A recent post by Schanne got me wondering. How many attend or instruct at martial arts schools that have optional or divurgent syllabuses (syllabi?)? For instance, one where students may elect to study kata - or not, spar or not, and still be able to get equivalent rank. Please post.

I voted "No" with a qualification: A student with prior nerve damage in her neck is not required to spar.

Concessions are made to meet individual limitations.

Our dojo teaches the following...
If you want to advance in rank you must take the BB core class (traditional MA)twice a week.

We offer Muay Thai kick boxing..strictly drills and sparring...good cardio work out!

MMA classes....for the person who really wants to do some heavy sparring and ground work.

Submission grappling class...strickly ground work / grappling.

A person can take all there classes 6 days a week if they want or maybe Ii should say if they can handle it...that would be a lot!

As many of you know classes used to be just come and you get all this in one class. Now with all the details of MMA, grappling, kick boxing they are segregated so a person can concentrate on that particular art. Like I said mybe we created our own monsters...not that it's a bad monster

Kids classes are strickly traditional MA.

Zombie, read the post again, it's not about having to spar, it's about electing to strictly spar or train traditional.

"No". Everybody is required to do everything in order to receive any form of ranking. Where concessions are made are minor at most and this may be due to unable to kick as high due to inflexibility, age or problems ... but the effort and attempt should still be there. How can one have a school with a ranking system but not have each and every person able to do the same things?