White Belt Dad

(Written shortly after starting my JiuJitsu journey, Circa Aug/Sept 2021)

I’m a white belt.

That means I’m at the bottom of the food chain. Literally everyone preys on me. Before class I stand on the far side of all the students.

After class I stay and clean the mats.

During class I get picked off by absolutely everyone I have the fortune to spar with. I learn a lot from these beatings, but they are beatings none the less….and all the more humbling when they’re dished out by a girl half your size.

The “white belt mentality” is often spoken about these days and it’s a great mindset to have. NO matter who you are, you could probably learn something about something from almost anybody you meet. None of us are experts in everything, and starting at the bottom rung of something hammers that fact home nicely, often with an arm around your throat in my current case.

Something else I recently started from the bottom in, is parenting. While less physically painful than Jiu Jitsu, it’s certainly more high stakes, more relentless, but ultimately more rewarding as well.

While I may never be a black belt in Jiu Jitsu, I have decided my steadfast aim will be to become a “Blackbelt Dad”. (I realise this may take my entire life to achieve) I think to progress towards the black belt, in parenting as in martial arts, is to first accept your failings. We first need to embrace the white belt and admit that we have a ton to learn, loads we fail at, and even more we could just do better at, and slowly, daily, improve ever so slightly.

Googling for parental advice as a new dad, it seems almost all the advice out there is for mom’s. Now, no doubt, with all the rigours of pregnancy and birth, Mom’s need all the support, help and advice they can get in those first months after a baby comes. I am in awe of the women around me, and particularly my wife, at the strength and love they can demonstrate in the first year of a baby’s life. I think it may be something most men are incapable of. But having said that, Dad’s are parents too, more and more in these modern times. The days of dad going to work and mom and baby staying home are long gone. As much as modern women tend to need to go to work, modern Dad’s need to raise the baby.

Parenting advice for dad’s is surely lacking out there. I’d like to try share my thoughts, my wins, my losses….and my sneaky “Dirty W” after bribing the judges now and then (in the words of the great Theo Von).