A Tad of Distrust

My proudest moment in Jiu-Jitsu isn’t the kind of thing that you’d expect.

I mean, I’ve done pretty well for myself, and have a lot of fun, but that isn’t it.

It had to do with a guy I met back in 2014, in a big Jiu-Jitsu school. I was a 1 stripe Blue Belt at the time, and he was a Blue with no stripes. He was also about ten years older than me, and I’m ancient.

In 2019 I trained with him again. In the intervening years, his rank had gone up by two stripes. In that same amount of time, mine had increased by 8 levels. Something was clearly wrong.

I had seen him during visits on some of the intervening years, so he hadn’t quit and recently restarted. In any case, it bothered me.

He wasn’t the kind of guy who would gain attention for being outstanding, and had some physical limitations. There wasn't anything significantly wrong. He is the kind of guy that a good system should identify regularly for normal rank advancement. I couldn’t imagine why it hadn’t noticed that he’d only received two stripes in five years.

I politely informed the school of the situation as I saw it. A few evenings later, I was partnered with my old friend. When the class ended, we were all lined up and told that there were a few promotions. One of these was my friend

He didn’t even notice that they were calling his name, and then went into shock and joyfully went forward to receive a new stripe. I was so pleased for him.

I never heard anything more, but assume that an eye will be kept on him from now on.

Clearly, this promotion was in partial restitution for an error that had been made by the system.

It should never have happened in the first place.

Did he then continue to receive rank promotion? I don't know. Did he receive promotion at an accelerated rate to make up for lost time? I don't know.

Keep in mind that this particular school has what I would have thought was a perfect system for tracking student progress. Somehow, even this failed in my friend's case. Has it failed any others?

Never trust the system, at least not completely.

I learned this back in my university days. I was trying to complete my degree in the most efficient way possible, as my home was a thousand kilometres away from the school.

There was a requirement for a certain number of total course credits. Of those, a minimum number needed to be upper-level courses. Of those upper-level courses, a certain number needed to be from the student's focus area. It was implied, but not directly stated, that the remaining upper-level courses should be taken in areas outside of the student's focus-area. Nowhere did it say this was mandatory.

For me, it would be far easier to do ALL of my upper-level coursework in my focus-area. When I was next on campus, I visited the appropriate authorities and asked if I could do ALL of my advanced work within my specialty. They clearly didn't want to say that I could but were equally careful not to say that it was forbidden.

I, therefore, did all of my upper-level work within my focus-area, and earned my degree.

What should this mean for a person working within a structured system?

It means, take nothing for granted. Assume that there will be screw ups, or organizational bias that works against you. There may be none, but it will cost you nothing to pursue a more pessimistic strategy.

Keep track of everything. Make sure that your official records are correct.

For a Jiu-Jitsu student this can be as simple as keeping a tally of your class attendance on your own. Track with your computer, or on your phone, or even on a piece of paper stuck on your fridge. If the official tally doesn't match your own, get it fixed.

Check the rules, especially those that are written down. Get your own hard copy of what they say.

For example, a bunch of students at our school are working towards a big technical exam. I have heard an assistant instructor say that they have to score 90% to pass, and that the maximum allowed time for each of the three drills is 20 minutes. A quick trip to the association website shows that the requirement is actually 80%, and that the actual allowable maximum drill length is 15 minutes each.

It took me about 3 minutes to check. 

What happens if all four gentlemen were to submit their exams with drills that were over 15 minutes in length? Their exams could all be rejected.

And the problem could easily be avoided with just a tad of distrust.