About the Purple Belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu

The purple belt is one of the most rewarding belts in Brazilian jiu jitsu but at the same time one of the most frustrating for many people when they don't see the brown belt coming.

In our opinion, the fundamental problem with the purple belt is that it requires the development of a personal game, where each person begins to choose and perform certain techniques and combine them to make them more efficient.

Whereas a blue belt knows the basics and has an arsenal of  techniques so to speak, the purple belt begins to specialize in some guard passes, takedowns, sweeps  and submissions.

It is at this point where it is necessary to understand that the development of this game of combinations is something very personal and that it takes a different time for each person.

Many purple belts ask teachers what they need to do to get to brown or believe that evolution depends on learning more techniques instead of polishing their techniques and combinations to make them more efficient.

Sometimes focusing on certain combinations and working just in them generates frustration if things dont work rapidly as expected and specially if you need to add adjustments and more techniques in the sequences you have defined initially, but blue and purple belts should understand that this is a necessary and unvoidable process.

When you are able to keep going in this specialization process and have fun with the search, practice and results you will see that  you become more efficient and manage to sweep, pass or submit in a more technical way, requiring less strength and energy, relying mainly on anticipation, and in the chain of techniques that nullify the resistance and defense of the opponent.

For all this we think that the most important role of the teacher with blue and purple belt is to help them find the techniques that link naturally with the ones he already has and that allow him to make his game more complete and efficient.

Finally, it is important to understand that this process is very different for each person in every way and that although for the blue belt we can propose a minimum of hours as a requirement to learn the basic techniques of jiu jitsu, in the case of the purple belt this is more difficult.

Our recommendation for the purple belts is to observe their game and focus on the techniques that they perform most frequently, identify the problems they find while doing them in sparring, the defenses that the opponents make and then look for solutions that allow them to add new techniques in the sequences that solve the problems they have found.

You will need to keep testing those sequences and focus on them instead of learning and trying new passes, sweeps and submissions every day.

If you keep working on the sequences you have defined in each of the main areas of jiu jitsu (Sweeps, Submissions, Guard passes and Takedowns), drilling them and trying to apply them while sparring  you will begin to see a progress in the efficiency of your game and the consolidation of a complete game that characterizes a purple belt in brazilian jiu jitsu.