Posts Tagged ‘Belt Promotion’

UTKM Belt Testing: Adult Requirements

Posted: January 11, 2018 by urbantacticskravmaga in UTKM Testing
Tags: , , ,
0

First off, if you haven’t read about our belts, in general, please see the page UTKM Belts – Our Story & Process.

In order to test for any specific belt level, you must meet the MINIMUM requirements.  However, remember that these are only MINIMUMS and do not immediately entitle you to test once you have met them (see “Goodhart’s Law”).  Please do not ask your instructor to test, you will be asked when your instructor has deemed you ready.  It doesn’t matter if you think you are ready, if the instructor does not think you are ready, then you are not ready.  There are a variety factors to consider when inviting students to test, from that student’s technical skill or mental preparedness, to mundane considerations, such as scheduling, number of participants, etc..  Please do not take it personally.

UTKM Adult Belt Rankings (Age 16+)

White Belt Progress Assessment – Fee $50
  • Completed a minimum of 30-40 hours of class time at White belt.
  • Participated in a minimum of 10 sparring sessions in the Warrior classes.
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact.

Yellow Belt Test – Fee $50

  • Completed a minimum of 70 hours class time at White belt, Warrior, and Defense classes, and be approved by your regular instructor.
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact.
  • Completed at least one White Belt Progress Assessment.
  • Have volunteered in or witnessed a previous Yellow belt test.
  • Attended classes a minimum of once a week for 6 weeks prior to testing.
  • Are physically and mentally ready for the test, as determined by your instructor.
Yellow Belt Progress Assessment – Fee $50
  • Completed a minimum of 30-40 hours at Yellow belt
  • Continued to advance your sparring skills in the Warrior classes
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact

Orange Belt Test – Fee $100

  • Completed a minimum of 70 hours at Yellow belt,
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Completed at least one Yellow Belt Progress Assessment
  • Recorded at least 2/3 of your required hours in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Demonstrated competency in the Yellow Belt Curriculum
  • Have volunteered in or witnessed a previous Orange or Green belt test
  • Attended classes a minimum of once a week for 6 weeks prior to testing
  • Are physically and mentally ready for the test, as determined by your instructor
  • Have prepared for the written portion of the test by studying the UTKM Blog and Guides
Orange Belt Progress Assessment – Fee $50
  • Completed a minimum of 100 hours at Orange belt
  • Continued to advance your sparring skills in the Warrior classes
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Have sparred at least 5 times in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Recorded at least half your hours at the Novice Colour Belt class level

Green Belt Test– Fee $100

  • Completed a minimum of 140 hours at Orange belt,
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Completed at least one Orange Belt Progress Assessment
  • Recorded at least half of your hours in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Demonstrated competency in the Yellow and Orange Belt Curriculum
  • Have volunteered in or witnessed a previous Orange or Green belt test
  • Attended classes a minimum of once a week for 6 weeks prior to testing
  • Are physically and mentally ready for the test, as determined by your instructor, including the ability to run a minimum of 2km
  • Have prepared for the written portion of the test by studying the UTKM Blog and Guides
  • Have received your Firearms License (PAL)
Green Belt Progress Assessment – Fee $100
  • Completed a minimum of 150 hours at Green belt
  • Continued to advance your fundamentals in Warrior and Defense classes
  • Continued to advanced your novice skills in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Have attended enough Advanced classes to know at least 2/3 of the material
  • Ensure that you know the majority of the Green Belt Theory
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Have sparred at least 5 times in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Recorded at least 1/3 of your hours at Advanced and 1/3 at Novice Colour Belt classes

Blue Belt Test – Fee $150

  • Completed a minimum of 180 hours at Green belt,
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Completed at least one Green Belt Progress Assessment
  • Demonstrated competency in the Yellow, Orange, and Green Belt Curriculum
  • Have volunteered in or witnessed a previous Orange or Green belt test
  • Have attended enough Advanced classes to know all of the material
  • Ensure that you know all of the Green Belt Theory
  • Have sparred at least 5 times in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Recorded at least 1/3 of your hours at Advanced and 1/3 at Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Attended classes a minimum of once a week for 6 weeks prior to testing
  • Are physically and mentally ready for the test, as determined by your instructor, including the ability to run a minimum of 5km
  • Have prepared for the written portion of the test by studying the UTKM Blog, Guides, and Advanced Class theory notes
  • Have volunteered a min of 8 times for testing or assessments
Blue Belt Progress Assessment Fee – $200
  • Completed a minimum of 200 hours at Blue belt
  • Continued to advance your fundamentals in Warrior and Defense classes
  • Continued to advance your novice skills in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Have attended enough Advanced classes to know at least 2/3 of the material
  • Demonstrated competency in the Yellow, Orange, and Green Belt Curriculum
  • Ensure that you know the Green Belt material
  • Ensure that you know at least 2/3 of the Blue Belt material
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Have sparred at least 5 times in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Recorded at least 1/3 of your hours at Advanced and 1/3 at Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Demonstrated competency in safe firearms handling for Pistol, Rifle, and Shotgun
  • Have trained in, or demonstrated that you have completed, enough live fire training

