21 year old 6th degree Blackbelt

[MJS]

I'm guessing its because of how it is emphasized.

The mantra drummed in to karate students is that the belt is the goal.

The mantra drummed in to BJJ students is that proving yourself through competition is the goal.

But competition isn't a requirement is it? When I was actively training BJJ, I really had no desire to compete. Actually, I had no desire to test either. LOL. I was there to learn.

I'm not into BJJ as others, so manybe some of the regulars can answer this question: How many BJJ mcdojos are there vs. Karate mcdojos? Seems like for the most part there is a pretty solid standard across the board with BJJ. I may be wrong in saying that, but its just an opinion.

IMHO, the goal should be on learning the art to the best of ones ability, not how many belts you can get in a short amount of time. Again, thats just my opinion.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

I always say respect those who went before you and appreciate their sacrifices that allowed you to train. (but don't deify them) However, understand that there are people today who train just as hard as the people who went before. No, some people can achieve a lot in a short time! Others will never achieve that amount no matter how much time they put in. Time in grade for rank is not a good measuring standard. Quality of skill set is what it is all about! This does not mean that time in a system is unimportant because someone can become better with time! (and also a much better instructor) It just means that time cannot be the overriding factor on why someone is graded to a certain level! Imagine if BJ Penn was not allowed to be a BJJ blackbelt in 3 years and had to stay the course for 10 years. That would have been a crime! No each individual is different! Having said all the above I am really strict in giving out belts in IRT! The skill sets must be developed and polished! No exceptions under any circumstances! No "feel goodies" where someone is given rank because they were there! You either have it or you don't! If you don't have it you need to figure out a way to get to a point where you have it! Otherwise you don't! I have some people who are ready to test in our system for Associate Instructor and I have others who have trained almost double the amount of time but their skill set does not warrant advancement! Life some times is just not fair!

 

[searcher]

So, since it has been brought up before, should we look at the total number of hours spent in training for a rank vs. the number of years training for a particular rank?

I believe Terry has brought this question up before in other sub-forums and it does have some pretty good merit. I am sure the "guys of old" did not train for 2-3 hours per week.

 

[MJS]

So, since it has been brought up before, should we look at the total number of hours spent in training for a rank vs. the number of years training for a particular rank?

I believe Terry has brought this question up before in other sub-forums and it does have some pretty good merit. I am sure the "guys of old" did not train for 2-3 hours per week.

Sure. IMHO, I think that this is very important. In addition to training, teaching should also be a part of that. Once I started reaching the upper ranks, I began helping out in class. Ex: I'd do the warmups and basics, then the regular teacher would take over. Eventually more and more was added, until one day I was told that the entire class was mine.

 

[K-man]

Bob Jones received rank from Tino Ceberano.. I am pretty sure it wasnt 5th dan.
So it cant be Big Red. Could be Norton for all i know, but i dont think it is either of these two..... Who is it K-Man?

OK, wild whacky guess here.... Kenji Midori ??
Who is it man LOL

How about Koichi Tohei? He started off learning judo because he had a weak constitution. Somebody invited him to look at aikido and he wasn't impressed ... until he met Ueshiba Sensei. He joined up, trained for 6 months then was sent off to teach. Two years later he had acquired such an understanding of ki that he was given the rank of 5th dan. Just before Ueshiba Sensei died he offered Tohei Sensei 10th dan. To my mind he is one of the greatest and most underrated martial artists of all time.

Bob Jones trained under Tino until Black Belt then left with Richard. They started up Zendokai to train their people for crowd control and personal protection. 40 years later they are 8th dan and now have fantastic organisation that at one stage was the biggest ma organisation in the world.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

Who?

founder of zendokai.

 

[punisher73]

But in this case, you also have to understand the time in history, and the amount of time spent training back then.

In today's culture I don't see it as being as valid.

Kano-sensei spent hours each day training, seven days a week. And in Judo, you have 50 throws to learn, with their variations, and back then some punching and kicking as well, and it can be master a bit quicker than some other arts out there.

Do we really know that? Anytime old training and rank is brought up we hear this story as if they did nothing but eat, sleep and train. I remember reading an interview somewhere of an old school Chinese sifu that talked about this. He said that they were together most of the day, but that included talking and goofing around, eating together and that the actual training was only about 2-3 hours long.

