BMABA Issued Time-Served Dan Gradings
It's important to stress that over the past decade, BMABA has only signed off on a nominal number of time served Dan Grading certificates. We do this to preserve the integrity of the BMABA name, as we try where possible to only work on merit based assessments with specific evidence we can review and attest to.
That said, we do understand time-served Dan Gradings are relevant to some styles and at certain ranks, so we have the facility to accept these where circumstances are met.
We quality the time served Dan Grading in the same way, meaning whether it's your club wanting to issue an internal award on a time-served basis or you are requesting at the cost of £49.00 a BMABA issued Dan Grading based upon time-served, we have the same requirements and process.
If you issue a time-served dan progression at club level, there's no cost from us in recognising and updating grades.
Criteria
To meet the criteria for time-served, we would need the following conditions to be met;
There is no formal technical syllabus beyond the current grade held by the incumbent, meaning there is no merit based traditional grading possible.
There is no higher graded instructor available to oversee the grading / progression.
The incumbent has continued to be in regular practice (training) at the level representative of the grade for the time of atleast the grade itself. For example, to progress from 6th Dan to 7th Dan we would expect the incumbent to have remained actively practicing and training for atleast 6 years. For 7th to 8th, we would expect 7 years, and so on.
We would expect continued contribution to the wider martial arts community. This will usually be in the form of teaching, but could also be in voluntary roles and other non-dojo based roles where appropriate.
Assessment (Petition Of Grade)
As there is no formal grading to officiate, we instead require a broader set of evidence. We ask for a petition of grade from the club or association to which the incumbent belongs.
A petition of grade is a term coined by BMABA since 2012 which requires effectively a petition in support of the grade advancement.
There's no hard-fast rule to how many people should sign the petition of grade, but usually the more the better, and the more senior, the better. We would expect a good cross-selection of the club to support the advancement, and this must include any other instructors.
For example, if a club has 100 students and 3 instructors, we would expect all 3 instructors are c. 50 students to support the advancement. This helps to show our compliance team that the community to which the incumbent is based is broadly supportive and helps us demonstrate on-going commitment and contribution from the person to whom the time served grading relates.
Applying & The Process
If you require a BMABA issued time-served Dan Grading certificate, please;
Contact our team via email on [email protected] outlining who you wish to nominate for the grade, and what style this relates to. The person must be registered as an instructor or assistant instructor on BMABA's system for the grade to be issued. You may nominate yourself, should this be appropriate.
Once confirmed with the office, we will invite a petition of grade which must be posted (not emailed) to us at BMABA HQ, Suite I&K, The Old Bakery, Golden Square, Petworth. GU28 0AP. We would strongly recommend using recorded mail for this petition, and that you keep a scan or photograph of any paperwork your side too!
When received, we will invoice the appropriate £49 charge which is dispersed to an voluntary members of our committee who officiate or oversee the grade issuance. The team will then assess the evidence / petition provided, and if everything is appropriate and as expected, the grade is issued.
BMABA update our national records and register, and post out the grading certificate (as well as issuing a digital copy).
What Needs To Be On The Petition?
We just need a formal request in writing, with names (and if appropriate, grades) of those signing. For example;
"We, XYZ Club, would like to nominate XYZ for the grade progression of X grade in X style based upon BMABA's time-served grading criteria. We have nominated XYZ based upon their continued commitment and contribution to X club.
Signed;
A. Jones (Student & Nominator)
B. Jones (Instructor, 4th Dan X Style)
C. Jones (Instructor, 1st Dan X Style)"
And so on.
Clubs may expand upon their reasoning for submitting a petition, or they can use the above brief example instead.
Who Can Nominate?
An instructor may apply regarding their own time served dan grading, but the criteria and process remains the same. We also accept time-served dan grading requests from anybody else within the club - instructors, students, parents etc. You do not have to tell the lead instructor you are nominating and requesting a time-served dan grading. Lots of clubs and organisations often surprise the incumbent at awards ceremonies etc - we're supportive of this, and used to working in confidence.
Club-Level Time Served Dan Gradings
BMABA are very proud of our lack of interference in club affairs, which is contrary to many of our peers in the association landscape. To this effect, we allow clubs to make decisions around gradings to be in-line with their club's own rules and regulations, provided any grade issued is fair, merit-based and in keeping with traditional norms.
For any club wishing to offer a time-served progression to a senior instructor, we would expect;
There to be no formal technical based grading available to the style and level of belt in question. This isn't just within the club, but more generally across the discipline.
For the person being graded to have been in continued engagement and practice for the full time-aggregated period between grades (i.e: 2nd Dan to 3rd Dan should be 3 years, 3rd Dan to 4th Dan should be 4 years, and so on).
For the person being nominated to have the broad and complete support of the club, both among any senior instructors / grades and the broader club community inclusive of parents and students.
For the issuance of said grade to be formally recorded, and the same petition of grade as detailed above (see here).
If these conditions are met and the club award the grade in good-faith, BMABA shall, for so long as the club remains on a green card, accept the grade weighting and validity. The club should retain the petition of grade for any future request of inspection from BMABA's compliance team, but we do not need to see this at the time of the grading being conducted or awarded.
Failure to produce the petition of grade at any point requested may invalidate the recognition of the grade so please keep this somewhere safe, ideally backed up in a digital format on a cloud or similar (i.e: Dropbox, Google Drive, etc).