Ha ha ha!!! I know exactly how you feel...I just got my third stripe on my blue on 10 March...I asked the instructor, "What? Me? Now? Are you sure I'm ready for this?"....He gave the best response I've heard yet....he said, "That's not my problem...it's yours!"
3 hours on the mat and a black eye later... was proof that I had earned it the hard way...
Heh - man, from the state of that belt, you can tell how many hours you pack in on the mat.
Congrats on the stripe! Out of interest, is there any kind of set promotion criteria for stripes where you train?
I don't pay much attention to the stripes I've been given, because I know my school doles them out based on time. However, there are also places like Rickson's, where stripes are directly connected to specific tests.
@Can: We don't test for promotions, nor is there any list of minimum techniques before you merit promotion. Generally, Phil has expressed a loose formula of each stripe demonstrating around 100 hours of mat-time. I don't think this is anything other than a very rough approximation of averages, certainly not a guarantee or a prediction.
I usually train somewhere around 20-25 hours a week, definitely a minimum of 15. So I rack up 100 hours on the mat in a month, at most 6 weeks-- fortunately time on the mat is not a determinate factor for promotion!
On top of mat time, they factor in things like rolling with you personally, what higher belts say about your skills, listening to how you speak with and/or teach lower belts, observing how much you give back to the academy (mat cleaning, respect for the facility, encouraging and motivating others) and competition performance.
My personal opinion, not speaking for my academy, is that it seems harder to evaluate girls' skill by just seeing how they roll at home because we're almost always rolling with bigger, stronger people... so tournament performance may carry more weight for us, or for unusually big or small people, as opposed to your average guy.
It is interesting how much stripes vary from school to school, and from what you've said, even person to person.
I think if I ever ran a school, I'd probably use stripes for white belts to indicate when they had gained a measure of control and could therefore spar, and after that, maybe use stripes to point out people ready for promotion, in order to help whoever the head instructor was for my affiliation.
Also, it never ceases to amaze me how much you train: I'm lucky if I get 15 hours in a month. You do more training in four months than I've done in three and a bit years. ;)
And I guarantee you're better than I! People have told me many times that training 7 days a week sometimes, several times a day sometimes, is not the route to fastest improvement. I know this. Trust me, I'm not seeing any exponential leaps in my skill set :) I progress more slowly than, or about the same speed as, most of the blues I play with at my academy... and they are the reasonable types who train 2 or 3 days a week. And they take time off.
I am pretty sure if I only trained 2-3 days a week I'd be really sad, I'd miss it immensely, I'd be fat, and I'd probably progress even slower than I do now. I'm not a naturally gifted athlete so I guess I make up for it with extra practice, just like a cruddy pianist puts in extra hours doing scales.
Sometimes I know I'm being unfair to my husband, and lately I have been trying to scale back some and be more considerate of his needs. He's a prince to put up with me.
That kinda reminds me of a guy I know from RGA HQ, Oli Geddes. I think he probably trains as much as you do (perhaps even more), and also competes a ridiculous amount. He's risen to brown belt comparatively quickly, with the tournament wins to back it up.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if you managed something similar, though you don't have the luxury Oli has in terms of the amount of time he can dedicate to training (given that AFAIK he doesn't have a job outside of the academy, so trains full-time).
As to my skill level (which I'd put at about the same as a terrified squirrel who has just emerged from hibernation), I'm still hopeful I can make it out to Austin some time, meaning we can have a battle of self-deprecation in person. ;p
Wow, to be likened to Oli Geddes in any respect... that's high cotton :) Yeah, I really wish I could train full time. Between classes, I could watch some of these instructionals that keep piling up... delve more deeply into a few books I want to peruse like Beneville's Passing the Guard (I got 80 pages in)... the X Guard.... Dave Camarillo's Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu...
14 comments:
WoW! Congrats!
Excellent! Well done Georgette.
Nice job Georgette. Keep growning and learning all the time.
RESPECT
Awesome!! Congrats!!
Very nice and well earned - congrats!
