Belt Grading - by Rustling Birch

 

A number of us Jiseikan Aikido students were recently invited to participate in a belt grading exercise. As we trickled into the dojo on the morning of the exercise, we exchanged compassionate glances and made small talk, trying to dissipate any apprehension that we might be feeling. We nervously smoothed our gis into place and tugged at our belts. Someone muttered something about pretending that it was just another practice.  

We sat at one end of the mat and awaited instructions.  As the lower belts began to perform the required techniques, I wondered if watching them would calm my nerves or actually heighten my anxiety.  

Belt grading is an evaluation process.  It is a way of assessing how well students have understood the fundamentals, no matter how many years they have been practicing Aikido.  This might include stance and overall coordination. The basics can never be taken for granted, and it is always a good idea to review them and ensure that they have been well assimilated. 

 

It is also about assessing how well students have integrated the new techniques they have learned since their last belt grading.  The old and the new form a whole, and must be reviewed together. 

Most of all, belt grading is about mental attitude.  The pressure that students feel as they perform before their peers and the more senior students is part of the process, as is the special effort they have to make to focus both mind and body. They must strive to forget the formal setting, the evaluation committee, the audience, and their own frayed nerves.

As I watched the first group of students execute their techniques, I took a deep breath and tried imagining that the whole thing would, indeed, be like an everyday practice. It didn’t take long before the exercise actually DID start taking on all the recognizable attributes of a good practice…

Repetition, for instance. If their technique was not quite right, students were asked to think it through and try again… and again.  Sometimes, they were asked to focus on the fundamentals; sometimes, it was on the specifics of a new technique. They were visibly engaged. I noticed that their multiple and rigorous attempts seemed to dispel their anxiety. The repeated “re-presenting” of the problem actually helped them relax and find appropriate “solutions”.

 

Reflection, for another. Like a modern-day Socrates, Sensei prompted reflection by firing question after question at the students as they executed their techniques.  “Is your opponent off balance?” “Where do you feel the pull?”  “Is the angle right?” “Where should you be standing?”  “Do you feel any difference now?”  

And observation. I, for one, was completely drawn into the process—I too found myself “thinking things through”, as I watched the students in their repeated efforts.  Observation turned into self-observation.  Students were told to pay attention to what others were doing and to what they themselves were doing. I compared their performance with my mental image of the techniques, wondering if I myself had not been doing them wrong all along. I soon noticed that my focus had dissolved my own anxiety. 

In retrospect, I realize just how much of a learning experience this belt grading exercise was, and on so many fronts.

There is a big difference between the learning that goes on in a formal school setting and the learning that goes on in the other aspects of our personal and professional lives. The former is highly structured; most often, its objective is to propel all the students of a single class to the same level of learning—within the same timeframe. One of the unintended consequences of this system is that those who succeed in attaining the prescribed goal in the allotted time are labeled “fast” learners.  Those who don’t, are branded “slow” learners. These labels stick for a long time, and affect us in our subsequent efforts to learn. 

 

 

The other kind of learning, however—the kind that occurs at the various other stages of our lives—comes in many guises. It is called lifelong learning, and we engage in it at work and at play, in both our professional and personal lives. Most of us become lifelong learners sooner or later, if only to improve our job opportunities.  We hone or develop new skills and competencies that will have a direct impact on our performance and/or our advancement: everything from team building to time management. Still others turn to personal development, learning a new language, the tango, or… Aikido.  

The strategies associated with lifelong learning are the focus of a discipline called andragogy, the teaching of adults (as opposed to pedagogy, the teaching of children).  Andragogical teaching and learning strategies typically transform the role of the teacher into that of a facilitator, and they engage the learner, fostering awareness and responsibility. The basic premise is that mature learners are willing to learn, and that they are capable of identifying and pursuing their learning objectives.  They seek out and can even actually create their own optimal learning environment. 

It occurred to me that our belt grading embodied the optimal learning environment. It was an opportunity to review what we knew, to correct some of the errors we were making, and to identify the areas that needed more practice.  It was different from most exams typical of formal education. With scholastic or academic exams, you might get a pass or fail, or end up with a score, such as 60%, 70%, or 80%.  If you pass, you move on to new material, and rarely is a second thought given to what you didn’t know—the other 40%, 30%, or 20% that you missed out on.  At Jiseikan, however, as demonstrated that morning, we learned that our weaknesses have to be addressed immediately, before any further progress can be made. 

Belt grading should not be viewed as a goal unto itself.  Nor is it meant to measure one student’s performance against another’s. Instead, it should be seen as a hiatus in our individual training routines, a chance to evaluate our own strengths and weaknesses.  Our own belt grading exercise stimulated self-observation and awareness, and engaged us in the learning process.  It reinforced for us the important role that self-evaluation and self-correction play in the assimilation and retention of a technique.  It also demonstrated how the learning process, which includes repetition, reflection, and observation, can be part of the experience. 

 

 

 

- ~ -