Qualification # 3

One of the great beauty's of jiu-jitsu is that you can always, safely, put your skills to the test. Due to the tap out you can roll at one hundred percent on a regular basis to test yourself. Rolling competitively is the only way you can know whether your technique is improving or not. If you learn a new move, the only way to get it to work in a competitive situation is to try it out competitively. Drill it, evaluate it, change it and drill it some more. That is what you do to test and improve your technique.

I have spoken in class about the importance of values. I place values on each of our belt colors. They are just as much a part of the belt as the techniques that you have learned. In order to advance I look at a these few qualifications:

1. You have met your hours quotta
2. Your technique matches the color of your belt.
3. You have improved in and demonstrated the values that are placed on the belt.

When students are getting close to meeting their hours I begin evaluating qualifications 2&3 as well. For qualification 2, I understand that not every one who practicies jiu-jitsu likes to compete and or roll hard all the time. Jiu-jitsu is for everyone and not everyone is going to meet the competitive standard of a belt. Therefore I look more at their technical level and their ability to perform the techniques at a semi-competitive speed. Those who like to compete might be held a higher competitive standard. In any case, your techniques will be put to the test in one way or the other.

The same applies to qualification number 3. I always mention how you should think about the values attached to the belts and meditate on their meaning. Seeing how values are part of the qualifications that I look for, you should also be putting them to the test. How can you consider what patience is and not practice it? There are plenty of opportunities for us to put our patience to the test just as we put our armbars to the test. In fact, there are many more opportunities to test our values, morals and manors than there are opportunities to practice our jiu-jitsu techniques. We are glad to grapple and test our skills. Much more we feel proud when we fair well. Why can't we apply this to life? We should be anxious to learn more about respect, focus, humility, gentleness and so forth. We should be anxoius to put these values to the test. The truth is, they are put to the test all the time and we constantly fail. The more we learn about these things the more we will see how often we do fail the test.

What separates me from a dog other than my morals, values and conscience. Dogs have a brain. You can teach a dog to obey. Does that mean a dog has morals? No! The sad thing is that dogs are probably eaiser to teach obedience than we are because we are so prideful. We have heard it many times...Men are dogs. It is so sad that a thought like that has ever entered anyones mind. Without morals, manors and values, it is actually hard to disagree. We become worse than dogs. An untrained dog acts on instinct and an immoral man actually devises his scheme. Are we dogs or are we Men (mankind, that is)?

When was the last time you actually made an effort to practice respect, humility, patience, self-control or love? All day long we have opportunities to do so. Put yourself to the test. Not just for a day but every day. It's hard. It's a battle but we ARE training to be warriors right?