Many people give reference to Joe Lewis and him training for 7 hours each day to earn his BB in such a short time. I have read others refute that saying that in the military at the time he couldn't have spent that much time away from the base at the dojo. I don't know about that, wasn't there at the time and don't know how their day was structured.

My point is that we have no recorded documents of what training actually consisted of all we have are the stories like our grandparents told us about walking to school 5 miles uphill both ways in a foot of snow.

Rank is and always has been super subjective and is only really relavant to the organization/school to help it's own students.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I think that it is fair to say that the founders and their immediate successors trained very, very hard. But to say that nobody today trains like they did is where the falacy begins. Top level competitive MMA-ists, taekwondoists, boxers, judoka, wrestlers, and karateka most certainly traiin just as hard. That is what makes them top level. So too do football players at the high school level.

The other factor is that old school is not always better. The understanding of the human body, how to train it, how to maintain it, and how to feed it are much better now than they were in the ninteenth and the former half of the twentieth century.

Not every founder was a prodigy. Not every one of a founder's top students were prodigies either. The assumption that they were all prodigies and therefore deserving of the tenth dan they awarded themselves is simply erroneous. They were hard working men who trained hard and were very focused on what they were doing. More importantly, they had the ability to codify a system and train others in said system. Not every athletic prodigy is capable of doing this.

Don't get me wrong; I don't begrudge founders of assigning themselves the rank that places them at the head of the system that they created. But dan grade has been around now for about a century, whereas with Kano, it didn't exist in the martial arts until he put it there. Dan grade requirements with regards to time in grade and in some cases, minimum age for certain grades, are relatively standard in most martial arts (certainly not all) that use the kyu-dan system. Standard enough that one doesn't need to be practice Aikido, for example, to know that the the Aikikai probably considers 21 to be too young for a hachidan.

The other issue is that dan grade serves to denote a good number of things which are not always related. Skill level, where one is in training, time in grade, administrative function, and titular. Many systems require you to tbe fourth dan or higher to write a dan cert. This is administrative. One must often be of fourth to sixth dan at a minimum to addressed as "master" and often a minimum of eighth or ninth dan to be addressed as "grandmaster" within an organization. This is titular. At a dojang level, there is usually a physical test with specific requirements that a student must pass in order to receive their first dan. This is skill level and progression in the curriculum.

However, at a dojo level, sometimes an individual with a greater degree of responsibility (say teaching their own classes without supervision) will be promoted more quickly to reflect the responsibilities that they have been given.

We can sit here and armchair the dan grades of people we've never met and judge their worthiness from our lofty keyboards from dusk until dawn if we so choose, but unless we're training with them, all that we can really say for certain is whether or not a promotion at a given age or for a given time in grade is somewhat normative.

Funny thing is, that after armchairing the worthiness of one for a dan grade, we will all turn around in the next thread and say that rank is unimportant and/or meaningless.

Daniel

 

[Archangel M]

I think that in modern times, this sort of stuff more often results in people who are the butt of jokes on Bullshido vs true prodigies like Kano. The internet is rife with em.

 

[Kacey]

So, since it has been brought up before, should we look at the total number of hours spent in training for a rank vs. the number of years training for a particular rank?

I believe Terry has brought this question up before in other sub-forums and it does have some pretty good merit. I am sure the "guys of old" did not train for 2-3 hours per week.

This was my thought as well. I have a copy of The Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do written by Gen. Choi, Hong-Hi... which clearly states that the minimum training time to test in 3 months is 2 hours/day, 5 days/week. Compare that to attending class 2-4 times/week for 90 minutes/class - not quite the same thing.

I will also add that, IMHO, athletic ability is not the most important factor in achieving higher ranks - understanding the technical details of the art is. The level of understanding necessary to be a trainer of black belts takes a lot longer than achieving physical proficiency.

 

[Zenjael]

I have heard ninjutsu has up to 35th dan. When viewing the students, I found that 10th to 15th dan were about what I would consider 1st or 2nd dan level.

How his technique is executed, and depth of insight, matters more than the yellow, red, green, or blue threads on his belt. If you look real close, you can usually tell who is experienced by how weathered their belt is, or if they wear none at all, and teach before others who do wear them. I recall meeting the master of Master Khan, Master Lee who trained under Jhoon Ree, under Bruce Lee wore a belt which was composed of a thread and a single tip still intact.

