doesn't somehow magically make you better. There is always a breaking in period, and you have to grow into each new belt rank, which gets harder each step along the path. And, when you do get promoted, you still earn the belt every single day on the mat. The newly promoted purple belt was a blue belt the day before. They didn't suddenly get better by changing belt colors. And, you should approach it that way. When promotion day comes, if you do get a new belt, you are going to do the same thing that you did the day before-show up the next day, train, and strive to get better. So don't concern yourself with whether or not you believe it is your time to get promoted. Jiu-jitsu is a marathon, not a sprint. All serious students who are in it for the long haul and stick with training are all going to be black belts eventually. And when you're a black belt, whether you got your next belt promotion today, six months from now, or a year from now, will all be pretty irrelevant anyway. If you are in this for instant gratification, you may have picked the wrong martial art, so you might want to re-evaluate your priorities.
If you want to get better at Jiu-jitsu, the formula is simple. Consistent, dedicated practice over a long period of time. If you want to be one of the upper ranks, put in the mat time and the work that they did, and you will get there eventually. Don't be in a hurry. Enjoy the process!
