What does a kid's first BJJ belt promotion mean? Leadership, resilience and respect.

When kids in our BJJ program earn a their first belt promotion to grey and white belt, it tells me a few things about you.

Firstly, it tells me that you have technical BJJ skills. But much more importantly, it tells me that you are committed to a lifelong journey of learning and growing. It tells me you are committed to working hard no matter what the challenge is, that you're committed to showing up as a respectful and kind training partner every day. It tells me that you're the kind of kid that has chosen a HARD sport, and you’ve stuck with it long enough to experience the highs and lows of it. You didn’t pick a team sport that you could hide in the background of. You didn’t pick knitting. You chose something that requires grit, patience, resilience, and humility.

Brave kids do jiu jitsu. Tough kids do jiu jitsu. Kind, respectful, determined kids do jiu jitsu. And anyone that receives a belt from Coach Danielle and Aidan must know this: we don’t do handouts. We don't give out belts to kids we aren’t proud of. We don't give out belts to kids that aren't 100% ready for the next level. And we never give a belt to a kid that doesn't exemplify our three pillars of leadership: hard work, resilience, and respect.

So when you earn a grey and white belt in BJJ, you must be prepared to be thrown into a brand new competition division, mixed with grey-white, solid grey, and the terrifying grey-black belts. The grey journey usually totals at least three years, and by stepping into this new arena, you are subjecting yourself to a lot of failure and a lot of losses. But it's in this failure that the real skill is forged; my coach always said "you win, or you learn."

But Underworld grey and white belts have an added responsibility to their classmates beyond the competition mats. I expect them to be a leader: to help newer students, to work harder than the beginners, to leave their ego at the door.

So last week, when we gave out Underworld's first official grey and white belt promotion, it was given to a warrior on the mats, an extremely smart grappler, and an excellent teammate.

This student rolls like a tumbleweed, takes the back just as much as he gives up his own (lol), and likes to show off that he can do 10 pushups and a headstand in the time it takes everyone to do 5 (even if we’d prefer class didn't have to do pushups in the first place). Over the summer this student told us that he was "basically already a grey belt," and we told him to prove it to us.

Well, this student started BJJ as a nervous child who barely spoke up, knew no one in class, and cried every time he lost a game. In the last year, his confidence is palpable, his energy is vibrant, his grappling instincts are sharp, and he's the first person to raise his hand with intelligent comments and questions. And it certainly doesn't hurt that in his last two competitions, he armbarred every single one of his opponents in seconds.

His dad even noted, "I've watched my son become less timid around other kids and more comfortable in competition."

We couldn't be prouder to give out Underworld's first official belt promotion to this student!