I recall him not being the kindest of men, and our 6th dan instructor following at his heels like an enthusiastic teen does the 2nd dan's. It was humbling, and he was worth the attention, but being retired I only had the opportunity to meet him once.

 

[K-man]

I was under the illusion that, in the main it was 15 levels. I have heard that in some systems they have gone higher but I don't believe it to be the norm. I'm sure Chris will be much more informative.

 

[jks9199]

The Bujinkan's ranking system is easily available on-line, and has been discussed here many times. There are 10 dan rankings; the 10th dan is subdivided into 5 divisions, so that the "top" dan rank is 15th dan. For more details... You may wish to check HERE. Or just do a search on "Bujinkan ranks"

 

[chinto]

I would say that it is laughable that he is a 6th Dan. Sorry I do not buy that one .

I might buy 2nd or 3rd in something like some of the TKD systems. but No Way in anything else, especially a rokudan!

By that level you would be at least of the teaching level of understanding all the system at Shehan level. At 7th Dan normally you understanding is that of Kyoshi. That takes a lot more then 9 years after shodan to even begin to get to.

 

[Kong Soo Do]

I suppose it depends upon whom you ask. For some, a 4 or 5 year old can be a BB so the idea of a 21 year old 6th Dan would be just dandy. As an example;

Sinmoo Hapkido GM JI Han Jae was 8th Dan when he was 29. His student, GM MYUNG Kwang Sik, was 6th Dan at 27.

GM JI didn't start till he was 13 I believe, so that is why it took him so long to reach 8th (about 16 years).

Note that these are not my views on the topic. Personally, I think it is just fine if one is in a martial sport or perhaps 'psuedo-martial art' would be applicable. For an actual martia art....well, no this really wouldn't fly.

 

[puunui]

Funny thing is, that after armchairing the worthiness of one for a dan grade, we will all turn around in the next thread and say that rank is unimportant and/or meaningless.

I can tell you that at least within the realm of korean martial arts, the founders or pioneer or high senior levels don't really discuss or criticize people's ranks and/or whether someone "deserves" rank. Instead, they assess someone's ability and character using "noonchi", which is visual observation and feel. When I am with seniors, no one ever asks or talk about rank. Rank, it seems, at that level, is sort of like asking how much money someone makes. It seems ok if you are relatively low paid, and you are happy when you get a $2/hour raise, or on a salary, but those who make more than this don't really speak actual numbers. That is left for other people to discuss. People ask me all the time, what is the difference between juniors and seniors. This is one of them. Juniors get all obessive about their rank, in comparison to someone elses. Seniors think about and discuss other, more important things.

I was eating lunch with the head guy in our office. Our bill came out to maybe $30, but he left a $100 bill and didn't wait for the change. Some people would argue that the waitress "didn't deserve" such a tip, that tips should be "earned", that giving such tips to the undeserving undermined the whole tip system, and so forth. To him, that was the smallest bill he had, and it wasn't worth his time to wait for the change. Different people have different perspectives. Which would you aspire to be, the guy criticizing the person who overtipped, or the person who doesn't care what others think and instead left the big tip?

 

[Kinghercules]

I wouldnt be surprise if it was an ATA school that he goes to.
LOL!

 

[Kong Soo Do]

I think it would be fair to say, in some instances, that seniors may not discuss rank that much due to the questionable nature in which they obtained it i.e. very short time-in-the-arts, organization hopping etc. And for others, that obtained it through hard work and plenty of training time, it just isn't a big deal.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I wouldnt be surprise if it was an ATA school that he goes to.
LOL!

What is it with you and the ATA?

 

[Chuck Johnson]

As was aforementioned, every style and master has a right to do things the way they see fit... but I would have to think that there needs to be a certain level of emotional and intellectual maturity that goes with the term "master" and I just couldn't see that someone in their early 20s... Granted there are prodigies out there, and I do know one kid in his early 20s running a school, but thats only because of a strange situation where the head master went back to Japan, and he was simply the most qualified person there left to teach, so he took the reigns to keep his school going. Even then however, he certainly never claimed a rank that high. I don't want to judge another MA Ive never personally met before, but that really seems like a stretch to me.