Two Schools of thought in Teaching

[Gemini]

Which one fits you better and why?

1. New students are taught their techniques and promote based on their ability to remember and execute their techniques. Practical application is pretty much a secondary issue until after Black Belt.
Weakness being, less than capable Black belts.
Strength being, Students are less likely to become bored and quit. It's a long road.

2. New students taught learning their techniques thoroughly before promoting. Ability at Black Belt is as capable as the practioner can be.
Weakness being, Students become bored and quit from practicing the same technique over and over.
Strength being, A real representative of what the general public perceives when they hear the term Black Belt.

There are many positves and negatives to each style of teaching. I've only given one each.

What are your thoughts and why?

[terryl965]

Number 2 with me teach them over and over just like football or any sport repeat and repeat until it is basicly second nature.
Terry

[Andrew Green]

2nd of the two, but I think there is other options then those two.

The first just doesn't make sense for some systems, especially those with much sport based training. Form follows function, so until you can do it, you don't know it.

[Blindside]

Number 2, quality over quantity. I don't see any upside to promoting less-than-skilled practitioners to black belt.

Lamont

[green meanie]

Leave it to Gemini to offer two schools of thought. :)

Anyway, to answer your question, I teach using method #2. You pretty well summed up the reason in your description: My black belts don't just represent the art, they represent me. In order to do that they need to be as equipped as possible to deal with whatever might be thrown their way.

The downside? For me, there is no downside. The truth is I really don't care if the majority get bored and quit. I'd rather have 1 black belt I can be proud of than 1,000 that I'm ashamed to admit recieved their belt at my school.

[beau_safken]

Kinda depends on the student you want to attract honestly

#1: Good for the meat grinder McDojo that cares about collecting testing fees, initiation fees, belt fees, etc. More people = better

#2: Good for dedicated students that want to learn the system, not the belt. Generally, this type finds you..... But can be the most profitable in the long run and will represent you a lot better.

[AceHBK]

1 = McDojo's of today. Not ALL the time but i would go with most of the time.

2. = is what I prefer. Better person in the long run

[AceHBK]

Kinda depends on the student you want to attract honestly

#1: Good for the meat grinder McDojo that cares about collecting testing fees, initiation fees, belt fees, etc. More people = better

Exactly!
Great point

[OnlyAnEgg]

Leave it to Gemini to offer two schools of thought. :)

rofl...I love it!

Speaking as a student and not an instructor (since I am one but not the other), I would prefer the 2nd option. I would rather have the proper skills, no matter the amount of repetition, than less than adequate skills. Martial Art is about ability as much as it is about anything else. Well, to me, at least. The philosophical and spiritual and theoretical componants are very important, too; but, if I can't hit my opponant or defend myself at black belt level; then I don't deserve the belt until I can.

[Gemini]

I'm not surprised that so far, most (okay, all) have opted for 2, but in the real world, from the schools I've visited, I've seen more of the first option. Actually, I'm more interested in hearing folks promote the method they teach or are a student of, then I am of knocking the other method. I've seen schools with the first method that have produced many high quality students. If that method is done correctly.

Keep 'em coming!

[beau_safken]

Well come on Gemini, you know why we all chose #2. Pretty much everyone here cares more for the art than the belt.

[Gemini]

Well come on Gemini, you know why we all chose #2. Pretty much everyone here cares more for the art than the belt.

Of course we do. But ultimately, they both achieve the same goal. Just different methods of getting there.

[beau_safken]

That is more or less true. I would place the emphasis on the proper black belt part of both of those options. Nothing irritated me more when I did point fighting than going up against other brown/black belts and seeing the sheer void of skill between different schools. I was really glad I took a long time to advance and didn't do the belt grind like everyone I fought did.

[AceHBK]

I think it comes down to Quantity vs. Quality

1 = Quantity
2 = Quality

[terryl965]

Of course we do. But ultimately, they both achieve the same goal. Just different methods of getting there.

Gemini you are exactly right except for this point of view those that are the #1 catagory one day will find out that the Art those chose left hole and alot of them, while option 2 is more in depth with real training that will most likely to able to handle most stituation
Just my tought.
Terry

[Makalakumu]

If your goal is to spread the art, then #1 is going to be more successful. In fact, I can see a teacher using both. One to make money and the other to train his/her "inner circle" of students.

