Promotion stanrdards (Split from Is it disrespectful to ask [...])

[Axiom]

Actually you are a lot to do with it. If it is a participation award you are complicit in that sham because you don't walk away and find a place where you have to work for your belt.

I don't mind getting a free black belt.

Btw, people have forgotten their forms during gradings and still been awarded the belt. (Just to rub in).

I will inform the angry mod (lol) who this person is if I he wants to alert the "Taekwondo police" and shut the place down.

Don't think I don't have the balls to do it.

 

[Tez3]

I don't mind getting a free black belt.

Btw, people have forgotten their forms during gradings and still been awarded the belt. (Just to rub in).

.

My self respect wouldn't allow me to get a grade, any grade, without working hard and doing my best. How strange though that you slag off Shotokan as being slack with their grading standards yet you boast how you don't have to work for your belt.

Yeah well that school is a run by master higher ranked than you (9th dan), the president of ITF in my country, and technical advisor to the national team ( selected by General Choi, mind you),so if that's a Mcdojo, God help the rest of them.

What makes you think 'high rank' makes one impervious to greed, indolence and hubris? As we don't know what country you come from we have no way of knowing whether your national team is any good or not so what you are saying means nothing.

I will provide the angry mod (lol) with who this person is if I he wants to alert the "Taekwondo police" and shut the place down.

Don't think I don't have the balls to do it.

Try posting it up here instead so we can all see.

 

[Axiom]

What makes you think 'high rank' makes one impervious to greed, indolence and hubris? As we don't know what country you come from we have no way of knowing whether your national team is any good or not so what you are saying means nothing.
.

You couldn't be more right. I know there are other grandmasters around running Mcdojos, but I just hate it when other instructors take blame the student card, when I have participated and witnessed gradings for 4 years, including black belt ones, and all it is ceremonies at my place. What I get in return is an attack on my comprehension skills, and ignorance on the subject, despite the fact that its the instructors fault. I just pay a fee and do what he tells me to.

 

[Axiom]

My self respect wouldn't allow me to get a grade, any grade, without working hard and doing my best. How strange though that you slag off Shotokan as being slack with their grading standards yet you boast how you don't have to work for your belt.

Ehm no, I did the exact opposite. Shotokan is waay too strict for a mere Shodan. It's literal meaning is even beginning degree black belt!

 

[Tez3]

I just pay a fee and do what he tells me to.

So you take no responsibility for your own training. If the gradings are a sham and the training poor why are you still with them? I think you need to think long and deeply about why you are training martial arts and what you are willing to do to call yourself a black belt.

 

[Tez3]

Ehm no, I did the exact opposite. Shotokan is waay too strict for a mere Shodan. It's literal meaning is even beginning degree black belt!

In your opinion.

 

[Axiom]

So you take no responsibility for your own training. If the gradings are a sham and the training poor why are you still with them? I think you need to think long and deeply about why you are training martial arts and what you are willing to do to call yourself a black belt.

Doesn't mean I don't improve. That being said, I do seriously concider joing a boxing gym instead. I dislike the incoherence that plagues the ITF , and I still love the traditional stuff but to first have traditional forms,, then being taught "boxing" against mitts, and then suddenly doing kickboxing sparring (completely unrelated to the other two, mind you) is a bit frustrating.

 

[Tez3]

I dislike the incoherence that plagues the ITF

I'm not TKD so have little idea of it's politics etc but are you sure it's the ITF that's to blame and not the part you are in?

but to first have traditional forms,, then being taught "boxing" against mitts, and then suddenly doing kickboxing sparring (completely unrelated to the other two, mind you) is a bit frustrating.

To be honest I can't see the problem, in karate we use mitts and kick bags, we do traditional kata and we do what you would probably think of as kickboxing sparring. I say what you'd think of because you know kickboxing is derived from karate ( and TKD by the fact that it came from 'karate') so it's no coincidence that sparring looks like 'kick boxing'.
Kickboxing - Kicks Brighton

The TKD places I have been to and I used to train at a friend of mine's TKD club (I didn't train TKD so much as come to spar with the students so they could see a female black belt albeit in another style) and the sparring was much the same as it was in any karate and kickboxing club.
I think you may be confusing Olympic type sparring with the sparring everyone else does. I know that everywhere you look there's videos of Olympic sparring, high kicks only basically foot sparring but when I've visited clubs or been to multi style seminars etc the TKD guys can spar what I would call properly, hand strikes as well as kicks. They can hold their own with any kickboxer or karateka because it's basically the same sparring, there's a slight variation in how kicks or strikes are done according to what discipline you are doing but basically its the same sparring. I have also trained a lot of TSD (I have a Dan grade in that and Wado Ryu) and again I can spar the same way in both disciplines.
TKD ( non Olympic sparring) people because they are strong on their kicks do tend to do them more ( obviously, you always use what is strongest for you) but don't seem to have any trouble coming in close when necessary as well as using the jab, cross and uppercut. they can use elbows and knees as far as I've seen as well. The rules for Olympic sparring preclude them but doesn't mean they don't know how and can use them in class sparring.

