Grading Rules and Hints

Follow some rules and hints that CARISMA students must follow before and during grading:

  • Uniform: the uniform is an important part of training together as a club. It’s important while training in classes as well as during grading sessions. Anybody attending a grading without a proper uniform and wearing their appropriate belt will be penalised.
  • Minimum attendance: in order to qualify for each grading you must have attended for a minimum amount of hours which increases with seniority and resets at each grading. The minimum attendance requested for each grading should ideally be exceeded rather than barely reached.  Moreover it’s essential that the attendance is recent compared to the grading date.  E.g. you cannot expect to grade after a long absence even if you had trained enough hours to qualify for that grading before your absence.
  • Physical flexibility: No score is given to physical flexibility because it would just help those people that are naturally flexible. At the same time flexibility is an integral part of the kickboxer skills so it should be trained very seriously by everybody. Considering that our sport rules don’t allow kicks below the belt then every kickboxer should be capable of performing any kick well above his/her belt level. A person shorter than average must remember that he/she will often face opponents that are taller then he/she is so his/her kicks will have to be developed and trained to kick effectively a taller opponent.
  • Sparring: it can be considered an optional training and activity for the first few ranks.   While little or no sparring can be acceptable for the first few ranks it makes little sense for higher ranks not being capable of sparring competently against opponents of various skill level, size and physical shape. For this reason  any rank above 5 kyu sparring should be considered a must.
  • What high-medium-low means: when performing a technique during grading (or during any other training session) the definition of high means your own head level, medium means stomach or chest area, while low means leg level which can be trained but never applied in sparring.