Ha ha ha!!! I know exactly how you feel...I just got my third stripe on my blue on 10 March...I asked the instructor, "What? Me? Now? Are you sure I'm ready for this?"....He gave the best response I've heard yet....he said, "That's not my problem...it's yours!"
3 hours on the mat and a black eye later... was proof that I had earned it the hard way...
Congrats!!!!
Texas Mike in Paraguay
Nice to see you Mike! How's life? Congrats on your third too! Any chance you'll be at Pan Ams? Look for the short redhead at a scoring table...
Heh - man, from the state of that belt, you can tell how many hours you pack in on the mat.
Congrats on the stripe! Out of interest, is there any kind of set promotion criteria for stripes where you train?
I don't pay much attention to the stripes I've been given, because I know my school doles them out based on time. However, there are also places like Rickson's, where stripes are directly connected to specific tests.
@Can: We don't test for promotions, nor is there any list of minimum techniques before you merit promotion. Generally, Phil has expressed a loose formula of each stripe demonstrating around 100 hours of mat-time. I don't think this is anything other than a very rough approximation of averages, certainly not a guarantee or a prediction.
I usually train somewhere around 20-25 hours a week, definitely a minimum of 15. So I rack up 100 hours on the mat in a month, at most 6 weeks-- fortunately time on the mat is not a determinate factor for promotion!
On top of mat time, they factor in things like rolling with you personally, what higher belts say about your skills, listening to how you speak with and/or teach lower belts, observing how much you give back to the academy (mat cleaning, respect for the facility, encouraging and motivating others) and competition performance.
My personal opinion, not speaking for my academy, is that it seems harder to evaluate girls' skill by just seeing how they roll at home because we're almost always rolling with bigger, stronger people... so tournament performance may carry more weight for us, or for unusually big or small people, as opposed to your average guy.
It is interesting how much stripes vary from school to school, and from what you've said, even person to person.
I think if I ever ran a school, I'd probably use stripes for white belts to indicate when they had gained a measure of control and could therefore spar, and after that, maybe use stripes to point out people ready for promotion, in order to help whoever the head instructor was for my affiliation.
Also, it never ceases to amaze me how much you train: I'm lucky if I get 15 hours in a month. You do more training in four months than I've done in three and a bit years. ;)
And I guarantee you're better than I! People have told me many times that training 7 days a week sometimes, several times a day sometimes, is not the route to fastest improvement. I know this. Trust me, I'm not seeing any exponential leaps in my skill set :) I progress more slowly than, or about the same speed as, most of the blues I play with at my academy... and they are the reasonable types who train 2 or 3 days a week. And they take time off.
I am pretty sure if I only trained 2-3 days a week I'd be really sad, I'd miss it immensely, I'd be fat, and I'd probably progress even slower than I do now. I'm not a naturally gifted athlete so I guess I make up for it with extra practice, just like a cruddy pianist puts in extra hours doing scales.
Sometimes I know I'm being unfair to my husband, and lately I have been trying to scale back some and be more considerate of his needs. He's a prince to put up with me.
That kinda reminds me of a guy I know from RGA HQ, Oli Geddes. I think he probably trains as much as you do (perhaps even more), and also competes a ridiculous amount. He's risen to brown belt comparatively quickly, with the tournament wins to back it up.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if you managed something similar, though you don't have the luxury Oli has in terms of the amount of time he can dedicate to training (given that AFAIK he doesn't have a job outside of the academy, so trains full-time).
As to my skill level (which I'd put at about the same as a terrified squirrel who has just emerged from hibernation), I'm still hopeful I can make it out to Austin some time, meaning we can have a battle of self-deprecation in person. ;p
Wow, to be likened to Oli Geddes in any respect... that's high cotton :) Yeah, I really wish I could train full time. Between classes, I could watch some of these instructionals that keep piling up... delve more deeply into a few books I want to peruse like Beneville's Passing the Guard (I got 80 pages in)... the X Guard.... Dave Camarillo's Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu...
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