 

[Axiom]

I'from 'karate') so it's no coincidence that sparring looks like 'kick boxing'.
Kickboxing - Kicks Brighton

The TKD places I have been to and I used to train at a friend of mine's TKD club (I didn't train TKD so much as come to spar with the students so they could see a female black belt albeit in another style) and the sparring was much the same as it was in any karate and kickboxing club.
I think you may be confusing Olympic type sparring with the sparring everyone else does. I know that everywhere you look there's videos of Olympic sparring, high kicks only basically foot sparring but when I've visited clubs or been to multi style seminars etc the TKD guys can spar what I would call properly, hand strikes as well as kicks. They can hold their own with any kickboxer or karateka because it's basically the same sparring, there's a slight variation in how kicks or strikes are done according to what discipline you are doing but basically its the same sparring. I have also trained a lot of TSD (I have a Dan grade in that and Wado Ryu) and again I can spar the same way in both disciplines.
TKD ( non Olympic sparring) people because they are strong on their kicks do tend to do them more ( obviously, you always use what is strongest for you) but don't seem to have any trouble coming in close when necessary as well as using the jab, cross and uppercut. they can use elbows and knees as far as I've seen as well. The rules for Olympic sparring preclude them but doesn't mean they don't know how and can use them in class sparring.

I don't know how to explain it but the ITF has a different set of rules from the Olympics, among them allowing face punches. Now this sounds great in theory but the result is just a messy brawl. You are not allowed to throw combos longer than two punches, hooks are prohibited, as are uppercuts. This results in the most prevalent punch utilized being the superman punch, and this punch is not in our forms at all and is the very opposite of what a person would concider "good form."

The sparring is completely disconnected from the rest of the training. The mitts training includes hooks, crosses, uppercuts, turning your hole body into the mitts. And then we step into a sparring format where all of this is prohibited.

 

[JR 137]

@Axiom

I emphasize with your frustration. In your shoes I'd be pretty aggravated. But here's the thing...

It doesn't matter what belt anyone else is wearing and what they did and didn't do to wear it. A woman/girl (I can't remember, but I think it was a female) passed a grading even though she didn't break the required boards. Others haven't completed their forms, botched them, etc.; others just show up once in a while and test and pass. So what? What's that got to do with you and just as importantly your abilities? How does anyone else's work ethic make any difference in your progress? I talked about a guy at my dojo who's been a 3rd kyu for about 7 years because he's inconsistent in his training. If he was in your dojang and reached 4th dan with his lack of dedication, what exactly does that change in YOUR training?

Sure, it'll give you a feeling that everyone else's belt is worthless and yours is by association, but what else? Do you want the belt so you can wave it around to your friends and family who don't know any better? Do you want the satisfaction of saying "I'm a black belt" out loud?

I was promoted to 1st dan in 1999. I thought it would be this magical and mystical thing that would transform me into some super karateka. Ok, I exaggerated a little, but you get where I'm going. Half way through my first black belts only class it became painfully obvious (figuratively and literally) that I had this belt on a pedestal. I was still just JR. I was pretty good and worked my butt off to earn it. The belt was pretty far from being an attendance award in every way.

What's my point? Me wearing it didn't make me better nor worse. And the guys and ladies standing on either side of me didn't make my belt better nor worse either. I stopped chasing rank. I stopped caring about what I wore around my waist. I realized that my belt had nothing to do with what I knew and could and couldn't do. I stopped caring about my belt and everyone else's belt, and put all that energy into just getting better.

I left karate for almost 15 years, and restarted 2 and a half years ago. I started at white belt. I tested for every rank so far. If all goes well, I SHOULD ( ) be up for promotion around December/January. I look forward to the test, but I really don't care about the new belt. All it'll say is I passed. It won't make me better. If I'm the lowest rank or the highest, it won't matter one bit. It'll tell my teachers where I am in the curriculum and it'll help keep my gi closed. And it's not that effective at with or those, because I know most of the 1st dan syllabus anyway.

But here's the interesting thing - I'm far better as now as a 3rd kyu than I ever was as a 1st dan. And I'm 20 years older. The old black belt means as much as my current advanced green belt, and as much as the brown belt I'll get when I eventually pass that test.

Forget about your and everyone else's rank. Chase improvement. If you fixate on that, you'll do great. Fixate on anyone else, and you'll just waste too much energy that could've been used elsewhere.

Sorry for the long story and pep talk.

 

[JR 137]

Sorry... in my long post above I forgot to mention that the ONLY way you should be concerned about anyone else is if there's enough people to train with that are capable of helping you improve, and if the people teaching you are capable of helping you improve.

If there isn't, move on. If there is enough of both, keep on keepin' on.

