Title for skill level?

[Jason Davis]

O.K., My teachers don't do any kind of belt system and both say that you should be judged on your skill level, ability to fight and ability to tech others. However, they do not put a label on these things such as Dan, Master, Grand Master, Soke, etc. They both say it is too much trouble to try to put someone's skill level under a title. I have met a few of my teacher teachers and if you ask them what their "rank" or "title" is they just laugh at you and say "let's practice" or something to that effect (my teachers did the same thing when i first started learning from them). So I am completely blind to what these things mean.



My question is for any martial arts system, what are the rank labels for your system (if that is what they are called) and what do they mean as far as what the person who has been given this title should be able to do (or what skills should they posses)? Also what is testing like in your System.



I ask this question because I keep seeing words such as "Dan", "Soke", and "Master" in these threads and I have no idea what they mean or what a person who is one of these things should be able to do.

 

[Jason Davis]

I will answer my own question first.

In any of the systems that I have learned, we do not have any rank labels or belts so I cannot answer this question.

Testing however, can be sumed up like this: I have to be able to be able to perform any technique I have been tought "real time." As in if they are really trying to attack me (and my teachers do try to hit me hard) I have got to be able to defend with the techinque they tought. Otherwise my learning goes no further and I must keep training on that technique. Then after i have learned a few more techniques (after about 2 weeks) I must be able to complete them all in the same fashion (actual combat). Then my learning can go further. then after a few months we go back and i have to be able to do every technique the same way. If I can't accomplish any technique they will know I have not been practicing it and I have to learn it before i can advance. That; I guess, is how I'm tested.

I look forward to seeing how everyone elses is tought (or teaches).

 

[markulous]

Wow it sounds like you guys have a pretty good thing going on.

I can't answer really any of your questions because our system is the same as yours. No belts or ranks. So I guess the only reason I replied was because your "system" sounded close to ours.

 

[Black Bear]

I was awarded my "level 2" in december. I don't know how many levels there are, or whether they're counted from the top or the bottom. I don't actually care.

Prior to that I never received a ranking.

 

[moving target]

I think there are four ranks, non-instructor, assistant instructor, full instructor, and senior instructor. Other than that instructors will give out cirtificates of how many years you have practiced but that's not rank. (JKD-larry hartsell)

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

In my own little myopic view, belt ranks serve little more than to distinguich the content of study on'e been exposed to. If I see a same-system 3rd Dan, I know he's sen and trained in such-&-such techniques, and should (ideally, but not necessarily, apparently) be able to perform them with a predictable level of skill & proficiency. I liken them to chapters in a book (have you read chapter ten yet?), or to levels of education (eighth grade graduate, high school graduate, Bachelors, Masters, PhD)...each should have been exposed to some information and educational rigours the other has not.

Unfortunately, I've known too many black belts who can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag with a buck knife, and too many no-belts who could pants you like a little girl. Ultimately, they only mean what we think they mean.