More Counting

There have been a lot of ups and downs in this time of Covid. My little path through Jiu-Jitsu has certainly been an uncertain one.

My last promotion was back in June, which means that my next earliest change of rank could come in February of 2022.

The biggest difficulty in achieving this is the minimum-attendance rule. A student needs to attend at least 100 appropriate training sessions before being considered for a promotion.

For most of the time throughout Summer and early Autumn there were few training opportunities available. My friend Sam and I would get together to train, but that was about it.

Then, things started opening up as the government rolled back some of the Covid restrictions. Currently, I am able to attend four group classes per week in addition to working with Sam.

It is now nearly the end of October. By entering all likely classes into my prognostication spreadsheet I have been able to make an educated guess as to the status of my next promotion.

It looks like I should be easily able to tally up something like 125 appropriate sessions by my earliest February promotion date. That makes me happy.

It makes me even happier to know that I might just complete the 100-class minimum before the local Jiu-Jitsu school shuts down for Christmas.

Finishing the attendance requirement early never inspires me to slacken off, but it does always feel very nice indeed.

You might think it’s a silly thing to worry about. Surely, you think, some consideration for the uncertain training conditions should be made for promotion. Maybe they would be. Such a thing would be up to the local Black Belt instructor.

The thing is, I never want to put our instructor in a position to make that kind of allowance for me. I figure if I can’t get 100 classes, I shouldn’t be promoted until I can.

I also leave out of my tally classes that, “officially,” should count, but that I don’t consider equivalent to what the spirit of the original rule required.

For example; Zoom classes from certain instructors are supposed to count. I currently have participated in 27 of these. If I counted them in, my requirement would be complete any day now. For some people the Zooms might be equal to a live session, but for me they are not. I find them incredibly valuable, but without the physical component of actually applying the movements they are just not the same.

Therefore, I train, and count, and participate in Zooms, and don’t count them, and aim for my attendance goal with one eye on the future.

If my date comes, I will report my tally to my instructor if it is complete.

If it is not, I will likewise keep him informed as a courtesy and continue to train and count classes until the requirement has been met.

Then, assuming a promotion, the whole thing repeats over another 8 months and another hundred classes.

The good thing about that is that it will be the last time ever that I shall need to collect classes.

After reaching that rank, the only promotion left is that to Black Belt. That involves about a year of preparation, but there is no counting of classes.

I figure my old self will be able to make one solid attempt at gaining such a rank.

Passing or failing will see me stepping off of the promotion treadmill.