Evidence-led progression

Has seen is different from can do. Can do in a drill is different from can adapt. Can adapt in one familiar context is different from can transfer, and doing it live is different from organising the work yourself. This is how the theory decides that development has actually happened.

Seen, done, adapted, transferred, integrated, organised

Evidence about a capability sits in one of seven states. They are ordered, so a later state means more than an earlier one, and they are not numbers: they cannot be averaged, added, or treated as if the distance between two of them were fixed. Take one capability, escaping the mount, and follow it through.

Seven states, one capabilityINTRODUCEDHas been shown the elbow-knee escape and the trap-and-roll. Has done both with a cooperative partner.

RECOGNISEDCan tell, under pressure, when the mount has become high and the escape window has opened, and when it has closed.

EXECUTABLE_BOUNDEDCan execute the elbow-knee escape from a known start against a partner resisting within declared limits.

ADAPTIVE_BOUNDEDSwitches to the trap-and-roll when the partner posts, still within bounded conditions.

TRANSFERABLEEscapes against a new partner, from a different entry, on the other side, at a different pace.

INTEGRATED_LIVEEscapes mount in open rounds, without being told the situation is coming.

SELF_ORGANISEDNotices their own mount-escape failures, sets up their own work on them, and revises it without prompting.

The seven evidence states as the theory names them, each shown for the same capability. An athlete can be at the sixth state for the mount escape and the second for a leg-entanglement escape, and both facts are kept.One athlete, four capabilitiesmount escapeINTEGRATED_LIVEEscapes in open rounds without being told it is coming.leg-entanglement escapeRECOGNISEDKnows when the knee line is at risk; cannot yet clear it against resistance.front-headlock go-behindEXECUTABLE_BOUNDEDExecutes it from a known start against declared resistance.rear naked choke defenceTRANSFERABLEHolds up against new partners and from different entries.The same seven states read across one athlete. Each capability carries its own state, and nothing here adds up to a level. What changes between the states is the condition under which the capability was seen. The first state is exposure. The second is recognition under pressure, and it is separate because a grappler can execute an escape beautifully on cue and never notice the moment in a round. The third and fourth are execution and then adaptation, both inside declared bounds. The fifth is transfer: the same capability under materially changed conditions. The sixth is live integration, when the situation is not announced. The seventh is the athlete organising the capability’s own development. Locally, a coach watches for the same thing in five dimensions kept separate: recognition, execution, adaptation, retention and transfer.

States are assessed per capability, per system, per problem or per organisational dimension, never per athlete. There is no global score because a score would have to add states across dimensions, and the states do not add. A grappler who escapes mount live and cannot yet recognise a leg entanglement is two facts, and a total would destroy the more useful one. This is also why advanced ranks do not get new states. A brown belt and a blue belt can both hold the self-organised state; what differs is the object the evidence is about, and the conditions: specialist depth, adversarial pressure, opponent sophistication, context variation, novelty relative to the athlete, solution latency, transfer, persistence over time, and self-correction under contradiction.

An observation counts towards a state only if it was the right kind of observation for that state. Live execution, adaptation and transfer require representative interaction: a partner with real agency, in a task that puts the capability under the pressure the claim is about. A technical rehearsal cannot be relabelled as live transfer evidence, however clean it looked. Transfer needs materially changed conditions, such as a different partner, side, entry, surface, phase, opponent response, intensity or ruleset; repeating the same escape against the same partner from the same start is cosmetic repetition, not transfer. The chain the record keeps runs from exposure, through material observation, to current evidence, to any gate debt, to remediation or clearance, and on to retention and the floor the next level stands on.