Split-Levels

It is very hard to teach martial arts well.

Image a group of students. Typically, each is at a different level, and requires different instruction to prepare them for their next exam.

In Karate there are 9 levels below Black Belt, but even that is an illusion. Two new Green Belts are pretty equal, but if one is not new, but rather about to test for Blue they are not.

It's actually easier to teach a room full of beginners than it is to teach a room full of different levels. One can't even modify the curriculum to make things easier. The exam requirements are incredibly specific, and the tests come about every three months.

Our Jiu-Jitsu instructor has an even nastier problem. The White Belt class functions beautifully. The techniques come like clockwork and everybody is about the same.

In the Blue Belt class he has two groups of students. The first is a bunch of rookies, and the other is working on the next level up. Each evening he has to teach totally different and very complicated material to each bunch within a one-hour class.

What makes it even harder is he is teaching himself the higher level techniques as he goes. It's all new to him.

I have no idea how he does it.

Some nights I'm the only low-level Blue there. When that happens he focuses on the higher stuff. I'm happy enough to join in when I can, and review my own stuff when I can't.

So far it's all working. The goal would be for the current low Blues to be ready to test for their first stripe in a year and a half, and that the higher group of Blues to test for their second stripe.

A complication is that the lower group will be getting occasional additions as White Belts earn Blue Belts.

If it all works, things will get even harder. There will be the lower Blues, a new crop of Blue-with-one-stripe, and a top group of Blue-with-two-stripes starting the three-stripe material.

I wonder how they do it at the Headquarters school. There the advanced class could potentially contain five levels of Blue Belts, with five levels of Purple Belts, alongside five levels of Brown. They, at least, have several instructors to call on.