There and Back

A journey. A return. Probably tired.

Month: February 2026

  • Stop Caring About Belt Stripes

    I’m laughing more when I roll. Getting swept to my back or tapping to a choke has never been more fun. I think I’m on to something. Grappling has always been fun. But for most of my BJJ journey I’ve had this sense of trying to ‘work towards something’ and focusing on ‘what’s next’ and when will I just ‘get it.’ Lately though, my fixation on promotion and grading has drifted away. I purposely missed the last two promotions and gradings. I just didn’t care. I mean it’s great to see people improve, and the folks that got stripes and new belts I made sure to congratulate them when I saw them next. But for me, stripes have lost their pull on me.

    I know a purple belt that never signs in. I’m in awe of his aloofness and his dedication to not recording his attendance. I wish I had that in me.

    The slog from blue belt to purple belt is a beautiful frustration of hits and misses and injuries and inadequacies. The visual reward manifests in white tape. To show yourself and others of your dedication. But does it represent actual skill? I bet it would be hard for instructors to keep track of all the students progress without the stripes. And I can see how, say, your first stripe is an indication that ‘hey you’re on the right track!’ And that the fourth stripe can be seen as ‘hey you’re almost there!’

    For me I’m not chasing stripes anymore. I’ll be honoured and thankful when I do get my next stripes, because I respect my head instructors decision and trust his judgement if he decides to give me one.

    My relationship with grappling is getting deeper (also jiu jitsu is not that deep). I don’t mean in a woo woo I’m a ninja sort of way (but yeah we are ninjas). I mean that my love for grappling is expanding to include not just my progress, in the form of stripes, but also to include the subtle ways we grip and toss and trip each other. The physical movements more than the visual upgrade. I am rediscovering the joys of training. Play curiosity presence over promotion. It is a relief not to put pressure on yourself to get a piece of tape. I highly recommend it.

  • Job Well Done

    Had a Teams call with a coworker and manager. My manager gave an update on the new facility in farm country USA that he recently finished setting up (IP address, firewalls, switches, printers, workstations, etc.). Lots of work. He said he was proud of us because we did excellent work to keep operations going here while he was away. It was nice to hear. One of my favourite things to do while at work is to open random apps and spread them out over the three screens I use so it looks like I’m deep into research. What I’m actually doing in periodically refreshing the helpdesk ticket portal and scrolling Twitter on my phone. You know real work. I work when there’s work to be done. Don’t get me wrong I’m learning a lot about how they do business here and when there are tickets for me to resolve I do my best to fix them. But when there’s no work to be done I make it look like there is. This is how to survive in an office. This is my life now. For just under 50k a year I’m doing the baseline amount of work I feel is worth it. Who knows, if I get paid more maybe I’ll work harder. Maybe. 

  • Closed 50th I.T. Ticket

    Closed my 50th ticket as a newbie IT helpdesk dude. What the hell is an ERP had to learn that it is an Enterprise Resource Planner also what the hell is that. Oh right it’s a “a software system that integrates core business processes – such as finance, HR, manufacturing, supply chain, and sales – into a single, unified platform.” Okay so what the hell do I do with that. Turns out the hardest part of my job so far isn’t troubleshooting Outlook or Teams issues which are usually resolved with signing out and signing in again or restarting the app or doing an Office 365 Reset/Repair, no, the most challenging part has been figuring out the terminology/technical jargon and workflow of the ERP that this company uses. Get this, there are reports. These reports have versions. And there are programs that generate reports and these programs have their own versions. Thank goodness I don’t need to be an ERP expert. I just have to gather enough info from the end user and send their request to the ERP support ticketing system. Basically I’m a helpdesk that submits tickets to other helpdesks. A weird symbiosis of business processes. Sounds boring I know. But I’m just happy to be getting Work Benefits now that I’m forty years old. One more week and the Work Benefits kick in and I can start shitting the bed and being lazy at work. Just kidding. Or maybe not we’ll see.

  • The Blue Belt Grind

    Stop caring about stripes and miss the grading class. Show up when you can even if that means you’ve only gone eight times in four months. When you’re not on the mat watch MMA and technique clips and collegiate wrestling tournaments. Read about grappling and follow people on social media that grapple. Keep stoking the coals so your love for kimono cuddling never fully goes away. The orginal cohort that joined when you did is getting smaller and smaller. Out last the attrition watch new whites come and go. More fodder for you. The smell of the mats and durable heavyweight cotton gi’s and someone elses blood how did it get on my sleeve oh man we are a weird bunch of folks who do this every week and then go to work like we’re normal people. Sigue apareciendo stay the course and before you know it you’ll be a brown belt with a food gut but the grip of a mythical gryphon.