How do you tell who a good student is?

Do you judge by their rank? Are you sure that you know the “order” of their school’s ranks?
Do you judge by the look of their uniform? Is it fancy? Is it clean…even pressed?

Personally, I look at how they train. Things like completing the assignment, then continuing to work on the material until further instruction is given. Chatting or horseplay should be considered a low colored belt, if not a white belt, level behavior. The technique will never become your best if you don’t continually develop it. You could say, that if asked to do 100 repetitions, you do 1000.

This can be seen in one of my teaching techniques. I will assign a specific number of repetitions with the intent that once completed we move on to another technique. Quiet often it gets lost that once I assign the technique, even with a set number of repetitions, and move to work another group students give up after only completing the assigned amount. Is the minimum number of repetitions assigned enough to make to capable?

Another aspect, in my opinion, of determining a good student is how much work is actually done. Most of my students have heard me say that I knew I wouldn’t practice at home, so I attended classes four days per week when I started training. Many don’t have that opportunity, so training must be done otherwise. The many complaints about there being too much curriculum are annoying. If you are struggling, train more. One very large variable in this aspect is priority. Where does your training rank in your priority list? The higher it is, the more training you do…and the better you become. Its always my hope that a student doesn’t view training as a hobby.

To conclude this rant…what was your behavior in the last class? Did you work your hardest? When was your last training beyond class time? Maybe most importantly, did you focus on continually improving your technique, expand your knowledge and make your train a true part of your daily life?