There have been some recent controversies surrounding certain academies and affiliations offering testing and promotion through exchange of videos, that is to say “online promotions.” This is a troublesome and multifaceted issue.
For starters I will reiterate a point that I’ve made many times: “The Belt” means nothing. Your belt means what your belt means to you and mine means what mine means to me, but “The Belt” as a nebulous, not clearly defined construct, doesn’t actually mean anything. I am a blue belt who has encountered white belts that can demolish me and have rolled with legitimate black belts that I can dominate using technique. The belt means different things to different people.
That said, when someone is promoted they are effectively being given a stamp of approval by whoever is promoting them. The belt is a symbol of someone else’s faith in you. It is also a symbol of your own personal growth and achievement, that is to say when I go from white to blue, blue to purple etc it generally signifies that my coach has witnessed my personal growth and decided I had reached the next plateau.
When someone is promoted based on videos they’ve submitted there are some crucial components not taken into account. For starters: it is very difficult to feel a person’s balance and pressure based on video. If you watch high level black belts, very often their movements are very subtle, in order to properly assess someone you cannot simply watch them, you need to FEEL them, you need to actually experience what they are capable and what NOT capable of doing.
In a time when, in some cases, people open up gyms while they are still blue belts, “the belt” needs to also be an assessment of the other person’s character. If you read Carlos Gracie’s guidelines for promotion, most of it had to do with the person’s personality rather than their technical knowledge or ability. That is to say: if you’re a terrible human being your coach should probably refrain from promoting you even if your skills are good. A big part of jiu jitsu is the ability to check your ego, and exchange of videos is not a good litmus test for that ability.
There is a common adage that is passed around the Jiu Jitsu can be for anyone. However, getting promoted to the next belt is not an entitlement, but rather an accomplishment. I doubt we’ll ever see a black belt world champ who got his or her belts online. Rather, practitioners worthy of the belts they were demonstrate day in and day out to their instructors their value and validity. There are far too many variables needed in assessing a student to do it virtually.
The post The Issue with Online Promotion appeared first on Jiu-Jitsu Times.