Today I was trying to look
up somebody who trains at a different Gracie certified training
center than myself. Along the way, I noticed some stuff about the
rank structure of the Gracie system.
The first earned belt is a
Blue one. Each colored belt has five levels associated with it. These
are no-stripe, one-stripe, two-stripe, three and four.
The Gracie distance
education program is so new that it's promotion scheme has only had
an effect on Blue Belt ranks at this time. All Gracie students with
higher rank that that are those who train at the Gracie Academy in
Torrance, or who live very close to it.
For the purposes of this
evaluation, I will ignore no-stripe Blue Belts. My reasons are that
such students are still pretty new to the system, and I am too lazy
to try and count how many there are registered online with the slow
internet I have access to right now.
That leaves the lowest
rank of this evaluation to be Blue Belt Stripe One. There are a total
of 208 listed. I am leaving out any whose rank is listed as
“unverified.” 7 of them are from our school in Gibsons, or
roughly 3.5% of the total. Of these, 3 are currently active, either
at home or on Vancouver Island. The grand total of 208 includes both
current and inactive students, unless they have been promoted.
There are three ways that
these 208 students could have earned their rank. It could have been
awarded directly at the Gracie Academy, or at any of a number of
certified training centers. It also could have been received without
direct contact by students of Gracie University through taking an online
video exam.
That takes us to Blue Belt
Stripe Two. There are 73 folks who've earned their second stripe.
Gibsons is responsible for just 1 of them, or a shade over 1%. This
is the absolute highest rank that can have been reached by Gracie
University students, while Certified Training Center and Gracie
Academy students can be still higher. This will change as time goes
on and more Gracie University exams become available.
The highest rank that it
is possible to have reached under normal circumstances through a
Certified Training Center is Blue Belt Stripe Three. There are 28 of
this rank that have been produced at either CTCs, or at the Gracie
Academy itself. Gibsons has 2 three-stripers, or just over 7% of the
total.
All ranks above that have
been awarded directly by the Gracie Academy, or at a very small
number of other, special locations. At the rank of Blue Belt Stripe
Four there are currently 8 listed.
None of the numbers
available are perfect. I suspect that the main Gracie Academy removes
their local students from the list if it is known that they have
become inactive, but I don't know this for sure. How could they have
produced only 8 four-stripe Blue Belts that have not progressed to
higher rank? That 8 number would have to include all currently active
four-stripers, as well as all who have reached that level and then quit. Possible, but unlikely.
The list does include all
CTC and Gracie University to have achieved a level, inactive or not.
The numbers do show a bit
of a trend.
There are about a third as
many two-stipers as ones, and about a third as many three-stripers as
twos. The trend continues with roughly a third as many four-stripers
as threes.
Everybody says the dropout
rate lowers significantly above Blue Belt, but even so a single
belt-color inference can be drawn from what we have. For every 243
students to attain a Blue Belt under this mix of routes, only one
will continue training long enough to earn a Purple Belt.
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