This essay speaks of many varied aspects of the grading concept. Bringing to the fore a number of different topics, you will, no doubt, find some of these easy to grasp whilst others perhaps, not so easy!

During the 1970s and 80s I was a member of a local karate school where, every three months just as long as you had attended a minimum of thirty-six two-hour lessons, you were put in for a grading. You were not asked but “invited” and would never ever think to refuse!

I never questioned the grading concept. I joined the school, trained hard and when I was “invited” I did as I was “asked”.  I saw this “invitation” as an acknowledgment of my efforts – not that I was looking for or expecting one!

Many years later I saw the whole grading concept being used and abused. Not within the school I attended because my sensei was a decent and upright man – but by other schools where it was being used as an ego-boosting, money-spinning, student-keeping, parent-pleasing and oftentimes political affair.

So, for twenty years plus I was vehemently and passionately opposed to gradings!

Then, one day I was invited to grade under a group of Beijing-based Chinese kungfu masters and as I was assured that this would not be a negative experience I agreed to be attested by them. But I did need convincing! It all looked good in theory but the reality, the politics and the ego…

I was sadly and grossly disappointed!

I will not go into that experience here but you can, if you like, read of this on this website in my essay entitled “Duanwei – No way!”  Suffice to say that now I was well and truly convinced that I would never ever go the grading route again.

But that was then (2004) and this is now.

Now I see that the world has change and not for the better and so now I do see a very real need for gradings – just so long as they are effected in the correct way. My way is, I maintain, correct.

Within my Academy one may grade twice a year – every six months or so. Once at the Chinese New Year and then again six months later.

When you grade under me it may be before me by myself or it may be before me and my two senior students. Each of us hold the Black Sash and the Gold Sash in what we practice.

When you are graded you will be given a score reflected as a percentage. If you achieve 69 per cent or less then you have failed.

During your grading you will have to demonstrate between twenty and thirty separate exercises at least. Some of these will be a solo practice whilst others may be “against” one, two or three others. You will grade as part of a group.

In your grading you be assessed upon your physical skill, attitude, spirit, stamina, focus, control, concentration, balance, body language, confidence, assertion, ability, knowledge and understanding. I (we) also take note of your punctuality, your uniform, your obedience and your listen-ing/compliance skills.

As your teacher and your assessor I will know you as an individual for I watch everyone very closely at all times – even during your regular lessons under me and should I meet you outside and away from the “daoguan” (my martial arts training temple).

As a teenager back in the 70s my training took place in a dojo where everyone in the dojo trained. Very rarely did anyone watch and if they did it was not as a spectator or part of an audience to be entertained but as an individual seriously considering joining.

Casting my mind back with a memory that is still vivid I recall one of my friends asking me if, one evening, he could visit me at the dojo watch me train. I told him that it was not up to me but up to my sensei.

“But if you are allowed to watch”, I told my friend, “on no account can you talk or laugh or mess around.” (My friend was bit of a joker!) “And you should only watch”, I added, “if you are seriously thinking about joining us.”

He understood so I asked my sensei. My friend was permitted to watch. He never did join (as I had suspected) but he did honour my terms and sit in silence for the entire two hours and spoke not one single word.

I assume that this was, at that time, “standard” within all dojo around the country.

But these days I believe things are very different. Indeed, within my Academy I do allow visitors to watch. I do prefer them to be silent and if they are watching my adult class then this is generally how they behave.

As I have said, we live in a different world now compared to four decades ago and so when it comes to my “Young Dragons” and “Tiny Tigers” classes then I do allow parents to watch. In fact I actually invite and welcome parents to watch for in this way I help them out whilst they also help me out.

But in addition to this they can also learn something of value whilst be in a position to enforce what I say to their youngster(s) when they are away from the daoguan.  (I call my training area a “daoguan” which is Mandarin Chinese, effectively, for dojo.)

If there is a downside to parents watching then it has to be in the form of background noise and parents seeing the youngsters from the outside and not from the inside which is where I am looking.  This being the case, if one boy or girl is given a higher or lower percentage in their grading then I do sometimes receive some very mild criticism.  This is the main reason for this article.

I have even had this problem from some adult students of mine complaining about their receiving a lower mark than another daoguan student in the same grading!

In my day you would either be thrown out of the dojo for passing such a comment or, if the sensei was a little more compassionate, be told, “Just shut up and train!”

I recall my sensei telling us that for the first ten years of one’s training one was not actually entitled to an opinion. ‘If you didn’t know what you are talking about’, he would say, ‘then don’t say anything at all. Just train, observe and learn.’

Look at today’s world. It is shallow, weak, cosmetic and fake.

So how do we get away from that? The answer is simple: Train! Join THE MARSTA and train. Don’t look at the world – look at yourself. Don’t worry about others, worry about yourself. And eventually you will learn not to worry. Not about anything. For will worrying change anything? Of course not!

The Japanese live by the code, “Fate is Fate and Life is all an Illusion.” This was not just the Samurai code but the code of the everyday person. They understood (understand). They knew (know).

Don’t look out, look in. Look at yourself from the inside. Don’t try to compete with others, compete with yourself. The world is very competitive and this is not healthy for it promotes an inflated ego.

A great many world class athletes retire (or are “retired”) young and can’t handle not being  “front-page news”. So they crack! Become mentally unstable. Why? Imbalance. We don’t see that. We just don’t see them or hear of them anymore. Yet they continue to live if you can call it that.

Competing with yourself is healthy for it does not promote an inflated ego but, on the contrary, promotes humility. We live a blameful society (what we quite rightly call our “blame culture”) where it is always someone else’s fault and never our own.

