Self-Documentation Theory: Choosing Video Over Belts (Patreon)

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While most martial arts approaches track progress with belts or ranks, we use video

In many martial arts schools, progression is tracked through a grading system and standardized testing. However, this practice is not traditional to martial arts and originated with Jigoro Kano, a judo instructor and school teacher. Influenced by Western hegemony and imperialism, martial arts grading systems began to mimic military ranks and the American school system, which itself drew from the industrial factory system, military practices, race science, and white supremacy. This colonial model not only diminishes the richness of the martial arts experience to a grade but also eliminates exploratory learning by confining learners to an idealized standard set by the instructor. This approach concentrates all power in the hands of the instructor and enforces a rigid, top-down system. Coloniality views ability as a linear, fixed point in time. However, in the Liberation Martial Arts (LMA) Learning Lab, we recognize that abilities are non-linear and continuously shaped and reshaped. Rather than treating the practitioner as a static state to be judged, we see their martial arts journey as a history to be recorded. Instead of using belts, ranks, or standardized tests, we encourage practitioners to film their training sessions to self-document their own progress. Self-documentation is deeply embedded in our philosophy, which emphasizes self-determination, self-discovery, self-directed learning, and play. This empowers practitioners to shape their own development in martial arts.

Empowerment through self-documentation

Self-documentation through filming serves as a powerful record for empowerment and transparency. Everyone sees the same things. Since your eyes face out and your perspective is first-person, recordings show you what other practitioners see: you. Self-documentation demystifies practitioner progress by capturing the real-time reality of their capabilities and needs, which are often in flux. This reduces guesswork and dependency on external validation or top-down assessments. Our bottom-up approach promotes a deep sense of ownership, allowing the practitioner to self-determine where they stand and identify areas for improvement.

The choice to film and be filmed is in the hands of each practitioner, reinforcing privacy, consent, and personal agency. This flexibility also extends to the decision of whether to share these recordings. Learning Lab members self-document using their own devices, ensuring that the viewing remains a private, self-reflective practice. However, if further feedback or support is needed, a community is always present.

At the Learning Lab, we all still mask to safeguard each other. As an added benefit, this practice has fostered an open training environment where everyone feels comfortable being filmed and observed. Additionally, for our competitors, it facilitates a smoother transition to public competition venues.

The normative approach to filming promotes tension. Our Way promotes ease.

The impact of filming on presence and play

One significant advantage of self-documentation is the freedom it offers practitioners—freedom from the need for constant self-monitoring and the burden of remembering every move post-training. Knowing that their movements are being documented allows practitioners to immerse themselves fully in the present moment, engaging playfully and spontaneously with their environment. This method encourages a flow where practitioners can experiment and express themselves freely and seamlessly without gap or the pressure to retain every detail in their heads.

Since the recording is happening on the practitioner's mobile device, which remains in the environment, practitioners forget it's even there.

Our approach to self-documentation aligns with LMA's emphasis on play-based learning. Instead of subjectively judging how accurately movements are replicated or the quality of performance, we are interested in how well practitioners self-organize and adapt these movements in real-time. "Quality" is always opinion.

We are capturing more than just physical actions but also the contexts and interactions that give rise to these actions. A practitioner's decision-making process, adaptation to and interaction with partners, and overall fluidity and creativity are now on record. By "play," we mean problem-posing and problem-solving for enjoyment, not drudgery. The footage documents the practitioner's perceive-move-perceive loop—LMA's core problem-posing and problem-solving process. During mutual gameplay, your solution is your partner's problem. Rather than viewing gameplay or a sparring game as conflict or adversarial, partners see each other as nourishment for each other's growth.

Rethinking sparring: play over combat

Another benefit of LMA's play-based learning is that all the practitioners treat the activity as play rather than life or death. This shift in thinking requires unlearning high-stakes coloniality and dwelling in low-stakes games and play. Such a perspective helps practitioners explore their potential without fear of failure or pressure to perform, promoting more natural and pain-free growth. Once practitioners are attuned to play, they can regulate themselves to scale to different partners and situations, transforming sparring into a dynamic play space where practitioners can continuously evolve together.

In a normative approach to sparring, you essentially are who you are. You don't scale or evolve. People who go hard go hard, and people who go light go light. Movement patterns remain static as individuals stick to what's familiar. They are bioessentialized and fixed in time, revealing rather than developing their capabilities. In this view, sparring is not designed to improve you; otherwise, that's all you'd do. Instead, sparring is a place to apply what has been learned elsewhere rather than being the place for learning. As a result, sparring can be detrimental to progress.

In contrast, LMA views sparring games as a space filled with the potential to evolve, play, and adapt who we are. We, as practitioners, are neither fixed in time nor static states but are always in the process of becoming. During sparring games, we can change our shape, approach, size, strength, speed, and energy, along with our internal attitudes. Rather than bioessential, we are non-categorical. Through finding our Way, we can change our Way.

Conclusion

Self-documentation is not self-tracking, where you are reduced to abstract and bioessential metrics, nor is it vanity recordings for social media platforms; it is a critical component of our educational framework that documents the practitioner alive in their environment. Since it's a series of recordings, it not only captures the practitioner's growth but also provides rich, contextual, and relevant information about their journey in finding the Way. The normative approach centers the individual only to reduce them to a belt or a single "performance." By replacing belts with self-documentation, LMA shifts the focus from earning symbols of "quality" and "performance" to deep understanding—from executing predefined moves to exploring and adapting one's movement in response to changing contexts. Our Way decenters the practitioner and centers the journey, including the community and environment. By being present in your Wayfinding, you not only deepen your learning experience but also actively influence the direction of your journey. Learning becomes alive and transformative. You transform your practice, and your practice transforms you; you transform the Way, and the Way transforms you.

– Sam