Those who follow my work have seen that I like to hold promotions in different places and sometimes without the student knowing, because I think it makes the belt change more memorable for the student being promoted, but also for everyone there.
Without a doubt, the most unusual moment and place I've ever promoted a student, in this case a female student, was during my wedding on October 20, 2012, when I promoted my wife to blue belt.
Check out the video. The image quality isn't great, but it captures the moment.
Surprise belt promotion at my wedding
How the idea came up
When we set the wedding date, I joked that I'd like to get married in my gi, but I knew that was complicated, because my wife's family is very religious and walking into the church in a gi would be out of the question.
I ended up dropping the idea, but my own students started saying they would go in their gis, and up to that point I still thought it was a joke. However, they got organized and we ended up arranging it without my future wife knowing, and everyone brought their gis to the reception, right after leaving the church.
And that was the moment it clicked: "this is it, she's not getting away from the blue belt!". When I say getting away, it's because my wife had been a white belt for 5 years. Whenever I talked about promoting her, she would take a little break from training to avoid the belt change.
How it went
After we walked into the hall and greeted all the guests, little by little my students slipped out to put on their gis, and then they all came in in a line and brought our gis too.
But up to that point, she was only surprised that we were all in gis; she had no idea about the surprise promotion.
I lined everyone up, thanked all the guests for being there, and did the famous, traditional end-of-training bow. At that moment, I grabbed the hidden blue belt and turned to promote her.
I took the opportunity to explain to all the guests who don't train Jiu-Jitsu how belt promotions work at my school, and finally we went off to enjoy the party.
That moment was definitely a milestone in our lives. After 8 years together we got married, and without a doubt that day is etched in everyone's memory.
OSSSS
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