Are titles that important?

[ChineseKempoJerry]

I have been reading several posts here in MT and it seems to me that we can really get caught up in titles and names of systems. Please don't get me wrong as I believe that there are a great many people out there that believe in history, lineage, title, and ranks, but is it right?

Ranking systems are really for instructors to judge where their students progression is, right? Titles are for people's self-esteem?

I know there are good and great martial artists on this forum. I also see a lot of martial art trekkies. (know a lot of theory, history and academia things) I know there are good fighters out there as well.

My theory is that many of the good fighters (personal self-defense knowledge) may not neccessarily be prolific writers and sometimes get cracked down on this forum by people that feel they know what is right. The only person who truly knows what is right is you.

If one know's how to fight and is of good character I will have respect for you. Including white belts, self titled masters, or even from an art that people think are oxymorons (american karate - chinese kempo). These are just names to describe what you practice and where you fit in - who cares! If you study something rooted with tradition be proud of that, but don't be judgemental about that person unless you know them.

Any thoughts?

Best Regards,

Jerry

 

[arnisador]

Remember, not everyone assumes a title for themselves--there's a natural desire to honor the greats, by the equivalent of medals, honorary degrees, knighthoods, and so on. What started as things like "How can we recognize Jigaro Kano's great contributions?" has become "Grandmaster Soke Jones, Ph.D.".

 

[Adept]

As old Bill said - What's in a name?

 

[hammer]

I read some were that, titles and rank are unimportant they simply allow you to persuade those that you teach and or influence others.

Personally I feel that they are grossly over rated, Jezz! Just about every body is a master, soke, professor a doctor, what have you!! Simply put you, are either a student, a teacher or a teachers teacher, thats it in my view.

And of course as the commercialism grows within in the martial arts industry, there will be many more newly created titles or positions of prestige with such new rank will also be associated, we just cant settle, lol

Just my thoughts (no offense to those that are truly, what the say they are.)

Cheers

 

[MJS]

Ranking systems are really for instructors to judge where their students progression is, right? Titles are for people's self-esteem?

Well, I think this sums it up pretty good. In pretty much every art, you'll find some sort of ranking, be it Sensei, Sifu, Guro, Senior Master, GrandMaster, etc. Like the belt rankings or levels, its set up to show some sort of leadership role. Just like a Police Dept. has Officer, Sgt., LT., Capt., ect.

Unfortunately, you'll find many people who find it necessary to award themselves this title. IMHO, I'm more concerned with what I can learn from someone rather than what title they have. Now, just for clarification, I'm not looking to train under a fraud, but simply to learn and grow. Its not the title that teaches you, its the person. Just because one person is called Sensei and the other Senior Master does not mean that I'll learn more.

Mike

 

[Drac]

Personally I feel that they are grossly over rated, Jezz! Just about every body is a master, soke, professor a doctor, what have you!! Simply put you, are either a student, a teacher or a teachers teacher, thats it in my view.

Truer words were never posted

And of course as the commercialism grows within in the martial arts industry, there will be many more newly created titles or positions of prestige

Every month in BlackBelt there appears yet ANOTHER new fighting system created my yet another self professed Grandmaster,MasterSensei,Sifu,Guro etcetc.....

 

[Aegis]

I truly believe that rank is not particularly important. However, I've come to this conclusion after several years of training, and when I first started I would have had a completely different view of this. The problem with rank arises when the uninformed are offered a choice: train with the guy who has been a 2nd dan for 15 years because he's not that interested in rank, or train with the grand-high-uber-soke (10th, dan, PhD) down the road. 9 times out of 10* people with no martial arts experience will pick the guy with the higher rank to train with. If the guy with the high rank has trained in a couple of McDojos, then promoted himself to this rank, then people might well be getting much worse quality instruction but much faster promotions, leading to an even greater imbalance.

