I was about 8 months away from getting my black belt in the ATA when I was 11 years old. If I had gotten it, would it have been legitimate? I've actually wondered about that quite a bit.
If you didn't forge the certificate and if your instructor did not test you and file the paperwork until you had completed all of the technical elements that a candidate for first dan is supposed to meet within the ATA, then why would it not be legitimate?
I actually remember myself as being pretty good, at least as far as technique goes. Adults would occasionally ask me to demonstrate some of my more flashy kicks and would sometimes even ask me to help them with their. I don't think I could fight much, but that really is more the fault of the ATA than an 11 year old's ability to defend himself against his peers.
I attended a blackbelt testing at a school whose owner I know and I was asked to participate in the test as an opponent for the student who was testing. The turn out was small and the kwanjang wanted at least four students for her to spar with and without me, there would only have been three.
She is 26 or so and weighs about 110 pounds and is very athletic, like gymnast athletic, all 110 pounds being bone, muscle and sinew. Aside from the fact that we were of differing genders and that I am 100 pounds heavier, we were sparring under IHF rules.
She did all of her technical testing very well and performed several difficult breaks. When the sparring started, they put her in with me first. I put her on the ground with each punch and could overbear her with relative ease. She had never worked with anyone my size before. It was what they call a squash match in pro wrestling.
She did very well against her other partners, all of whom were closer to her size and weight, though all were male.
So, because she couldn't beat or at least show well against a 212 pound guy, was her receiving a black belt not legitimate?
So I do think that the idea of a 5 year old black belt is ridiculous. But once you get get to around 11 or 12, as long as you have trained hard and long enough, I think it can be justified.
The same people who complain about the five year old feel just as strongly about eleven and twelve year old black belts. And given that in Korea, a black belt only takes a year to earn and two years on average in most US schools, how are you defining long enough? Three years? Four? Six?
I notice that a lot of the objection that people have to children receiving their Chinese Checkers rank and accompanying black piece of cloth revolves around whether or not they can 'fight' an adult or beat up others of their own age range.
So, does mastering the material between white and black belt not count for anything? And by 'master' I mean attain proficiency before anyone makes a speech about how nobody can ever truly
master anything.
Does putting in the time and effort not count? What about personal development?
And I disagree with the notion that a child is incapable of understanding 'what a black belt
really means' or 'learn martial arts for real.'
Isn't a first degree a beginning rank given to someone who has learned and become proficient in the basics? Every five year old that I have met could comprehend that.
As far as learning the techniques, I have seen five year old children learn physical skills and perform them gracefully and artfully. Look at some child gymnasts. We're talking about kicking and punching. Not very complex.
As to the notion that a two year black belt is not a real black belt that often accompanies these discussions, I disagree with that as well. If it takes you longer than two years to learn how to punch and kick, then you probably are not practicing very much outside of class and probably not attending class more than once or twice a week. If you are practicing diligently outside of class or showing up to class three or four times a week or more, then two years should be plenty.
What much of this discussion comes down to is that people feel threatened that a five year old was given the same Chinese checkers rank and black piece of cloth that they received because they have invested their ego into having that cloth. The cloth represents their toughness and their manhood (I notice that the women don't tend to get as irate about this). But that should not be.
To those of you who are hung up on belts, I'd like to remind you that martial training has nothing to do with belts. Belts are for sports. And last I checked, taekwondo is the national
sport of Korea. Because it is a sport, the five year old black belt is only paired with other black belts in his or her division. Kind of like how a high school football team is not going to be magically pitted against the Baltimore Ravens, or any other pro team. Or how a flag football team will not be pitted against a varsity high school team.
And before anyone makes another argument that opens with "but on the street" or some similar crap, save your bandwidth. The dynamic of a violent encounter is radically different from the dynamic of a ring fight. And even the most hard core MA training is most often insufficient (thought not necessarily useless) for most real world encounters. Most often, the will to act decisively and intelligently is a much greater decider than one's level of training.
And just so people don't get me wrong, I am not defending the practice. I simply understand the logic behind it and don't see why some of you get so upset about it.
Say what you want about degrading or demeaning the arts, but personally, I think that it comes down to ego.
If you truly do not want your art demeaned, then you should be promoting an end to using belts for the purpose of displaying rank and the use of the kyu/dan system. That seems to be where the problem is centered.
But you were not the person to whom I posed the question about respect and the article.
