White Belt, Black Belt Mind

When I first started training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I wanted to learn it all.

Every submission.

Every escape.

Every secret.

I wanted to flow like Marcelo.

Crush like Gordon.

Sweep like Lachlan.

I was collecting techniques like treasure, hoarding knowledge like it might save me.

And maybe, at first, that hunger was useful.

The white belt is supposed to ask.

To try.

To scramble.

To fail.

But what I didn’t understand then—what I couldn’t understand—was this:

The black belt doesn’t know everything.

The black belt just knows what matters.

Now, I’m not a black belt.

I’m a three-stripe blue belt.

But I’ve trained long enough, stopped long enough, come back broken enough to see something more clearly now.

The black belts I respect most…

They move differently.

They think differently.

They’re not chasing more—they’re refining less.

They don’t panic.

They don’t waste movement.

They repeat the same position a hundred times and somehow find something new.

It’s not about collecting.

It’s about compressing.

Distilling.

Returning.

When I began studying Yoga more seriously—after surgery, after burnout—I saw the same pattern.

At first, I wanted the perfect alignment.

I wanted handstands, transitions, peak flows.

But the deeper I went, the more I realized:

Yoga isn’t about mastering poses.

It’s about mastering presence.

The posture is just a place to practice staying.

Just like mount.

Just like fatherhood.

Just like breath.

It’s the mind that’s emptier, not fuller.

It’s the mind that breathes before reacting.

It’s the person who’s willing to train the same pass again—because it’s not about novelty.

It’s about depth.

The black belt mind isn’t flashy.

It’s not desperate.

It’s not in a rush.

It sees the white belt not as naive—but as sacred.

Because the white belt remembers why we started.

And the black belt mind remembers what we’ve learned to let go.