gggrrrrr

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first day with my Gi

Friday, December 3, 2010

White Stripes

I haven't taken a test since 2004, but now I can sympathize with my students. I was teaching about test-taking skills last week, and I told them that I am nervous about my first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu test. They think it's pretty neat that I train Jiu-Jitsu. It usually surprises people, which is fun for me to see the reactions. Anyway, my test is tomorrow for two degrees on my white belt. I was a little surprised when the coach told me I was testing, but he sees what I do in class, so if he thinks I'm ready, I'll give it a shot.
I've often thought of my Jiu-Jitsu practice as an opportunity to experience frustration and failure as a challenge to myself; A space where I am always learning and growing and gaining awareness. ... but tomorrow, I am afraid of failure. My fortune cookie last night said, "Don't be afraid of fear."
To avoid the embarrassment of failing in front of my entire school, I've been practicing and thinking about the steps for each move. I still feel as though there is so much that I am shown in class that I can't remember, or don't remember details for... but I'll be practicing with my fiance (yes, there's been a title change) and going to class tonight... wish me luck :-)

5 comments:

  1. I hope it went well, though I'm guessing that's going to crop up later in the blog (I'm catching up on my Google Reader backlog).

    Also, interesting that your school tests for stripes. I think Rickson does or did that too, but I'm used to stripes as a simple "yeah, you've trained for another few months", so have never paid them much attention.

    Does the instructor have a background in some other, more traditional martial art, or is that how it's always been done in his lineage of BJJ?

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  2. our instructor got his black belt with Carlson Gracie, who was very strict with belt promotions. They say it puts a target on your back and a certain set of expectations, so you need to be extra prepared. I've heard that most of the Gracies are strict about this.

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. Oops, editing: I'll repost that -

    Difficult to ever make a broad statement about the Gracies, as it is such a huge family: after all, Carlos had four brothers, all of whom had lots of children (Carlos himself fathered twenty-one), who in turn had yet more kids.

    But yes, generally belts aren't easy to come by: I was at a Carlson Gracie Jr seminar yesterday, and could see that the people getting promoted had to work very hard to earn those belts. The four-stripe white belts I spoke to tended to have around two years of training (although admittedly I only spoke to three or four of them).

    Some places can be fairly laid-back about blue belt promotions (Royce is well known for handing them out in large numbers at seminars), but above that it tends to be tough.

    However, I can't think of many examples of stripes being equally difficult to get, which is why I was interested in the process at your school.

    At the Roger Gracie Academy, as far as I'm aware, stripes are based purely on time: generally you get one every few months at white belt, then every six months or so at blue belt (I'm not sure about higher than that, as I'm only a four-stripe blue myself).

    By contrast, the story I've been told about the system with Rickson is that each stripe is based around a test, which I'm guessing is comparable to how it works at your place.

    Is there a set curriculum from which the examiner picks and chooses, or is it less structured than that? You mentioned you did some takedowns at the start of your test which you'd practice, so I'm assuming there is a certain predetermined structure to it?

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