Corporal Hicks
Black Belt
Hi there people.
I've been training in Tae Kwon Do for about 3/4 years now and I was until recently pleased and happy with the idea of a grading system. Being naive at the time I thought that the higher the belt you were the more skilled and a better fighter you were, after doing Wing Chun I only realised that the grading system shows that you can only remember a set number of patterns (no comments) and set movements.
Take for example a guy in my Tae Kwon Do class, about a year ago i thought this guy was good at fighting and TKD (I respected him), he was aggressive he looked good with his patterns he looked strong. After doing Wing Chun I was watching him yesterday. He was too rigid (no relaxing) and his attacks were only aggressive, (that doesnt make a good fighter as we know). Not only that he was performing knife hand strikes and although he looked good his arms were too tense and he was throwing his arm out so it wasnt a snap.
Havnt taken into account i'm not expert and others wouldnt know any better I just thought this is stupid. This guy is a second dan (two above black) and he's meant to be good, yet he knows next to nothing about fighting or self defence.
Surely a belt doesnt mean anything if you could not defend yourself successfully in a real fight and just because you can train once or twice a week over a set number of years doesnt make you good either. Your views please?
Should belts (if you have any) be based upon ability if your looking at it from a fighting or self defence ability and I mean the general idea of Martial Arts is to fight right? I mean there is the art part which could be used as the idea for belts and your development into the ART but surely apart from that its a misleading idea!
Regards
P.S or maybe I'm in a MacDojo
I've been training in Tae Kwon Do for about 3/4 years now and I was until recently pleased and happy with the idea of a grading system. Being naive at the time I thought that the higher the belt you were the more skilled and a better fighter you were, after doing Wing Chun I only realised that the grading system shows that you can only remember a set number of patterns (no comments) and set movements.
Take for example a guy in my Tae Kwon Do class, about a year ago i thought this guy was good at fighting and TKD (I respected him), he was aggressive he looked good with his patterns he looked strong. After doing Wing Chun I was watching him yesterday. He was too rigid (no relaxing) and his attacks were only aggressive, (that doesnt make a good fighter as we know). Not only that he was performing knife hand strikes and although he looked good his arms were too tense and he was throwing his arm out so it wasnt a snap.
Havnt taken into account i'm not expert and others wouldnt know any better I just thought this is stupid. This guy is a second dan (two above black) and he's meant to be good, yet he knows next to nothing about fighting or self defence.
Surely a belt doesnt mean anything if you could not defend yourself successfully in a real fight and just because you can train once or twice a week over a set number of years doesnt make you good either. Your views please?
Should belts (if you have any) be based upon ability if your looking at it from a fighting or self defence ability and I mean the general idea of Martial Arts is to fight right? I mean there is the art part which could be used as the idea for belts and your development into the ART but surely apart from that its a misleading idea!
Regards
P.S or maybe I'm in a MacDojo