An old acquaintance type guy, who drops in once in a while for classes, asked about promotions after he dropped into a class on Saturday. I was kinda confused.
I said, “But, wait… Are you a student here…?”
“Yeah”
“–A paying student here…?” [I don’t deal with money]
“Yeah, since early last year”.
I said, “Oh… I didn’t know that. I thought you just dropped in occasionally.”
“No, I’m a student.”
“Ahhh. How many times a week do you train?”
“Two. But I split it up sometimes and go to [another school]”
“Really? Which days do you train here…?”
“[A day I don’t teach class] and Saturday”
‘Saturday…?’ But, I haven’t seen you here on a Saturday in at least a couple months. You’re never here on a Saturday. You must be training 95% of the time at the other school, if you train 2 x a week. why not get promoted there?"
“Because this is my school.”
NOTE: FWIW, if your teacher 1) doesn’t know he’s your teacher and 2) doesn’t even know you’re a student at the school… that just doesn’t bode well for promotion.
@shen is it safe to assume an envelope with two crisp $20s was stuffed in your belt while he was talking to you, you remembered he was a loyal student, and he’s now a faixa preta?
I just long for the old days, when students were sophisticated enough to know some cash in an envelope slipped into your gym bag, was all that need be said.
you should ask him for his international student cusip code so that his records of attendance at other schools will be automatically transferred along with any vids of street altercations that he’s been involved in demonstrating the practical application of the required belt skills.
Good point. If Shen really cared about his students he would call all the other academy instructors at the other gyms the guy trains at to discuss his attendance and development. Maybe meet them for coffee to formulate s learning plan for this student so when he’s attending class at other academies they can tailor the lessons to his development and individual needs. I’m willing to bet Shen hasn’t even been analyzing the video of his open mat rolling or developed him a nutrition plan let alone a personalized tournament prep schedule or calling to check in on him randomly to make sure he’s happy.
I guess instructors nowadays don’t care about the students as much as they used to.
From one black belt to another if i can offer any feedback on how to handle the matter…if he has a wife/girlfriend thats at least mildly atttactive you should sleep with her. Then have a brief fling with her and always flaunt her around the gym and give her extra attention during class even if she has no interest in bjj and it upsets the other regulars. You cant have guys like that with their rude promotion requests disrupt the normal flow of the gym.
My buddy was a four stripe white belt and moved across the country and landed at a new school. He noticed on his first day no one had stripes so he went in the dressing room and stripped his belt of the stripes. He trained 4 days a week at his new school for about three months and they had a belt promotion Saturday. When they called him up they gave him a stripe in his white belt. He never said anything about it until the day he got his Black Belt. He told the story and everybody died laughing. Today he owns his own school and is very successful.
See I have a completely different approach. If I think a promotion is coming up I disappear for a couple months. Miss me with that, I want to be a no stripe white for life!
I have a blue belt in his 50s, never competed, who got his blue belt 3 years ago, from me and my old teaching partner at a different school. Soon after, he stopped training and COVID hit and all that.
He came back after three years of no training wearing a white belt. I was like, “where is your belt…???” Lots of discussions --and explaining to him how the rank BJJ structure works and who makes decisions & who doesn’t – I just gave up and made a deal: wear your white belt, but I’m never going to promote you. He exists outside the rank structure of BJJ far as I am concerned… and he loves it.
BUT…
For example, just last week a new blue belt with a couple stripes came to class and he started coaching her during technique. I could tell she was a little annoyed to have this white belt coach her and I told him, “White belts don’t coach blue belts.”
I guess you would say he was chagrined. I could see him running through it in his head and he just shut up. The guy really wants nothing more than to never be promoted and I am happy to make that dream come true!
It’s not unheard of in the martial arts for people to train for an extended time without promotion.
For example, Aikido’s Founder had a top student named Gozo Shioda who went to a dojo in Hawaii and there was a white belt there who was really good. Exceptional actually. Shioda inquired about the student and it turns out that he just never tested in close to 20 years of near daily training. So Shioda promoted him directly from white belt to 4th dan Black Belt.
Ohshima Sensei of Shotokan fame, hasn’t been promoted since the death of the founder of Shotokan (Funakoshi) gave him his 5th dan in 1956.
Martial arts are not about belts. But, one thing that happens is people below you want you to get promoted because they feel weird if they catch up or surpass you. It doesn’t feel “right”. So they want you to be promoted so they can be promoted.