The Junior Black Sash Grading (Diary Entry)

21.07.14 Grading Tonight’s grading yielded a mixture of performances. Some clearly felt the pressure and didn’t put on their best performances, which is why 80% of the CCMA grading system is down to time spent during regular training. However, I like to retain a formal examination because I feel it is important that a student confirms material under difficult conditions. Nevertheless, the format is relatively less formal than a usual grading. My main interest is to see if an individual has efficiently understood certain self-protection concepts and whether they have developed enough through their attribute training. Tonight also saw me awarding my first junior black sash. This went to Billy Covington, a 16 year old that has trained with me for over six years. During this time he has shown innovation and a clear understanding of the martial arts concepts he has been taught. He has also trained and sparred under Boxing, Muay Thai, Wrestling, Submission Grappling and Mixed Martial Arts conditions several times against much older and heavier opponents. Of course, he has also undergone several different self-defence pressure tests, including multiple attackers, specific training and weapon-based situations. His essay on physics and martial arts was accepted at his last grading. He has demonstrated a thorough knowledge of civilian personal security and the tenets of CCMA. Billy’s test on the night consisted of teaching an entire lesson. He chose MMA and used the three lines of attack as a theme. He began with an exercise for slipping a boxer’s jab with a jab. This turned into slipping into high, mid and low line takedowns. He then demonstrated the use of the fence at single, multiple and armed attackers, using both role play and execution on the focus mitts. He did a variety of freestyle forcus mitt work for single and multiple users, showing a range of different concepts – self-defence, Boxing, Kickboxing and MMA.  He demonstrated a variety of takedowns against light resistance and various different guard and pinning positions. He showed appropriate use of improvised weaponry against armed attackers and unarmed response, including control and restraint against an armed attacker in a pressure test. He sparred under all the aforementioned rules and against multiple attackers in addition to participating in the infamous “Scramble Drill”. Compared to all other participating students, Billy had the least amount of recovery time in-between sparring bouts. His opponents ranged from youngsters he had to show good coaching skills with to an old and heavier experienced opponent who had been brought in specifically to spar him. At the end of all gradings all participants are required to perform a fitness test and an oral theory test. The fitness test’s main objective is to test a student’s willingness to keep going. It is an untimed test of mental will, which is at the core of combat. The oral theory test consists of a series of different questions regarding self-protection and martial arts. For his black sash, Billy had to do a complex series of fitness exercises at high intensity. These included various callisthenic exercises demonstrating strength, agility and stamina, in addition to focus mitt exercises. His theory consisted of questions on the Cooper Colour Code, the effects of the sympathetic nervous system under stress, the 10/80/10 rule, the theory behind pre-emptive striking and various non-physical methods that can be employed to prevent a violent situation. It also consisted of questions regarding the different martial arts disciplines that he used in attribute training. Billy fulfilled all the criteria presented and I was happy to award him his much deserved grade.