What do you think was the most difficult BJJ belt to earn for Lex Fridman?
No, it wasn’t the black belt. Here’s what Fridman had to say about earning the black belt in a conversation with Andrew Huberman:
For me, the black belt was the ceremonial belt. Which is not usually the case…
Because, I fought the wars – like, I trained twice a day for I don’t know how many years – seven, eight years? I competed non-stop… I competed against people much better than me.
I competed against many and beaten many black belts and brown belts.
For Lex, the brown belt was the most difficult one. He earned his blue and purple belts through and through:
I think, for me personally, the hardest belt was the brown belt.
Because, for people who know Jiu-Jitsu, the size of tournament division for blue belts and purple belts is just humongous. Like, when I competed at World’s, there was, like, 140 people in the division.
Which means you have to win, I can’t remember how many times… Maybe seven, eight, nine times in a row to medal.And so, I just had to put in a lot of work during that time. And usually, competitions usually really make you earn a belt.
So why was earning the brown belt so difficult for Lex Fridman?
Well, it’s got to do with young and hungry purple belts:
So, to earn the purple belt was extremely difficult. Extremely difficult. And then, during the brown belt, that meant I had to compete non-stop against other purple belts – which are young.
Like, the people that usually compete are like 23, 24, 25 year olds… That are, like, shredded, [that have] incredible cardio.
They’re in [the period of their life when they have] no kids, no nothing – they can dedicate everything to this pursuit of their training.
Two, three, times per day, their diet is on point…And for me, because they’re usually bigger and taller than me, usually more aggressive… Usually just good athletes.
Yeah, I had to go through a lot of wars to earn that brown belt.
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