Time to think about white and blue belt

I've had a lot of time to think with my recent surgery (as opposed to learning and getting mat time). I've started thinking about what the different belts represent, and how that translates for the practitioner.

Most of my reading on the web has described what the belts means, but I think you can go further and distill the meaning from the beginning to the end of the belt. This is of course coming from a relatively new blue belt, so it will be interesting to see what I will think of this post in the future.

When I first achieved white belt, it was painfully obvious that I had no experience and zero knowledge about bjj. I was a novice, and as such clearly learning the very basics in moves, positioning, and just how to play the game was the starting point. I still believed if I were faster or could hold on for longer, I could win or overpower a person for position. Clearly this was not the way.

When I became a more "advanced" white belt, I began to focus on knowing the basics. I had a very limited set of moves as well as a very crude and inelegant way of execution (as opposed to a purple belt or brown belt executing for a similar effect). In my opinion an "advanced" white belt will begin to subconsciously be aware of the importance for certain hand placements, or why you must maintain a certain position. An advanced white belt might not UNDERSTAND why, but they should at least know its important.

As a white belt, practicing the basic moves became second nature. The price I paid for this muscle memory however was boredom. As a new blue belt, I craved knowledge and learning new moves. As such I think my main focus now is ingesting new moves and how to execute the moves I do already know with more efficiency.

I refuse to think that being an advanced blue belt just means knowing more advanced moves. One of my instructors, Alex (a brown belt), at first glance appears to have a very "simple" game (although I'm sure he's doing things I'm not aware of). I say this only because 90% of the time he is tapping people out with a basic cross collar choke, or an armbar. Without perspective and hindsight, its hard to say what it is that I need to learn to be a more advanced blue belt. As a white belt, it was enough to recognize that you were in side control or that you were in guard or mounted, and that you had a basic set of moves to escape with. As a blue belt there are a lot more moves available to you. As such perhaps to be a more advanced blue belt means to have the knowledge to apply the best move at my disposal in response to what my opponent is doing in order to be in a better position. Put another way, I believe developing a good STRATEGY for BJJ is the name of the game in becoming an advanced blue belt. From what I can see, this is what separates advanced blue belts from those blue belts that just know a lot of "advanced" moves.