Opinion on number of candidates at gradings

[Nidan Melbourne]

I've had gradings with associations where you had to do things individually & in pairs. I've had gradings with associations where the groups were large but the examiners watching would still pull people out who didn't meet the standards (they were not allowed to continue with the grading).

It's a point that I was also going to make, our total grading time takes 4 hours, any more and we would have to pay more rent for the large hall and most of the students would get bored/cold waiting their turn. We still only have 5-8 students up at a time though in front of 2-5 instructors. The students are only there if we think they can pass, they are mostly confirming it. On the odd occasion we get a fail or a temp grade to cover the odd mistake - the temp grade is a pass but they have to prove themselves and be very strong to grade again.

Both raise very good points with what your saying. Wagnerk i like your idea of pulling people out who weren't meeting standards. But what happens when you ask them to do something and make a few mistakes? or do you allow for those mistakes or if they completely fudge it up then you pull them?

and Mal103 i can absolutely agree that the longer the grading the more you have to pay for rent. it is the same for my school since we rent space from our local sports center. But then again if we are aware that we have a large number of students grading (or the difficulty of the grading requires it) we will rent it for the extra time. Otherwise if we have too many students we actually would rent out the basketball court to have plenty of space to have enough room for everyone. Although the only downside to renting a basketball court for a few hours is on a saturday is that it is hard to get time unless it is at night or during the week as the basketball courts at the same center has basketball from 9:45 am to 8 pm at night.

Also it would be a good way to see if they have been actually working on their syllabus after passing that particular test (you have to pass 5 tests to be eligible to grade. once you pass a test you get a 'tag' on your belt to show that you've passed it). But those who fail usually have either had a bad day on the mat (doesn't normally happen) or fail outright because of either their attitude whilst at the grading or that they just aren't up to scratch to be promoted.

oh and wagnerk at my old dojo (& new one) if your attempting for your black belt (or grading for a kyu belt at the black belt grading) you won't get told that you failed until afterwards. if they fail the grading outright from basics we want to give them a fair chance to rectify that from the rest of the grading. Say they stuff up a number of techniques in the basics or combinations section of they grading they have to show us that it was a mistake from the rest of the grading.