 

[Steve]

Personally, I think it's up to each school and/or system to decide what they want their standards to be. If a black belt to you means you are excellent at 9 different kata (however you decide to gauge "excellence") and be able to do 100 burpees, great. If you think that a black belt should be able to hogtie a calf in less than 15 seconds, terrific. Go nuts.

The key is that standards should be transparent, measurable and objective.

This goes for everything. Employees performance ratings, parenting, education, coaching... you name it.

I just have no use for this idea that a black belt SHOULD be one thing or another.

 

[Axiom]

@Axiom


Sure, it'll give you a feeling that everyone else's belt is worthless and yours is by association, but what else? Do you want the belt so you can wave it around to your friends and family who don't know any better? Do you want the satisfaction of saying "I'm a black belt" out loud?
.

I know that I deserve it since I can do the moves required. The standards being non existent in my club to get it doesn't affect me. If I couldn't perform moves better than a complete amateur, and showed no progress from 5 years ago ,I wouldn't feel it's worthwile, but now I think it is.

 

[Flying Crane]

Frankly it shouldn't be easy at all to get a black belt you definentely shouldn't be knowing a year in advance when you're guaranteed to test and guaranteed you'll pass. It's things like that that's bringing down traditional martial arts. I'm only 21 so I haven't been around it since the beginning but frankly I wish I had because I'd have preferred it then to what it is now. These days you tell someone you're a black belt people's reaction would be oh cool yeah so is my brother, my sister, my cousin, 5 of my friends and my uncles dog. In some places it's ridiculous easy to get one. I know for a fact I worked my *** off for mine I trained 5 days a week in classes and practiced every day so it makes me sick to see people who just stroll in after not having trained for 3 months and get a black belt in 20 minutes (not even joking I know one guy at a different school to me did a black belt grading in 20 minutes)

Personally, I think all tests and ranking should be eliminated. Anybody who needs a colored piece of cloth to motivate their training has a shallow commitment to the arts and doesn't deserve it anyway. I'm glad to be training a system that does not promote that way. Belts are silly.

 

[Axiom]

Personally, I think all tests and ranking should be eliminated. Anybody who needs a colored piece of cloth to motivate their training has a shallow commitment to the arts and doesn't deserve it anyway. I'm glad to be training a system that does not promote that way. Belts are silly.

Some people pass up on gradings. I guess I could too but it's so ingrained in TaeKwondo that I want every part of the tradition. It would be like training without a dobok (uniform).

 

[drop bear]

Sorry... in my long post above I forgot to mention that the ONLY way you should be concerned about anyone else is if there's enough people to train with that are capable of helping you improve, and if the people teaching you are capable of helping you improve.

If there isn't, move on. If there is enough of both, keep on keepin' on.

Yeah but I think easy belts does directly effect the training.

I think some method of progression having an importance attached. Reflects the amount of professionalism that is present in the training itself.

This is why I train in a fight gym. Because people take the training seriously.

This flowed straight over to the beej. And whether anyone gets a rank they may not deserve. People take that seriously.

 

[drop bear]

Personally, I think all tests and ranking should be eliminated. Anybody who needs a colored piece of cloth to motivate their training has a shallow commitment to the arts and doesn't deserve it anyway. I'm glad to be training a system that does not promote that way. Belts are silly.

There is also an understanding that everyone is not a martial arts training machine. Sometimes we need a colored piece of cloth for motivation.

 

[Axiom]

Yeah but I think easy belts does directly effect the training.
.

I can assure you that it doesn't. When it comes to the conditioning, my club is in good shape. We have some classes for 30 minutes having only conditioning. Although the funny thing is that you never know when they show up, so you better train consistently to be ready for such days.

 

[JR 137]

Personally, I think all tests and ranking should be eliminated. Anybody who needs a colored piece of cloth to motivate their training has a shallow commitment to the arts and doesn't deserve it anyway. I'm glad to be training a system that does not promote that way. Belts are silly.

Belts aren't silly, using them as a dangled carrot is silly. Using them to define yourself is silly. Using them to let everyone know you're cool is silly.

It's not the belt; it's the idiot envying it.

Belts are great. They let my teacher know where I am in the curriculum (although we're small enough so that's not necessarily). If I visit any affiliated dojo, including my teacher's teacher's dojo, whoever's teaching instantly knows what standards to hold me to. Same thing if I attend a seminar, tournament, etc.

Belts are fine. It's being stupid ABOUT belts that's just... well... stupid.

Edit: belts are great for kids. If that's what it takes to properly motivate a kid and get him/her off the couch and into the dojo, I'm all for it. Adults are a different matter.

 

[JR 137]

Yeah but I think easy belts does directly effect the training.

I think some method of progression having an importance attached. Reflects the amount of professionalism that is present in the training itself.

This is why I train in a fight gym. Because people take the training seriously.

This flowed straight over to the beej. And whether anyone gets a rank they may not deserve. People take that seriously.

Great points. That's why I said if there's people there that'll make him better, then it's a non-issue. If he's like Kramer dominating the dojo, then there's issues. Funny issues, but issues nonetheless.