Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
AikiWeb Poll for the week of December 5, 2004:
Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
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Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
How about a selection for no preferance. I personally don't care when I am tested.
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Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
For myself the balance is in favor of announced tests. That allows all the stress and worry of an examination to build. Whilst i admit all these things are unpleasant, particularly for me, it still ensures an environment of testing under pressure which I think is essential. I'm not sure that unannounced tests really provide the necessary pressure for examinations. I do however stand to be corrected.
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Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
I don't care. Both can be fun in their own ways. :)
kvaak Pauliina |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
I definately prefer announced.
At my school, the test is a big social event and people come from all around. Sometimes they come from out of state or even out of country. Even if you are not testing you should come and support your fellow classmates. Sometimes we go out to lunch or dinner afterwards, but sometimes not. The point is that we try to act as family and enjoy eachothers company, while trying to appreciate the struggles we have gone through in the spirit of learning. Our school encourages getting someone to mentor you as you train for the test. This gives you a good month or two of good one on one time. So announcing tests in advance gives you an opportunity to bond with this person. We Also hold practice tests to help eachother gauge where we are in our training. Testing is not necessary or anything, but it is definately part of the experience. Plus its always fun to see the higher belts get thrashed around. The higher the belt test, the more likely the testee is to get slapped in the face :D . But thats the price of advancing I suppose. Suppose I better get back to studying for finals. jgros |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
I like unannounced. I think if I'm told when I'm due to be graded, I'll try harder, but be more stressed. While trying harder is a good thing, I should be doing my best at all times. So I think if it's unannounced, I have to do my best in case it's due, and then if I pass, it's worth the work and I know it's paid off. It's also more fun not worrying about when it's due. In aikijutsu I was recently graded, I knew it was coming up, and I was worried because I missed a month, that I wouldn't pass. Was an anxious time.
Conclusion: I prefer the surprise of "ok, you've been upgraded." over "your grading is in 4 weeks." or whatever. |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
I like the preparation time. We had two shodan tests this fall, and the whole dojo learned a lot from trying to help out. Even the low kyu ranks pitched in, stretched their ukemi skills, polished up their Japanese, looked in bewilderment at taigi we won't see again for years....
I also love the social aspect of the tests--people make an effort to come out for them, it's a big event. My enthusiasm for aikido was really spurred by the event that included my fifth kyu test--there were people testing for every rank up through first kyu, and it was so cool to see an entire progression from "Hey, maybe I could do that" to "Holy shit!" I think surprise tests would miss out on having such a good group energy. Most evenings, we have only 4-7 students in the dojo. I guess I'm enough of a ham to want a bigger audience; and enough of a junkie not to want to miss anyone else's test, ever! And anyway, it's going to take the pressure of an announced testing date to get anyone to work on kata tori yonkyo tenkan, which is on my next test (third kyu) and which is rather an unloved throw. (My co-workers asked some anxious questions about the big purple bruises, last time.) Mary Kaye |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
I was at a seminar with my sensei's sensei. One of my teachers was called up to demo a technique, i believe we were working on a variation of iriminage. He did the technique and received the exact same correction that we get from him most often-"move more from center".
That was his Fourth Dan test. He passed! I only have two sempai who aren't black belt ranked so I'm almost at a disadvantage as compared to Mary Kay, but I do like watching their tests (after mine!) and try to guess how long it will be till I can do that like them, and what I didn't realize I already knew. Although I would be interested in seeing how I would perform on a full-out ,unannounced 3rd kyu test in about a year... |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
I guess I'm thinking of an unannounced test differently than others. The ones I've seen have been along the lines of "Bob, your testing in 10 minutes...hope you're ready". Not the sudden awarding of rank for something the student didn't know they were being tested on.
I've had both and can do both. For me I like the idea of unannounced because I feel that you should always be preparing for the next level so that you shouldn't need any special training to pass it whenever it arrives. YMMV Bronson |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
For us we tend not to announce the lower kyu tests, certainly 5th (our first grading) will normally take the pattern of the student(s) being asked to go out th front for a few weeks and go through techniques from the syllabus, this build till they eventually are used to it and are doing the whole thing, then a few other things are thrown in to see how they deal.
Assuming it isn't a disaster they are awarded at the end of the night - this has the benefit with newbies of nobody actually failing they were just doing a "mock". For higher grades a different approach is used, and a lot of focus goes into the preperation for of a grading, which is done at a public event twice a year. Not so much the tequiniques, which as Bronson says should be there by that point, but more the whole "crispness" and "focus" that is needed in a grading. |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
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Again, that's just me. Other's do it different and I'm ok with that :D Bronson |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
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People don't really fail their grading on a club night - at some point it mysteriously turns into a mock exam instead... ;) For the public ones though (1st kyu and up for us) i guess i see them more as a showcase for the Dojo. If i do badly, it would reflect in a negative way on my teachers (which i don't want to happen). For me personally i've also found recently that the focused work i put in before my 1 kyu exam has reflected well on my Aiki in general... It's certainly helped eliminate some "fluffy" elements that has slipped in... :rolleyes: |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
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Without the pressure of some form of test its all to easy to tread water. Once you've made an improvement to reach a grading standard then usually you don't slip back too far when training returns to normal post-testing. Cheers D |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
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Bronson |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
I dont know what everyone else thinks about the way my Sensei tests us, but we dont get tested at all. In fact, he tests us while we are training, but he keeps it to himself. The only thing is, it does actually take a month or two longer than it usually does to progress to the next level.
-Chris- |
Re: Poll: Do you prefer your aikido rank tests announced (planned) or unannounced (surprise)?
I personally prefer dojos that don't test at all. In my experience it actually takes longer to advance throught the ranks with a teacher that grades according to skill and merit, and the quality of his/her senior students shows it. Also in this environment, it seems like students train harder throughout the year, instead of just cramming at a few key points. This is especially true of dojos that randori long and hard. You tend to get all of the "testing" you could ever hope for in these sorts of dojos just by showing up to class regularly! Too bad "no testing" wasn't an option.
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