Cycle-time

I get a kick out of Jiu-Jitsu people who just can’t keep straight how much we really work on. New stuff must be learned, but it is just as important to re-polish what has already been learned.

Often, even experienced practitioners estimate it takes as little as a month to cover a chapter, or perhaps a year for the entire cycle.

It never, ever goes that fast, and if you try to do so you are robbing everybody in the gym.

Consider who long the headquarters school of Gracie University in Los Angeles takes to cover the curriculum cycle.

Down there, they break each of the seven chapters or positions into various chunks, such as “Mount: Submission Counters.”

Altogether, there are 27 of these chunks in the entire cycle. Gracie University invests 3 weeks of training in each, making a full run last 81 weeks. On top of that, they add a week of review on to each full chapter, or 7 more weeks.

Therefore, not counting school closures, a full cycle at Gracie U takes 88 weeks, or about a year and 9 months.

Even so, not everything is covered in each time looping through the cycle. 21 months to get through.

What I can’t tell you is how long the entire cycle takes us now at my home school. We don’t stick strictly to any timetable.

I would pick the Gracie Headquarter’s cycle speed if I were in charge of such things. Slow and thorough is my motto.

There is also a simple alternative for more speed whereby the chunks that HQ does in 3 weeks get covered in 2. That tightens up a full cycle to 15 months.

I don’t need that kind of acceleration, but many feel that the cycle just takes too darn long.

The issue with a longer cycle shows up best if an example is created with a student new to the advanced class. Let’s say Edward gets promoted to Combatives Belt, and joins the day after we finish review on Leg Locks. Let’s say his school follows the Gracie University Headquarters model.

He never misses a class, and starts learning the standing chapter. After a time, the groups switches over to Mount techniques. Edward will receive his promotion to Blue Belt about the time that the class leaves Mount and gets going on Side Mount. 

A year goes by, as the chapters on Guard, Halfguard, and backmount are covered in turn. It won’t be until after Edward has been in the advanced class for almost a year-and-a-half that he will receive his first instruction regarding Leg Lock technique.

During all of that time, he will be helpless in this area. The same will be true for every student who joins the class; they will have weaknesses that takes a very long time to be addressed.

So rush through, leaving out the depth of material, just to get a dusting? That’s not good either. My vote is always for better coverage.

It the Edward in the example wants help in some particular area, such as Leg Locks, he can draw on the help of his seniors. Our school has open mat sessions, and there are always people willing to help.

Let’s say he gets tired of being caught by techniques that he knows nothing about, and doesn’t want to wait, he can make a few dates with, perhaps, a Purple Belt.

They can train together on whatever he needs. Not only will this make him happier about his rolling, but when the class finally reaches his weak area he will be better prepared to absorb the lessons, and higher technique will make much more sense to him than if he’d just patiently waited.

The only real weakness in a slow cycle is that it encourages people to take more responsibility for their own training.

No, wait! That’s a good thing.

Black Belt on the Mat

I get such a kick out of Jiu-Jitsu people thinking they’re awesome.

It’s easy to understand why. You train for months and months, and you roll hundreds of times. How could you not get better? Of course, you do.

In amongst all those rolls, you will get a solid feel of where you fit in the local pecking order of ability. A new move is learned, and applied, sometimes with effect right away, and other times it will take effort to gain ownership.

You’ll meet some beginners who think they are something special. They strut around, and their seniors giggle at them behind their backs.

If some beginner wants to roll with me, and they are a genuine learner, it will all happen in a gentle and instructive manner. I let them try out what they know, and if they do it well, let them score.

There have also been some who wanted to validate how awesome they are against a Purple Belt, especially if he’s old and an easy target.

With hot shots, I let them try, and I use technique to prevent them finishing anything. They find themselves gently reversed with slow-motion sweeps and escapes. Usually they settle down a bit. If they do, then I treat them the same that I do the genuine learners. If not, they spend the entire roll getting nothing at all in a manner that lets them have no illusions that they were not really so awesome after all.

It is all mainstream Jiu-Jitsu technique learned over years of learning.

There are plenty of people who compliment Purple Belts on how much they know. It’s easy to get a swollen head. I know that I sometimes do.

A very cool thing about Jiu-Jitsu is that the mat doesn’t lie.

It only takes seconds to discover you are not as awesome as you’ve been telling yourself. It doesn’t even have to be a roll; sometimes the training itself lets you know.

I had that happen to me on Saturday. That is my usual training day in Vancouver.

The class started, and the instructor told us to pair up and get started with a review drill. If anybody there approaches me, I happily take them as a partner. Otherwise, I wait a bit, letting them pick amongst their preferred buddies, and pair up with somebody else that gets left alone for whatever reason.

It was the biggest group I’ve ever seen there. Even so, in an instant, it seemed that everybody was taken; but there was one guy left making his way towards me through all the working pairs.

