Bump fists

If you’ve ever trained in the art of Jiu Jitsu, inevitably you’ve “Bumped Fists” with someone. In Jiu Jitsu, bumping fists is several things. It’s a greeting, a ‘hello’, an acknowledgement of your arrival on the mats, and—preparation for war.

Okay, maybe that last part is a bit dramatic, but there’s a tangible change in the air when you bump fists to “roll”.

This particular post is the first couple examples: A greeting and a hello. In the programming world it’s called your “Hello Word” program. Just an introduction to what you can expect from this blog and the thoughts and ideas within.

This blog is about being a whitebelt. Or rather, the parallels that Jiu Jitsu draws on the canvas of our lives and why we should strive to be a whitebelt for life. (Look at the url, re-read that sentence, do it again—see what I did there?)

Being a whitebelt in Jiu Jitsu is quite strange, and yet entirely familiar for those who have experienced this thing called “life”. You see, Jiu Jitsu presents very few, if any, shortcuts to attaining your goals. Whether your goals are related to fitness, self-defense, grappling for sport, etc there’s a guarantee that a lifetime of sweat, blood, and perseverance awaits you. Or not. Most people don’t actually train for their whole lives. Most give up somewhere after whitebelt because they’ve hit their original goal, learned some cool ninja moves, and most importantly they’ve lost their grit for hard training and conflict.

Life is the same in many of these regards. After you’ve completed the signup process (grade school), there’s a whole world of choices, goals, lifestyles, pursuits, and purposes. You’re just thrown into the deep end and not given a manual how how not to suck at life. Jiu Jitsu tends to be the same. Similarly, life favors the unbreakable, the gritty, those unafraid to show up early and leave late. Hell Jiu Jitsu favors those who just show up consistently. Many times, life will reward you for consistency as well.

This first post was written in an insomniac fury at midnight on a July in 2020. I can’t possibly hope to delve into all the ways life and jiu jitsu mimic each other in this single post, but hopefully as this blog grows the depth and breadth at which we unravel this mystery will begin to grow.

Maybe you’ll even even be convinced to be a whitebelt for life.

Here’s a preview of some thoughts about being a whitebelt for life (hint: future blog posts)

• You suck, and there’s only one way out
• Just show up, it’s surprisingly effective
• If you can’t articulate why you failed, you failed (again)
• Being a whitebelt is actually a position of great power
• Why being a blue belt actually sucks (and how to get over it)

And on, and on the list goes..

Until we meet again fellow whitebelts

Osss 🤙