Two years ago, we changed the way we decide who will test each month, and overall it’s worked out well. It has resulted in both students and instructors knowing what skills are lacking and where improvement needs to happen. It also means students may go several months without testing since they will not test until they are truly ready. If parents have a problem with this, please bring it up with one of our black belts and we can discuss.
However, with summer schedules not everyone makes it to Tip Test week, so we wanted to remind people that tipping can be done any time.
Tips and Tip Test Week
As mentioned, we do have a week set aside for Tip Testing, signing off the tip test sheets. We also encourage students to come to Friday classes after Tip Test Week if they didn’t get their tip and want to work on it.
However, those are not the only times students can have them signed. It can be done many other times.
- Before class if you arrive early.
- During class break.
- During weapons class if you can catch instructors/high rank students who are not working out or teaching.
- During siblings’/children’s classes. Some students arrive for class early because family members are in other classes. There is usually a black belt or two who can help you with your Tip paper.
Learning New Skills
Other than 10th – 9th gup all Tip Test Forms include both old and new skills. This ensures students keep skills they developed in their last belt as well as learning their new skills. However, we discovered we do not always teach every new skill with the same regularity.
Chances are, forms and one-steps will get regular and frequent practice. We make an effort to cover everything, but the Tip Test Forms allow you to keep us on track also.
If students or parents notice skills on Tip Test Forms that students have not learned, bring them up to an instructor. Students can also use the times noted in the bullet list to the left to ask instructors or higher ranks to help learn those skills.
Overall, we really like tip testing. It has led to better qualified and more skilled martial artists. I hope you agree.