Your thoughts on Gradings ?

Dave
What are your thoughts on gradings in martial arts systems.
I personally think they help students progress and also achieve goals.
I aslo believe they are a great form of pressure testing.
I conducted a coloured belt (kup/kyu) grading at weekend and could see the adrenaline effect on people white faces, panting heavy, lack of control,fatigue and the good old favourite mind going blank!!!

I'm sure Dave will add his comments in due course, just thought I would jump in too.

I agree with your comments, I think gradings give students a sense of direction and an understanding of a syllabus. However, it can depend on the individaul and what they are training for.

A sport martial artist who is only training to fight may not be bothered about learning and understanding a full syllabus, they just want to train to fight. Look at Boxing and Freestyle Wrestling as an example, there is no grading syllabus.

For someone else who is training in Martial arts for an understanding of the art, or for self defence etc, the grading syllabus gives them a structure and shows them what they need to work on. I think gradings also allow people to measure their progression, which if you are not fighting or competing is more difficult for many to see with grades.

It's each to their own. The key is knowing what you want to achieve the in the first place

Unusually for me I am a bit 'on the fence' with this one..

If the art you are in has a grading system, then you must be prepared to follow that one to gain acknowledgment of your progress.. so I have no problems with it..

However many clubs/styles these days are 'mongrel's (thats meant as a compliment by the way) in that they have drifted away from what can be confines of tradition.. so do these NEED grades? answer again Yes and NO.

For kids I think grades are essential in the martial arts as short term 'triumphs' are brilliant for the younsgters.
Some more mature students may be taking grades because its the only way of progression within their arts..

The 'downside' to grades is pressure.. if you play football as an example, you can (talent permitting) play it for fun, for a small 'pub team'.. a league or even professionally.. the choice is yours.
But withgrades there is no 'coasting'.
By this I mean the second some 11 year old kid gets an orange belt, his/her instructor is there saying "Right this is what you need for your Green".. what if that kid just wants to stay as he/she IS?.. Its easier to do so with non-grade styles..

some people train MMA for example because they like the training NOT to compete..is that right or wrong? .. its THEIR choice.

For good modern-day open minded instructors, like Ian H, Paul himself, and Andy C they provide the choices,.. but in other clubs they dont

so in a nut shell.. I am with BOTH camps.. but I believe unless and instructor is only interested in preserving tradition, then some choices should be available.

A few of my older members will remember one student I had who trained with me for YEARS and never graded.. he was very good and would have held his own as say a 1st Dan anywhere.. but always wore a white belt, and just wanted to train.. never even talked abot gradings.

the downside to a NON grading style is that when do you teach the 'advanced' stuff to someone with no grades?
also visitors. especially high ranked ones will have no idea of the LEVEL of the people on the mat without belts.

So really I have mixed feelings, and within my own set up I have tried to find some form of balance with these two schools of thought. People shouldbe able to follow both ideals really

Lets have some more feedback on this one.. although I am willing to bet that those who say they do MMA or RBSD wont bother about grades an dthe others will (more or less)

Nice reply Dave!

I will just add that even in my kickboxing classes where there is a grading syllabus, I do ahve students that have joined and chosen not to grade or compete, they just like the training for fitness. Fine with me, I don't force anyone to grade that doesn't want to.

Strangely enough though, most of the ones that joined with the intention of not grading changed their minds at a later date and said if they are learning the stuff thewy may as well take the gradings.

I occasionally attend a freestyle wrestling club for a good training session and I have no intention of competing and there are no grades, I just get a damn good workout that's different to kickboxing, which is why I go!

As Dave said though it's nice to have the choice.

Interesting topic.

Where i train Kali now the material in the system reccurs periodically, but are not taught as a syllabus with grades and lists of skills/techniques/drills. Students are supposed to absorb what works for them and that is is to show in sparring/pressuretesting/fighting.

I LIKE that cause the resulting skills feel very available to me in a intuitive way. I dont fret about if im "doing it right" like i used to i karate. MT was similar to the Kali in this.

One weakness(?) have become apparent when i have recently sometimes been the senior student when no instructor have been able to show up, and thus had to lead the class. When this happens its with short or no notice.

THEN the lack of systematisation seems very clear, since im usually not able to structure a decent class. I generally stay with basics and make it a hard workout.

Maybe the teaching method of the system will take car of this with time, or wich i expect, i will have to "reinvent" the syllabus myself. There have been hints that thats whats expected if one wants to make instructor, at wich point the first grading come in to validate the result. You dont get to know what it consists of beforehand either...

Any thoughts on this?

Cheers,

/Narco

iv trained in a heap of different styles, some with gradings and some without, Personally I dont think it makes to much of a difference,
where i train now we have a grading system, but we have people not interested in grading at all they still get shown the same stuff as everyone else, if we split into groups it doesent matter what grade they are we all know who is capable of what, we also have a lot of people from other clubs come to train with us and there not interested in grading the just whant to know all of our dirty moves so they can show there students.
sometimes we have train the trainer nights and thats when all the good stuff comes out for the higher ranks.

I didn't know what a Stu Cutty SDF grading consisted of when I started.

I hadn't seen one when I did my green.

If I'd had any sense I would have stopped there!

The testing was the key for me... not that you can't test students outside of a grading system that's just the way it works in Peterlee. The experience is the key.. not the colour belt around the waist.

i think grading is important for many people as there is a sense of achievement and progression. The older and higher grade you get i think the less important grades become as you work at perfecting your art rather than just trying to achieve higher belts. Unless of course your only interested in achieving a black belt so you can tell everyone you meet that you have one. Achieving a black belt is almost like passing your driving test. If you study hard and put the time in then you should pass however passing does not mean that you can a) teach someone else to do it or b) ever get really good. For advertising purposes though a black belt does help as it is seen as the mark of an expert and its something that beginners expect to see.