Brainstorming an Idea for Technique of the Week Contests

Ok, so after some dialog with Hive account@irime on another post, I have decided to bring up this idea. This is something I believe I mentioned in a comment to her that I've already been brain-storming. Feel free to expand on this idea, and offer feedback!

So, the first contest idea I have will be to give Steemit users a specific technique each week, and you must submit an instructional video teaching the technique. This serves a few areas:

1. It gives us a specific technique to work on, as well as brush up our skills and ability to present the technique to other people. There is an art to teaching and as you further your martial arts career, being able to teach others is as valuable as the technique itself.

2. It gives the community a weekly contest that may attract new users from the jiu jitsu/mma community to Steemit!

3. It gives me an avenue to open discussion with with Academies and upper belts/instructors that I want to attract to the platform. The goal is to have the content judged by upper belts (black/brown in jits) or more well known instructors. It would be great if we could eventually attract more well-known instructors who already have a presence on YouTube and other mainstream social media.

Here are my initial thoughts on the basic guidelines for the contest.

1. Every post must use the tag #totw (technique of the week). #totw does not have to be the first tag, it just must be 1/5 tags you can use so that the content is easy to find.

2. In the written body of the post, you must mention following Hive account@jiujitsu and using the #steemitbjj tag. I want to use this to promote the idea that the #steemitbjj tag will be reviewed by me on a normal basis so that I can upvote, re-steem, follow those who post great grappling related content! Remember, I put 1 bitcoin worth of Steem Power into this account off the bat. That means that most of my 100% upvotes are worth about $.20-$.40 cents and this will grow as I earn more SP into the wallet. I want to be able to promote and kickstart as many quality grappling/mma posts as I can.

3. Posts will be judged by guests who are experts in the art, upper belts (brown/black) if I can attract them. If I have 3 or more videos that I can ask a black belt to critique and positive feedback and constructive criticism, it will help make us better at sharing the art! Plus it gives me an easy conversation to have to talk to them about Steemit, and hopefully attract them, and their academies to the platform. This idea might be all it takes to convince them that Steemit can be a valuable tool to the martial arts community, their academy, students, competitors, etc.

4. The criteria for judging: 

a. The technical review of the technique 

b. Your ability to clearly give instruction

c. Your personality and enthusiasm in your instructional video

d. Your overall presentation of the video to include editing, graphics, marketability of yourself and the steemit brand, etc

e. Your overall creativity! You may be inspired to do something totally crazy to make your video stand out! Let's make this fun :)

f. Your overall understanding of who your audience is! Be sure to mention Steemit, Steemians, the platform verbally in the video. We want to promote the platform to the jiu jitsu community, and we want original content. I do not want to post a technique and someone just share a video they made prior. Remember who your audience is, and you will be rewarded.

5. Your entries will be posted to your own blog first by the contest deadline. This is the best way to do it, so that you at bare minimum earn on your own content :)

6. Your entries will then be posted into one Hive account@jiujitsu blog post that includes the embedded video, as well as the link to your post on Steemit. This is the post the judge will use to judge all of your entries. This gives the judge one central location to give feedback for all of the video entries in the post, rather than hopping around to all of your individual posts. It also gives my Hive account@jiujitsu account the ability to earn in order to pay out rewards to the winners.

7. The winners will be announced in a separate post. Since the community is smaller at the moment, there may only be 1 reward given until the growth of entries, and earnings on the post make it economical and reasonable to add 1st, 2nd, 3rd and honorable mentions.

8. The goal is to have lower belts submit content (white, blue, purple). However, at first, if the pickings are slim, we may consider upper belts submitting content. Let me know your thoughts on that please.

This is my initial thought process. I'm not quite sure we have the support to hold such a contest yet, but we all know people who film and post YouTube videos of techniques. So, even if you don't, convince your friends and training partners to submit their instructional videos!

We may also consider doing other types of contests, like pictures of the week, or 6 minute rolls of the week. So start getting pics at your academy, or filming your roll sessions.

I am open to ideas related to the #totw contest in the comments below. But if you have any other great ideas, feel free to share in the comments, or create your own post to discuss :)

P.S. The Steemit 5 inch patches have been ordered! 500 of each one :) I got a decent deal ordering 1000 patches.