A white belt's greatest enemy

White belts often focus on the wrong thing. I remember when I was a white belt I would focus on learning techniques to just to win or beat other whites in the lower ranks.

In other words I was focusing on attacks, attacks and more attacks. I would be learning all sorts of submissions to end the fight and win. But when I started sparring, I realised I was learning jiu jitsu the wrong way. Well not the wrong way, I just had my priorities all wrong.

Whenever I roll with higher belts I never got to use any of my attacks because I won't survive the round because my defence was trash.

So naturally I started focusing on defending and just learning how to survive because as a white belt, your greatest enemy really isn't the white belt sitting next to you or the blue belts so you can proof to your coach you're a blue belt.

Your goal is not to win and smash everyone because you're not capable of it. Instead you need to stay calm and survive the round. If you're in a bad place, you just need to not panic and come up with an escape plan and regain guard.