‘I CONTROL THE GRADINGS!’
Club Instructors leave other groups in favour of the C.M.A.A. for many reasons, the most prominent we have found to be is that their own Instructor, to be known as the ‘Chief’, wanting to exclusively control student gradings.
Another common theme is the ‘Chief’ will hold Black Belts back from taking their next grade, even if they are ready and have the correct time served, without giving any viable reason.
For some reason the ‘Chief’ often wrongly assumes that he/she has the right to exclusivity over all future gradings, quite often claiming all of the revenue as well. In some cases a small ‘gratuity’ may be left with the club Instructor even though it is they who have done all of the hard work in training and preparing the students.
Some ‘Chiefs’ do allow their club Instructors to grade students to some degree, but restrictions are still in place in that all certificates, belts etc must be purchased from the ‘Chief’ along with a percentage (in some cases all) of the grading fee being demanded as well.
Others allow grading up to a certain level, such as 2nd or 1st Kyu, but then insist that further gradings are carried out by the ‘Chief’ which in most cases also involves attendance at additional ‘grading’ courses.
When the club Instructor eventually realises what is going on and asks the question ‘why can't i grade my own students?’ the most common answer is ‘because we have to maintain standards’.
Now this is all well and good but this statement is often seen as insulting as it insinuates that the club Instructor has none, yet many have been allowed to sit on grading panels with the ‘Chief’ (sometimes as his/her substitute) in the past and their decisions and scoring were perfectly acceptable then.
This situation is becoming more and more common and when the club Instructor does finally leave and join another the group the ‘Chief’ is left wondering why and then begins to pass comments such as ‘he/she is not qualified to grade anyone’. Statements of this nature have in the past resulted in action being taken against the ‘Chief’ under Section 2 of the 2006 Fraud Act as they were seen as miss-leading with the sole aim of causing a loss.
The C.M.A.A. has a simple message for these ‘Chiefs’ and it is this, you don’t own your students or your club Instructors, nor do you hold exclusive rights to them so either recognise the skills that your club Instructors have or accept the fact that they will eventually leave you.
Placing any kind of restriction will have only one result in the long run and that is they will join another group, such as the C.M.A.A, who will respect their right to run gradings themselves.
Andrew Morrell
President
1st May 2010 |