At THE MARSTA you will learn to develop the strength to take whatever blame is your own doing full in the face. You will take it full in the face and get through it and be stronger for it. You will become so strong that sometimes you may even take the blame when you are not the one to be blamed.

Why? Because you can take it – or perhaps because the one that should be taking take it simply cannot.

If someone does better than in the grading, don’t be deflated but, rather, be inspired. Aspire to be like them and if you think you were as good as or better than them then think again – or just accept that it seems that you were not. Don’t think so shallow!

Feel good for yourself and for the others regardless of how well or how badly you think you did, for they are a part of you and you are a part of them – part of the same school (Academy). Fight yourself and you fight them. Fight them and you are fight yourself.

Or would you rather take the class???

If you pass your grading, be proud. If you fail your grading be humble. If you pass your grading be humble. If you fail your grading be proud. Think about this!

During one of my gradings I was double-graded. I don’t know why and I never did ask. But I was going for one belt and got the next one up. I was surprised, proud and humbled. When I went for my black belt some months later I was failed. Notice that I did not say that “I failed” – I said that “I was failed”.  There is a difference!

I do not know why I was failed – to test me, perhaps?  To see my reaction? Or perhaps I just wasn’t good enough.  I never did ask.  It was not important to me. My fellow students were sincerely shocked and gutted whilst my attitude was “Never mind.  I had double-graded before and now I hadn’t made it.  I’ll try again next time.” I took my black belt grading again six months later and passed.

I could have become upset, angry, confused and so I could have left the school and discontinued my practice. But I did not.

Kongzi (Confucius) once said – or perhaps he said it more than once! – that “Failure is the mother of success.” He also said, “If you make a mistake and do not correct it, this is called a mistake.”

Do not be too young or narrow-minded to understand the value, purpose and power of philosophy!

To quote Laozi (the founder of Daoism):  “Anything great is long in the making.” So do not be in a hurry!  Life passes by all-too-quickly and the daily routine is all-too-often saturated in the belief that one has to move fast, keep to deadlines and keep pace with everyone.

Training is your time. Your time to find yourself whilst getting to know yourself and understand yourself so…savour every moment – good and bad – and eventually you will eliminate good and bad for they, too, are simply illusion.

It is true, that one can gauge one’s effectiveness – one’s level of skill – by putting your skills to use when under some degree of pressure. Some achieve this by free-fighting but then nine times out of ten one’s skill goes out the nearest window and the fight is reduced to luck or techniques that are not a part of the actual discipline but, instead, are apart from the actual discipline. What a waste of time! Entertaining for the audience but more and mere illusion for the fighter.

Within my Academy there is no sparring. Why? Because sparring suggests an exchange and trade of blows (fighting) and there is no fighting in my discipline. Only winning. Efficient, assertive and controlled winning. At my academy we practice CONstructively not DEstructively.

(As an aside, if I thought for one moment that our national health system was equipped knowledge-wise and ability-wise to deal with injuries sustained from martial arts practice then perhaps I would think differently, but personal experience tells me otherwise!)

Within my Academy the testing ground for your skill, technique and level of ability is the grading. This. if nowhere else, is where we introduce and utilize the pressure concept.

But look a little deeper and you will see that the grading concept is also and actually within each and every lesson you attend – and each and every day of your life…until your lessons and your life inevitably merge.

This is then the meaning of Martial Arts as a Way of life. Of life, to life, in life and for life.

So one may look upon each training session and each day as being a conceptual grading. In this way you may wish to call it one’s very own CPD – to use a modern-day abbreviation. (CPD stands for “Continuous Professional Development” and this is becoming standard procedure within many big companies, the NHS being one example.)

When I was at High School a concept entitled “Continuous Assessment” (CA) was introduced whereby a strict monitoring of one’s three-year coursework would be a part of your final exam result.

This made perfect sense to me – what I could not understand was why it had taken “the system” so long to think of it!  I had already been shouting “Continuous Assessment” for a number of years!

In some martial arts clubs an assessor is brought in to conduct the grading. This is often if not always someone senior to the teacher, instructor or coach – someone that does not actually know the students being graded.

I do understand this up to a point but choose not to go this way with my gradings. This, then, means that one has to trust me not to fall into one or more of several potential traps namely incompetence, favouritism and bullying.

More recently I have been informed of another China-based grading system which is laughable in its childish attitude. Based upon a point-accumulation system (rather like the one whereby Australian Immigration decide whether or not you are worthy of living in their country) it is clearly designed for sheep and not for individuals. (It is not cheap either!) At THE MARSTA I am only concerned with teaching and promoting individuals and individualism.

When you grade at THE MARSTA you may well be grading along with others that are going for a higher and a lower grade than yourself. If this is the case then you will be able to see just what it is that seniors have to demonstrate, achieve and become whilst, at the same time, be reminded as to what is was that you once had to do and how it felt to have do it as a lower grade. You will also begin to see just how far you have to go whilst realizing just how far (little!) you have so far travelled.

As I am teaching a number of private students, gradings provide you with an opportunity to “see a strange face” whilst making new friends. This helps in creating unity within the Academy as one’s circle of friends increases and expands.

To quote Kongzi once again: “Have no friends not equal to yourself.” Like attracts like. Understand this well! This dos not mean only talk to those of your own sash level. Rather, it means appreciate that you and the other students are a part of one big extended Kung Fu family.

In closing…

Do not be fooled by this lengthy essay. It may be long but is in no way complete.

This essay simply serves to highlight a few main points whilst providing food for thought. I trust that it has been of use to you.

Philosophy plays a key-role in teachings at THE MARSTA. You can find more on this upon this website by clicking on “THE MARSTA PHILOSOPHY”.