[Andrew Green]

Gemini you are exactly right except for this point of view those that are the #1 catagory one day will find out that the Art those chose left hole and alot of them, while option 2 is more in depth with real training that will most likely to able to handle most stituation
Just my tought.
Terry

Not neccessarily, I think in the end both methods could produce the exact same skills. The difference is in what order they do things and where the belts get awarded.

Say one school goes method 1, gives a black belt after 3 years.

Another school goes method 2, it would take the same student 7 years.

After 7 years in school 1 maybe the student is at the same skill level as after 7 years in the other?

What if in method 1 it only took 6 years to get there, except that black was awarded at 3?

So at the exact same skill level and knowledge in school 1, you'd be a 2nd or even 3rd degree black after 6 years. TO ge to that level in the other would take 7 years and you'd be at 1st.

In that case, which is the better method?

[HKphooey]

I' ll go with # 1.5. :)

I think you need to find a happy medium. I do not think too many new students would hang around for a year to get a yellow belt. Unless we are all teaching for free and have no bills ot pay, we need to get and keep students. It is our obligation to make sure the person is get a solid base to later build upon. When you first went to kindergarden, did the teacher tell your parents, "Little Johnny cannot go to first grade until he writes a 10 page thesis paper on Quantum Physics". No, there is a set standard upon which we are grade and we must meet those levels before moving on to the next grade. Some of us excel and others just meet the expectations.

But, I also agree each teacher's name is on that student's rank certificate, so you should be sure of your student's abilities.

[Gemini]

Not neccessarily, I think in the end both methods could produce the exact same skills. The difference is in what order they do things and where the belts get awarded.

Say one school goes method 1, gives a black belt after 3 years.

Another school goes method 2, it would take the same student 7 years.

After 7 years in school 1 maybe the student is at the same skill level as after 7 years in the other?

What if in method 1 it only took 6 years to get there, except that black was awarded at 3?

So at the exact same skill level and knowledge in school 1, you'd be a 2nd or even 3rd degree black after 6 years. TO ge to that level in the other would take 7 years and you'd be at 1st.

In that case, which is the better method?

You got it in a nutshell. If Black Belt is the ultimate goal, 2 is better, but...

We talk on one hand about a Black Belt being a big deal and how we should represent. We talk on the other hand (more so the senior students) that Black Belt represents just the beginning of the journey. It's the beginning of learning.

At one time, I didn't understand nor agree with the first method, but have found the longer I'm in the art, the more sense it makes. I'm still not saying it's the better of the two, I'm saying both are valid methods and if taught properly, will achieve the same results.

[MJS]

Which one fits you better and why?

1. New students are taught their techniques and promote based on their ability to remember and execute their techniques. Practical application is pretty much a secondary issue until after Black Belt.
Weakness being, less than capable Black belts.
Strength being, Students are less likely to become bored and quit. It's a long road.

I'd have to say that this seems to almost be the norm. This is not to say that by using this method, that there will never be room for improvement. Time between rank will be much shorter. While some rough edges may show, they can always be smoothed out later. However, they should have a basic understanding. If they're totally clueless, I can't see moving them on.


2. New students taught learning their techniques thoroughly before promoting. Ability at Black Belt is as capable as the practioner can be.
Weakness being, Students become bored and quit from practicing the same technique over and over.
Strength being, A real representative of what the general public perceives when they hear the term Black Belt.

I'm all for having quality students, but as it was already said, I don't think too many people will hang around. The problem is, is that while people will look at the technique and convince themselves that they can do it, they should really be asking themselves, can I really make this technique work? Do they really understand what the tech. is all about?

[AceHBK]

I can honestly say that I rather go to someone or some school with no belts. U just keep coming back b/c u want to learn. The progress of knowledge means more than seeing how long till I get a belt.

[FearlessFreep]

I'm going to turn the issue sidewards and ask some questions...

If you have been training for twenty years, does it matter if it took you the first six years to get to start wearing a black belt or just the first two? How has the journey been any different? Is is the belt you wear that changes the journey? Or the fact that you have been training hard for tweny years?

