How important is it to you?

I had a recnt run-in with kids in my iai class. They were talking in class- actually, while waiting in line. One of them, Nerdverd, complained that he practiced all the time but seemingly wasn't getting any better. I almost snorted- I had this vision of Nerdverd with his katana while copying moves from "kill bill". I wanted to say, "maybe you're not practicing correctly", but hell, who knows? Then they started talking about ranks. Another kid complained that because he played hockey, he couldn't get higher-ranked. He's been there longer than I have, and could be my rank or higher if he didn't skip classes from october to march every year. It's kind of a "Well, you can't do both and expect to be good in both" type thing. So the conversation switched to me and how I was ranked higher than all of them, and then they started kind of bickering about how it was because I went to class all the time, unlike them. Then, head sensei gave him a dirty look for talking so much, and I told them, "Hey, maybe it has something to do with not paying attention." They shut up.