Brown Belt Test – Fee $250

  • Completed a minimum of 280 hours at Blue belt
  • Completed at least one Blue Belt Progress Assessment
  • Continued to advance your fundamentals in Warrior and Defense classes
  • Continued to advance your novice skills in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Have attended enough Advanced classes to know at least 2/3 of the material
  • Demonstrated competency in the Yellow, Orange, and Green Belt Curriculum
  • Ensure that you know the Green and Blue Belt material
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Have sparred at least 5 times in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Recorded at least 1/3 of your hours at Advanced and 1/3 at Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Demonstrated competency in safe firearms handling for Pistol, Rifle, and Shotgun
  • Have trained in, or demonstrated that you have completed, enough live fire training
  • Demonstrated competency in live fire training
  • Have volunteered a min of 15 times for testing or assessments at all levels
  • Are physically and mentally ready for the test, as determined by your instructor, including the ability to complete a minimum 2km weighted run
  • Demonstrated competency in Krav Maga application for civilian, security, and law enforcement
  • Have prepared for the written portion of the test by studying the UTKM Blog, Guides, and Advanced Class theory notes
Brown Belt Progress Assessment – $300
  • Completed a minimum of 300 hours at Brown belt
  • Continued to advance your fundamentals in Warrior and Defense Classes
  • Continued to advance your novice skills in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Have attended enough Advanced classes to know at least 2/3 of the material
  • Demonstrated competency in the White, Yellow, Orange, and Green Belt Curriculum
  • Ensure that you know the Green and Blue material
  • Ensure that you know at least 2/3 of the Brown Belt material
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Have sparred at least 5 times in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Recorded at least 1/3 of your hours at Advanced and 1/3 at Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Demonstrated competency in safe firearms handling for Pistol, Rifle, and Shotgun
  • Have trained in, or demonstrated that you have completed, enough live fire training
  • Demonstrated competency in the ability to teach all levels of UTKM material

Black Belt Test – Fee $400

  • Completed a minimum of 400 hours at Brown Belt
  • Completed at least one Brown Belt Progress Assessment
  • Continued to advance your fundamentals in Warrior and Defense Classes
  • Continued to advance your novice skills in the Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Have attended enough Advanced classes to know and teach all levels of UTKM techniques
  • Ensure than you know all levels of theory
  • Demonstrated competency in sparring, and can safely spare with contact
  • Recorded at least 1/3 of your hours at Advanced and 1/3 at Novice Colour Belt classes
  • Demonstrated competency in safe firearms handling for Pistol, Rifle, and Shotgun
  • Have trained in, or demonstrated that you have completed, enough live fire training
  • Demonstrated competency in live fire training
  • Have volunteered a min of 20 times for testing or assessments at all levels
  • Demonstrated competency in Krav Maga application for civilian, security, and law enforcement
  • Are physically and mentally ready for the test, as determined by your instructor, including the ability to complete a minimum 5km weighted run
  • Have prepared for the written portion of the test by studying the UTKM Blog, Guides, and Advanced Class theory notes
  • Are prepared to teach beginner, novice, and advanced students
  • Have achieved a Blue Belt, or higher, in BJJ or comparable grappling style

*Testing fees are subject to change unilaterally by UTKM.

It’s never to late to get back to training and be a better you! Getting a Judo Brown Belt at 51

Posted: June 6, 2015 by Warren Chow in UTKM Student Corner
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Never Give Up

After several years on hiatus from training in judo, I recently decided to start training again.  If you’re interested, the full background on my decision can be found here.  An update to that story is that on June 1st I was promoted from a blue belt to a brown belt, so the end goal of one day earning my black belt is slowly becoming a reality.

