Fighting During Grading - What Are You Testing?

Many Martial Arts schools employ some sort of grading system to promote students up their rankings. These gradings can lead to a new belt/sash, promotion in title or simply a level or increase within the system. Often the grading process includes fighting to determine that the student is able to fight at an adequate level for promotion. I have seen gradings where there does not seem to be a purpose to them. What are we testing in our gradings? Within my school we actually have a few things that we are testing during the fighting portion of the grading:

• We try to determine that the student is able to defend themselves in a pressure situation.
• We try to press the student to ensure that they are able to control their emotions (fear, anger, doubt, etc.)
• We test to see how the student is able to control their techniques in full speed, pressure situations where emotions are trying to take over.
• We try to ensure that the students get a small taste of how things are in a real fight whether they are winning or losing.
• We test how students adjust and think through the different scenarios that are presented in the grading.
• We ensure that the student is able to use legitimate techniques in the fights.
• We make sure that the student has a very good chance of succeeding in a confrontation.
  

Our team of instructors all went through this to get to where they are today. All of us have these goals in mind as we train the next set of instructors.