Blue belt promotion!

Finally made my first goal in Jiu Jitsu!!  The Blue Belt!   

Around 2 years after I started my jiu jitsu journey, I received my blue belt here at Anaconda by my professor Chen Moraes. It has been a long journey so far, and I have worked hard to earn my belt.  

I lack confidence in my jiu jitsu skills, but I feel that all the hard work and blood, sweat and tears (there’s been lots) have made me earn my belt none the less. 

To finally say I am a blue belt makes me feel proud of myself and that I have accomplished something. I am stronger and I know things that other people don’t. It is also just the beginning and I know I will never stop learning. When I started I thought I would never get better and never get to blue belt, but I just kept going and kept training. 

Jiu jitsu is something that means a lot to me and has become such a big part of my life. It is the hardest thing I think I will ever do in my life as every day you have to go through pain and struggle on the mat, no matter what! It truly is like therapy, because there is no hiding when you train, you have to face yourself and your weaknesses.

People ask me all the time, why do you train so much?  

Do you have to go to the gym every day?              

Yes, I do.  

It can be hard for people to understand why I would rather go to training than go out for beers. But that is what jiu jitsu does to you, it makes you want to be better. You can’t really drink the night before training, because you will feel like crap and not be able to follow the class as normal. And when you train almost every day, you don’t really fancy drinking that much.  

I lift weights every weekday before work, go to work, and go train at night afterwards. This means that by the time the weekend comes, you’re kind of tired, ha, ha.  But I think jiu jitsu gives me so much, I learn so much about myself and how I deal with situations. And the fact that I get to share it with my man Dean, just makes it even better. We enjoy randomly attacking each other in the house, talking about techniques, or watching fights. 

I originally started with kickboxing and then jiu jitsu afterwards. After we moved to Barcelona I have only been training jiu jitsu and just practising striking on my own. I do miss it as I was part of such a great team in Glasgow and I try to keep it up and think about connecting striking and grappling. 

I have always been a fighter and always liked those kinds of sports. It suits my personality to punch, kick and choke people rather than dancing or doing a spinning class!   

Thinking about it when I was younger I used to hang out with the boys in my class watching wrestling and trying out the different moves on each other. ha ha

Jiu jitsu, kickboxing, boxing and mma are all such challenging sports to be involved in, it will make you so much stronger mentally and make you able to endure almost anything! 

Becoming a blue belt sets the bar higher and puts more pressure on me to be better and know more. I need to step my game up to feel like I belong in the blue belt category. It adds a responsibility to my jiu jitsu, I am not a beginner any more, I am someone with experience and knowledge of the art now. 

I am now working on techniques and positions where I struggle, and becoming more confident. I look forward to finding my own game and to become a better player all around.  

My team mates are helping me every day when I get frustrated and feel like I want to give up. They’re always there to push me further and my professor as well who rolls with me every class. Every time I get frustrated and want to stop, he says keep going you have to work out!   Obviously also, I would not have gotten this far without Dean to push me forward, challenging me, making me work harder and giving me confidence. He is my big motivation every day! 

By Anne Sofie Skalvik