skipping belts???

[keelan lee]

just recently i tested for my blue belt in tae kwon do and my instructor gave me a purple belt and i was very confused and did not know what was going on.I figured that it was a mistake or something cause i passed my test but my name wasn't on the list of recent tests that were passed i figured they had forgotten my name but i wasn't sure.I was going to ask my instructor about it but he wasn't the one who tested me and he's not the chief instructor so he doesn't really know who passed or whatever.If anybody has explanation for this or anything please reply.

 

[chrispillertkd]

Perhaps if you described the belt ranking structure used by your school people might be better able to help since I, personally, have never seen purple used as a color for belts in Taekwon-Do.

That being said, it is not unheard of for people who do exceptionally well during a test for a gup rank to be double promoted (going from, for example, 10th gup to 8th gup). There's nothing wrong with that but the down side is for the next test you'll have double the amount of material to learn. I have seen people get double promoted before and it isn't uncommon that some of them are people who have a background in a similar martial art and are coming up through the ranks in Taekwon-Do. Others are just naturally athletic or have put forth a lot of effort to do well.

If your immediate instructor doesn't know why you were promoted beyond the rank for which you applied he should be able to find out simply by asking the chief instructor, I'd imagine.

Pax,

Chris

 

[Kenpoguy123]

It happens in most schools but personally I'm not a fan of it. I've seen some people who know the stuff for their next belt well and know the stuff for the belt after that but not great and they're double promoted but then they start on the next set of moves without getting those ones properly good. If I was a head instructor I wouldn't do that I'd grade them for their next belt and give them a tip with the belt then they can get the next belt stuff they know even better and since they'll have it done quicker than someone who hadnt learn them before just test them earlier

 

[Earl Weiss]

Not really possible in my school since each rank learns a specific set of requirements and don't learn or practice the stuff past the material they need to know for the next step.

 

[Gwai Lo Dan]

Not really possible in my school since each rank learns a specific set of requirements and don't learn or practice the stuff past the material they need to know for the next step.

Do you have kicks that you focus on by belt, or is it more self-defence techniques and other patterns of moves (outside the taegeuk patterns)?

 

[Tames D]

What does your certificate say on it?

 

[Earl Weiss]

Do you have kicks that you focus on by belt, or is it more self-defence techniques and other patterns of moves (outside the taegeuk patterns)?

Their is a requirement sheet for each belt which has the following categories of material not previously learned: Stances, Hand techniques, Foot Techniques, Sparring combinations, Patterns, (Chang Hon) Ho Sin Sul, required knowledge.

 

[RTKDCMB]

.I was going to ask my instructor about it but he wasn't the one who tested me and he's not the chief instructor so he doesn't really know who passed or whatever.

I imagine it would be very unusual for an instructor to not know which of his students passed a belt test or not.

 

[serietah]

We also have a detailed curriculum for each belt level so skipping isn't even possible. I would have asked right away why you were given a different belt than you expected. Perhaps that was a mistake?

 

[andyjeffries]

In my dojang, I double-promote students if they average over 90% on the grading. This means that it's not just one fluke "they have a really good X kick/poomsae" but they are consistently excelling at their grade. There is no restriction on when this takes place, but they can't skip to dan grades by achieving over 90% average. And yes, double-promoting does put the student under more pressure to learn twice the amount before the next grading, but the whole point is that they were excelling at their current level, so I've never really found this to be an issue.

I don't recall any student receiving two double-promotions in their lifetime, but this isn't a rule and wouldn't be a problem (it's just that the double-promotion seems to put them about where "they should be", so the next grading they are great but not exceptional).

Skip dans are something else entirely. I've only processed one myself, for a student that had been a 1st dan for nearly a decade and had been training consistently over that time (but our previous instructor was never really in to the gradings side of Taekwondo).

 

[WaterGal]

I imagine it would be very unusual for an instructor to not know which of his students passed a belt test or not.

I suppose it would depend on whether or not this is a person who is a full-time school employee and how many students there are. If the school has like 200 students and some of the instructors are just high-level students that like teaching and do it part-time for fun, I wouldn't expect those instructors to necessarily know exactly who got promoted and who didn't.

 

[WaterGal]

I've never actually seen anyone get/give a double promotion, but I've heard of some places that do that. I imagine that, if that's what was going on, they would have said something, maybe even made a big deal out of it. Since they didn't, it may have just been a mistake.

We've made the opposite mistake a couple times, where we accidently forgot to promote someone in our student database, and then when I'm making up the certificates and ordering the belts for the next test, it's for the belt they already have! Now I always order some extra belts and double-check before the test starts to make sure everybody has the correct belt set out.

