Fix the Real

We have a wonderfully simple and effective promotion system that runs under the direction of Rener and Ryron Gracie.

Keep in mind as I blather that the primary requirement of promotion is an instructor who is pleased with your progress and skill level. 

Beyond that, our Gracies insist that at any of their satellite schools, students must spend a minimum 8 months of training between stripe levels. Promotions are registered online, and cannot be changed again until another 8 months have passed. This eliminates a lot of abuses that happen under other systems. It doesn't matter if you are the instructors kid, or girlfriend. It's still 8 months; written in stone.

The second requirement is a bit more flexible. Attendance at appropriate classes are meticulously recorded. 100 or more are required for a student to be eligible. This can take much longer than 8 months. Completing on time takes about 3 classes per week with almost perfect attendance. The flexibility I mentioned is that instructors can authorize other events or classes as counting. This normally includes things such as private lessons, classes taken at other schools, seminar attendance, and more.

 My big goal in regards to rank is to get as far as possible, as quickly as I can. For a JJ student I am spectacularly old. If a younger person takes a little extra time advancing, they will still get there eventually. I might not.

Our school has almost exactly the right number of weekly classes to get us promoted on time with a small buffer.

My current problem is that my attendance has sucked this year, and this won't be changing anytime soon.

My wife and I love to travel, and are away from home about 1/3 of the time. Thus means my next few levels will take about a year each. I've been racking my brain trying to come up with some kind of damage control system.

Let's start with the silliest notion first.

I could fly down to LA to train with the Gracies. I've been there before, and find the maximum number of classes I can manage without breaking down is about 10. That means that every week that I train there would shave about 2 weeks off of how long it will take me to complete my requirements. A total fantasy, as this would cost way too many thousands of dollars.

A better option is to attend seminars close to home. I've been to 3 of these over the years. Each was great, and worth about a weeks off of the tally time. The only problem is that they are rare events, and there don't seem to be any upcoming.

I could also head into the city to our nearest neighbouring Gracie school a few times. They have an appropriate class every Saturday. The problem is that the ferry trip ain't cheap, and the entire trip would take 7.5 hours to get 1 hour of instruction. I would also miss the usual training I get at our Saturday morning open mat time. Unfortunately, open mat doesn't count. Still, I just can't see how giving up 2 training hours, blowing away 7.5 hours in the middle of a day, and spending almost a hundred bucks on ferry rides to gain 1 authorized class makes sense.

There is also the private lesson route. I wouldn't consider this method either if I didn't have a goal other than administrative attendance collection. However, I recently missed a couple of tricky techniques. I could work them up at open mat on my own, but a couple of privates would be easier, and leave the open mat time free for other stuff. This would shave around a week off my promotion qualification time. That isn't much, but makes vastly more sense than either going to LA, hoping for seminars, or Saturdays spent going to the city.

Let's say it all goes my way, and a seminar pops up in Seattle, and I use up one of my Saturdays training in the city, and take a couple of private lessons. That would still only fix things by significantly less than a month.

Might make more sense to just keep working on improving my real Jiu-Jitsu rather than my attendance card.

I had about a perfect example of this last week. There were 3 regularly-great advanced classes, and also went to 3 White Belt classes as well. Outside of class time, I had three training meet-ups as icing on the cake.

Worked with Tawha on her curriculum test material. For me it was review, but not casual in any sense of the word. It was high-rep, intensive, and top-notch training. I have always picked up a pile of details each time I've helped friends through this process.

Friday open-mat went overtime and lasted more than 2 hours. There was tons of position-sparring, as well as free-rolling, and technique practice. It didn't end until my partner and I were both exhausted and bathed in sweat.

Saturday, there were four of us on the mat. We rolled in various combinations for about 60 minutes. Two people then headed out, leaving Koko and me working on side-mount for more than another hour.

None of those extra sessions "counted" in a brownie-point way, although in reality, they counted a very great deal.

Maybe I should try and do more weeks like that.

And, of course, any real improvement that I make will help satisfy the primary promotion requirement skill and progress recognized by our instructor.

Pity that is the only one that isn't necessarily time sensitive.