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.