Lemonade

I am going to be pessimistic, just for fun, and pretend that the worst thing possible has struck our Jiu-Jitsu school. I shall also assume that it's all about my next promotion.

Things this time of year are a little tricky promotion-wise at the best of times. I got a first stripe for my Purple Belt on the last day of November. That would make my earliest next one come 8 months later, at the end of July, but only if I will have racked up a minimum of 90 advanced classes by that date.

Perfect attendance for 8 months means 104 classes, give or take one or two. However, we have just had our usual two-week Christmas break which lowers the theoretical max to 98. That's enough with perfect attendance, and even has leeway for a cold or some such event. However, it has trouble handling all the travel that I do.

In those 8 months, there will be 11 weeks of travel. That would drop me to around 65. There is countervailing good news in that I will be training in Los Angeles for 2 weeks of that time, and in Phoenix for a full month. The net situation was going to miraculously work itself out at 99 classes, an overall improvement in my situation.

Then the disaster struck. We were supposed to move into a new facility as of January 1^st, but it fell apart. The best we can hope for if the start of February. Scrambling was done, and a small, interim solution was found. We lost the first week of January, and will be getting few classes less than normal for the remainder of the month, but is certainly could be much worse.

It always seems that by the time promotion time rolls around, everything ends up far too tight for comfort. This time it happened early.

Therefore, I re-did all the calculations with the assumption that we don't get back to our usual 3 classes per week, and continue at 2, just in case it never gets sorted out.

At that rate, there is no way I'd be anywhere near completing on time. How could I fix things?

Step one would be to take weekly private lessons with our head instructor, Shawn, whenever he is available. I think he will be around in April, June, and July. Those got entered into the spreadsheet.

Step two would be to head to Vancouver to train at a sister school. It would be possible to go three times a week, that seems excessive, so I pencilled in two such training trips weekly.

So to reiterate; a loss of 1/3 of our home-school classes, addition of a number of private lessons, and addition of training in the city. The net total has me at promotion time with 138 classes, rather than the required 90. That is a massive buffer.

What this means to me is that if I stick to the full program, I will have it all totally wrapped up easily. This is not what I'd do, as it is clearly overkill, but nice to think about.

I think I'll start strong, and then taper off. Going to Vancouver eats up a day from before dawn until a return home around suppertime. It also costs a bunch for the ferry, transit, and parking (and restaurant eating, of course). I really enjoy it, but twice a week for months on end is too much. I think doing that much would be fine for January, and then should drop to single times per week.

What all such plans ignore is the unforeseeable. Getting hurt or sick screws it up horribly. There has to be appropriate slack built-in, and my killer program will handle that. Tapering down will still give me tons of leeway.

This is all excellent practise for the following 3^rd and 4^th stripe promotion periods. They are also vacation-filled, but will include no intensive Los Angeles or Phoenix training, and will take months of extra time to complete without going full-speed-ahead on private lessons and city training. With it, they all finish on time.

Our school location blip made me think my entire situation through thoroughly.

Before that, I was looking at my coming stripe being on time, but barely, and the next two each being several months late. Now, the plan has the coming strip happening with tons to spare, and the following two each finishing easily as well.

That's a lot of lemonade from one little lemon.