If you are attacked on the street and have to defend yourself (not out of bravado or over-inflated ego but legitimate self-defense), and you have been training for three years, does it matter if your belt is black or red or green or white or just that over those last three years you have trained for this possibility?

There is a school of thought that a Black Belt is where the training really begins and everything before it is just learning the moves of the art. I've heard that used by people to encourage others notto give up once they reach Black Belt, to treat it as a point along the way of training but just a point. The Black Belt isn't the goal to signify the end of the journey, but a new beginning, the real beginning in many ways. Turn that idea around and say that if the black belt is the point of serious training to begin in many ways, then whether you have a working knowledge of a technique or a real mastery of a technique by the time you reach that point probably isn't really crucial if you carry your training forward beyond that point.

I think where it starts to matter is when instructors start taking the rank itself seriously as a source of comparison "I won't promote anyone to black belt until they are such and such..." but who's going to care other than other school instructors? In purely practical l matter of what a given person can do *today*, their conditioning, their ability to defend themself, etc..

So take out the issue of rank completely and just think of it from a purely educational point of view, and to go back to Gemini's original question, I think *both* methods of education are valid. You can drill addition until you know addition forwards and backwards before moving on to subtraction, or you can do a little addition, a little subtraction, and build ont that as time goes by. At the end of the year, you know addition and subtraction...which was the better way to get there? They both have validity. Do you teach the mechanics of a major scale and the mechanics of a minor scale before develing into the theory of how the scales work? Or do you teach the major scale and thoery completely before encountering the minor scale? Both will work..*in the end*. At any given point along the journey different people who have approached it different ways are going to have a different set of strentghs and weaknesses...but if you put your best effort into whataver you were doing to get you to the point in time....

anyway, I have to run. Too much of this question seems to have been taken from the point of view of 'black belt' as the ending of the journey so whether it took you two years or ten years to get to that point means what kind of person you are. Try to think of it as a life long journey...try to think of it like that 1st grade teacher teaching arithemetic who will never see if her students bcome physicists, try to think that you are helping your students along a long path, some or much of it you may not see be there for, and think about how to best prepare your students for that journey

Just thoughts from a non-instructor and a non-black belt

[FearlessFreep]

...and I did not read Andrew's and Gemini's most recent postig before posting myself....they said many of the things I was trying to say as well...

[TigerWoman]

Which one fits you better and why?

1. New students are taught their techniques and promote based on their ability to remember and execute their techniques. Practical application is pretty much a secondary issue until after Black Belt.
Weakness being, less than capable Black belts.
Strength being, Students are less likely to become bored and quit. It's a long road.

2. New students taught learning their techniques thoroughly before promoting. Ability at Black Belt is as capable as the practioner can be.
Weakness being, Students become bored and quit from practicing the same technique over and over.
Strength being, A real representative of what the general public perceives when they hear the term Black Belt.

I would say neither are good ways to teach. A white belt can't be expected to be expert at a front, round, side kick etc. They are just starting on flexiblity, strength, balance etc. We expect them to do long stances well in their form, to do a punch correctly, have some timing etc. They are expected to demonstrate their self defense techniques well. They aren't expected to spar at their first test but have sparred already iin class (somewhat). So enough about expectations regarding their first test.

Each test becomes a progress report. Kicks, pushups, flexibility, balance, agility, etc. becoming better. More technique shown in sparring-more cardiovascular improvement, more stamina.

That said, our classes are not repetitive and boring EVER! A white belt may be doing practically all the on the ground kicks and all variations of upper body technique. We may do alot of repetition-100's- toward red belt but by that tiime those kicks are fast, done quickly and out of the way, on to other stuff. I could list 40 different classes or more, all working on the end result, a black belt where it comes together.

So, maybe this is the third school of thought...and probably not that uncommon. TW

[bushidomartialarts]

1.5

new students will get discouraged and quit if we nitpick everything. a white belt's wheel kick isn't a black belt's wheel kick.

as an instructor, it's my job to see to it that the whole world earns (_earns_, not gets) black belts.

but why wait for black belt to set street application up? starting easy, enouraging, fun and slowly putting on the pressure as the student's attachment, ability and dedication grow...that's the way to go.

like i said, 1.5.