 

[Tired_Yeti]

just recently i tested for my blue belt in tae kwon do and my instructor gave me a purple belt and i was very confused and did not know what was going on.I figured that it was a mistake or something cause i passed my test but my name wasn't on the list of recent tests that were passed i figured they had forgotten my name but i wasn't sure.I was going to ask my instructor about it but he wasn't the one who tested me and he's not the chief instructor so he doesn't really know who passed or whatever.If anybody has explanation for this or anything please reply.

Sent from my iPhone 6+ using Tapatalk

 

[JP3]

Back in the day in my own case I was double-promoted once, skipping a belt in the middle. I was really proud of myself until the instructor pulled me aside the next class and just told me straight up that he had double promoted me because I need more of a challenge. He was not going to allow me to not make the technical proficiencies and just time my way through.

Apparently, I had something of an attitude issue, and being flummoxed with trying to learn jump spinning hook kicks took care of it, because I felt like an idiot for about...oh.. half a year or so. By which time, the non double promoted folks caught up, and we were all even again, and my attitude had been corrected. At least I think so. He never told me, but he didn't get irritated with me, either.

 

[JR 137]

At the lower ranks, double promoting isn't really a big deal IMO. In my previous school, I double promoted twice in color belts. I learned the required curriculum from my Sensei for the next rank before the test. Why did he teach me it? I was in class 4-5 nights per week, usually taking class twice each time (being a single college student, I had some down time). He taught me higher rank stuff when I was ready to learn it, not when some arbitrary time schedule demanded it.

I've double promoted twice in my current school. I know most of the curriculum up to 2nd dan due to my previous school being an offshoot of my current one. My current teacher's mentality is why hold me back if I've demonstrated the required skill level.

He asked me how I felt about double promoting a 3rd time, and I told him it doesn't matter to me. I'm not in any hurry to get anywhere (rank wise), and I'm improving, so what's the difference.

Keep in mind this has always been at the kyu level, not at dan level. But let's say I was a 5th dan is system A, and went to system B that was extremely close to system A, should a teacher be criticized for awarding me an equal or near equal rank if I proficienly demonstrated all necessary requirements for said rank?

IMO as long as the student meets all requirements for the rank, then there's no reason to hold the student back. So long as their skills aren't questionable, they've earned the rank. Give it to them and move on. Holding someone back solely due to a time schedule doesn't make much more sense than promoting someone solely due to a time schedule.

 

[TrueJim]

Holding someone back solely due to a time schedule doesn't make much more sense than promoting someone solely due to a time schedule...

Not disagreeing with you, just pointing out...some people consider rank to not only be a mark of proficiency, but also an indicator of how much of your life you've devoted to the art; in other words, your rank also indicates how much you've been able to "give back" to the art by training others, etc.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I don't think the OP was really targeted in any way to the student who comes from another school or system advancing to a rank that reflects their physical skill level as they are able to accumulate the required knowledge needed to accurately reflect more than one rank advancement.

Another issue perhaps glossed over from some posts is whether the system has a large number of ranks from white to black as opposed to 10 or fewer. More ranks could mena less material for each rank making a double promotion easier.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Another issue perhaps glossed over from some posts is whether the system has a large number of ranks from white to black as opposed to 10 or fewer. More ranks could mena less material for each rank making a double promotion easier.

Absolutely. A double promotion would make much more sense in a system where each rank represents a few months worth of progress than in a system where each rank represents a few years worth of progress.

 

[Charlemagne]

I had this happen to me once in the first place I trained FMA. Our training group was run by a Brown Belt, so he did not have the authority to test for rank in the organization we belonged to. As such, he had to wait for the availability of some of the black belts in the organization to come test his students. As such, myself and at least one other student that I can recall tested for two belt ranks at once. At the lower ranks I don't really see this as a problem, but I can see how it could get out of hand if standards are not upheld, etc. Barring the need, as in our situation, I probably wouldn't make a habit of it.

 

[JR 137]

Not disagreeing with you, just pointing out...some people consider rank to not only be a mark of proficiency, but also an indicator of how much of your life you've devoted to the art; in other words, your rank also indicates how much you've been able to "give back" to the art by training others, etc.

Absolutely. But that's also pretty much at the highest ranks. I've heard of a few systems that won't promote someone past X dan until they've trained and promoted a certain number of people passed certain ranks, and people who don't teach (either running their own school or teaching in someone else's) don't typically promote passed a certain rank. When it's done right, that's a pretty good objective benchmark to see how much you've given back. Some people claim that counting the number of black belt students you've promoted turns places into black belt mills, which is a valid concern, but the true intent of it is pretty solid IMO.