I’d never seen him before. He was half my age, big, and definitely looked Brazilian. He was also wearing a worn Black Belt.

We started.

Unlike some sessions, we stayed with the same partners for the entire class. I had a Black Belt guy.

I have had Black Belt partners before, but only for maybe five or ten minutes. This time it was for an hour.

We took turns doing whatever the instructor directed, and occasionally my partner would help me do it better, or in a slightly different manner. It was all incredibly valuable, but the vast difference in our knowledge level was clearly visible. It was similar to me being a partner with a brand new beginner in the White Belt class.

The hour went by in the blink of an eye, and it became time to roll. Traditionally, the first roll is with our training partner.

The difference in our levels became even more obvious. Non martial arts people tend to think that in such a situation the low belt will get their ass kicked. This certainly could happen if the high belt should wish it so, but why would they?

Does the low belt represent any kind of challenge? Perhaps they are a threat, and the high belt destroys them out of fear. These are both nonsense.

Just as I don’t crush or humiliate beginners, my partner was generous to me. Without speaking, he showed me where I made several mistakes.

I have rolled with Black Belts before, but it is a rare opportunity for learning, and I tried to make the best of this one.

When the end of the first roll was called, I thanked my partner very much, shook his hand, and headed for the change room.

This week I am playing partner for two friends who are working through their technical exams. These have to be finished by Friday, and any sort of injury on my part would cost them both their chance to finish.

I had decided not to roll at all for the entire week, just in case, but the chance to roll with a Black Belt took precedence. I was probably safer with him than with anybody else.

I don’t think my head has been particularly swollen lately, and needed correction. My next promotion will be to Brown Belt, and I’ve been struggling with a way to make that transition that would be the most valuable to me.

In no way do I consider that I deserve it.

Even if I should receive such a coveted award, it wouldn't move my skill level to anywhere close to that of my Saturday partner.

The mat never lies.

Technical Exam Era

Ryron and Rener Gracie have created a pretty wonderful program of Jiu-Jitsu self-improvement.

The parts that I am referring to at the moment are their curriculum technical levels.

These are exams covering a great deal of upper-level material. Instructors are expected to work through the process, with the work being “optional” for everybody else. Getting them done for instructors and non-instructors alike goes a large way towards smoothing the route to gain Purple, Brown, or Black Belts.

All of those ranks are earned only after in-person evaluation by the Gracies themselves, or by authorized Black Belts, but showing up for these gradings with technical exam levels in your pocket carries a lot of weight.

There are 4 of these bloody huge exams at present. Each represents mastery of about 150 to 200 techniques and variations. To pass a technical exam requires performing over an hour of material non-stop, along with a quota of free sparring.

Our instructor has completed 3 of them, I have done the 1st, Koko also has her 1st, and nobody else in our school has done any.

This is all changing as we seem to be in an era of getting them done. Rob and I are helping Shawn complete his 4th level.

At the same time Rob is working to get his 1st level with my help.

In April, there will be a group of Blue and Purple Belts who want to also get their 1st level done. I will also be involved in helping with that. Some are becoming instructors, and some are looking at future Belt evaluations.

When Rob and I complete his level 1, we will carry right along and earn level 2 for the both of us.

This is so easy to say, but Shawn will be working for his for about 4 more months.

Running concurrently, Rob’s level 1 will take about 2 months, and Rob and I working together to get level 2 will take about 3 months more on top of that.

The group starting in April will probably take about 3 months to get through level 1.

That’s as far into the future that I know anybody else’s plans. My own are that I recruit a helper or two, and carry right on through level 3 and level 4.

The best that I could hope for on that front would see me finishing the entire lot off just over a year from now, but the best isn’t likely to happen.

It will get stretched out by the travelling that my wife and I love to do. Looking over the calendar there seems to be enough away-time that a potential year will stretch into more like a year-and-a-half. It could be much more.

My impetus for me wanting to scoop up all of the levels is that I am due to be evaluated for a Brown Belt soon. I would rather that it be mostly based on a large body of work that was undertaken to greatly improve my abilities and knowledge as a student of Jiu-Jitsu, rather than a single-day evaluation based on a limited range of material.

I could become a Brown Belt as much as a year faster by not focusing on the technical exams at all, but other than chasing a belt it doesn’t really make all that much sense.

Let’s say I were to split into identical twins. The first twin works on the technical levels and managed to complete them all in a year-and-a-half. The other works on stuff that he knows would be put into a one-day exam. He goes on to get a Brown Belt much faster, and by the time the technical twin gets his, will have earned a nice stripe on his own as yet another promotion.

The technical twin will have put in months and months and months of intensive study and training than the faster-Brown twin will have done. Of the two, the technical-level twin will be significantly better at Jiu-Jitsu than his higher-ranked sibling.

That makes more sense to me.

Pity it can’t be both.