The last 3 months has passed fairly quickly and I’m surprised at how fast I was able to progress to a brown belt.  Is the judo club I attend then just a belt factory?  No, it isn’t.   I was already close to getting my brown belt years ago but never graded for it before I stopped training, so essentially I just needed to get my timing and speed back up to par and dust off some of the techniques.  I’m still not where I want to be, but in the instructors’ eyes I must be good enough to rate my brown belt.

It was not easy to get back into judo.  It is a very physical sport that requires you to get thrown a lot, and when you’re doing randori (sparring) your partner is providing full resistance, and so the techniques you execute have to be proficient enough to catch them off guard.  Not an easy thing to do when they’re trying to do the same thing to you.  Many nights I didn’t feel like going to class but I knew that if I allowed myself not to, it was a slippery slope and there would be nothing to prevent me from not attending the next class, and the one following that.  So I went, and afterwards I would feel very good about myself not just physically but also mentally.

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with training.  I know some people love it and that’s all they want to spend their spare time doing.  Not me.  I work full-time, have the regular demands put on me from my wife and two young girls, and train in Krav Maga twice a week.  Throw in the judo classes (no pun intended) and my week is pretty well full up and there’s not much time to relax.  Then it’s just rinse-repeat the cycle each week, and maybe every so often a holiday breaks up the pattern.  So while I know that staying in shape is important and healthy, most nights when I get home from work I just want to kick back for the evening and relax watching TV or reading.  That’s when it’s most difficult to get myself up off the couch and go to the dojo, or to Krav Maga class on a Sunday afternoon.  However, forcing yourself to do something when it’s the most mentally difficult is what will define you as someone who is determined and perseveres, as opposed to someone who doesn’t succeed at something and thinks the world is against them.

Jimmy Pedro is an American  judo competitor and coach, 3 time World medalist and 2 time Olympic bronze medalist.  One of his famous quotes is “Every champion wants to quit… At 19, I lost at the Kano Cup, went 0-2. I remember sitting on the steps of the Budokan, thinking to myself: I hate this sport, I just want to quit, this stinks.  People see champions as winners, but they don’t see those dark days, the days when they struggled or they lost or they failed or the day in training when they got their butt whooped or those tournaments where they fought miserably. We all go through it. Nobody goes undefeated.”  So if even a world class champion can get discouraged in trying to attain a goal, then it’s completely understandable that for us common folk it can be even harder.

jimmyolympic

Before my daughter Christine joined judo it was inconceivable to me that I would re-join judo and continue progressing towards a black belt.  It was absolutely out of the question, especially given my age (51).  But now that I’ve been training for a few months and have my brown belt, it’s not only conceivable but also inevitable given I put in enough time.  And while I’m happy that I got my brown belt I now think that it’s “no big deal”.  My point is that from the outside it can seem like a real achievement to somebody looking in, because if they were in the same position I was in, they would probably think “I could never do it”, but being on the inside it’s truly not a big deal.  Now multiply that by 100 fold throughout a person’s lifetime where many people face major challenges, but put their heads down and grind through it anyway, and soon you have a huge gap between the people who have achieved things throughout their life (and think it’s no big deal) and those who feel they could never do it and think they’ll never amount to much (but only because they’ve never tried).  “Fear” is a great inhibitor and it gets less and less scary the more you do things out of your comfort zone and more and more scary to those who give up even before they try, just because they think they can’t do it.  Challenges are incremental and are less intimidating when you take them small bites at a time.

If you have doubts about whether you can do something, then the greatest mistake is that you don’t try anyway.  Yes, you have to weigh the pros/cons, benefits/risks, etc., but if it’s only fear holding you back then that’s the perfect opportunity to face it and know that you’ve tried your very best.  In the end, trying something and failing at it is better than not trying at all.  In my case if, for some reason, I don’t earn my black belt in judo then I won’t have any regrets because I’m now much further ahead than I thought I would ever be.  So think about something that you’ve wanted to do but have just been held back because of fear, acknowledge it, and then go ahead and do it anyway.  In the end, you’ll be proud of yourself, the next challenge will come along, and you’ll overcome that as well.

And if you ever feel like quitting, think about another one of Jimmy Pedro’s quotes:  “I’ve never been broken in a judo match. I’ve never quit. I’ve fought some guys who were tough as nails. I’ve had to fight for my life. But I’ve never backed down. I might’ve been beaten, but I went out fighting.”

Warrens Brown Bet Cert

By: Warren Chow