How we do testing at Crucible

This question comes up a lot, so I thought a blog post about it would help. Here is my basic philosophy on our daily curriculum: teach what can be used, not for a belt. We teach our daily classes so that you can learn how to defend yourself in the shortest amount of time possible. But Krav Maga also has a ranking system, so how do we address the needs of those who want to rank? 

The answer is that we test about every 6 months, and the two weeks leading up to the test we start to focus the nightly curriculum around material found in the tests. You should notice that you probably already know 85% of it, you just didn't know you knew it. This allows us to fill in the gaps for students. We also have pre-testing workshops on the Friday evening and Saturday afternoon prior to the test day (on Sundays from 1 - 6pm). This gives us even more time to fill in the gaps and allows students to ask questions. 

While testing is not a focus of the school, it is something that I HIGHLY recommend every student do. Why? Mostly because of the opportunity to compress a lot of great knowledge in a short period of time. At the instructor level this is basically how we learn as well. We attend workshops with those that teach us (KMG Global Team) over a long weekend to get our techniques tuned up. 

It also gives students a chance to understand where there may be gaps in their knowledge, and work with instructors to fill them in as needed. We teach the courses so that students can basically come to any class and fit in perfectly. However, that means that you might have missed those nights when we covered a key part of the testing material for your rank. By attending the workshop and test, you may uncover material that you didn't know you had missed. 

If there are any questions, please just ask! 

-Mike