The final result of this is that as legitimate martial artists, it becoems harder to keep a club open unless you can support it on your own finances. In addition, we have a large percentage of martial artists who probably couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag already torn on 1 side. As martial artists, I believe we have a responsibility to provide information to potential martial artists, not to promote our own clubs, but to steer people away from the "questionable" claims or outright terrible instruction that seems to be flooding several countries now. There are no industry regulations for martial arts, so we as martial artists must essentially make and police our own standards. There is bound to be some disagreement as to what is legit and what is not, but if you're considering the case where someone has a couple of shodans and maybe a kyu grade or two and suddenly becomes a 10th dan, we ALL know that something is wrong.

People have a right to know what they are paying for.


* bearing in mind of course that 86% of statistics are made up on the spot

 

[rutherford]

Rank is a strange thing in the Bujinkan. It is a reward, a sign of skill. Just as often, it is the rope given to a person to hang themselves. It can be a reason to work harder, a test, and a lesson in ukemi. For each person their rank is very personal matter, and for each person rank means something different.

I have laughed when folks have said, "Your next rank is no further away than a trip to Japan and a round of drinks." But, I believe them and ponder what that means.

I was surprised to learn recently that my instructor is actually 3 ranks higher than what is listed on his website. There is a lesson in that, I'm sure.

I am unranked. After six months training, I could probably have passed a few Kyu ranks. But my instructor has not brought it up, and I certainly have not asked for rank. If he does award me a rank, I will have to decide for myself what it means. In the meantime, I do what's important and train.

There is only one title that means anything to me. Soke. It is a great hope of mine that I get to meet and train with ours before he passes the torch.

 

[searcher]

I have been pondering this very question for some time. I have put in several years of training and ahave attained what I consider to be a good rank. I started to lose interest in rank somewhere around San-dan. It seems to me that we have lost what the masters of old had. They would go around learning from anyone that had something to teach. Only in the last century has the "traditional" styles taken a name and seperated themselves off as their own way of doing things. I know that there were divisions pre-1900, but there was alot of inter-mixing of technique and forms. If we could set aside our pride and vanity for a while we might be able to get back to the roots of the martial arts. Just my two cents.

 

[MJS]

Gentlemen, just a reminder here. Lets try to stay focused on the topic at hand. We have a good discussion going. Lets not turn it into a thread bashing event.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[ChineseKempoJerry]

Food for thought. I train to learn. I teach to propagate the art. Sometimes we train with uniforms, sometimes we don't. I belong to an association that believes in open learning. We do have titles and rankings and we use that for the general public, but never around each other. We have see them (other martial artists) come and go, but it always seems that those truly passionate about the art find a way to be humble.

The only time I see a problem are those that need to make money from the art. Nothing wrong with that, but maybe the culprit of the whole title and rank thing is MONEY? Take that out of the eqaution and maybe these problems go away. Those that do make money (no offense), I respect what you do, I just couldn't do it.

I believe that you teach because of your love, but in America the art has to change because money talks and puts food on the table. A fine line which I cannot do. This is when ethics come into play, but how do you weigh what is right for the art vs. what is right for your family?

Good wishes to all, as I wish everyone the best with thier training.

Jerry

 

[terryl965]

I've been gone for a couple of days and here we go again about rank, why on earth is it important to those that have no rank first off respect people in western culture tend to be more apt. to respecteda Master than a Instructor ready here is my own story Been in MA for over 43 years never tried to start a new system the one i choose works for me, Last decembe i finally tested for my 4th Dan, al of a sudden people care about my views and the way i train my students, just 6 months ago being a third for 21 years meant i had nothing to offer nobody understood why i choose not to test and that is right i choose. I should be a seventh by now does it matter no because i'm happy my school does well everywhere and my students learn all aspect of MA just not fighting that most believe it is a part but only a part. MY student are instructed ny me if they call me Master sit-up or push-up till i say stop, MY MASTER IS GOD PLAIN AND SIMPLE I'M A INSTRUCTOR OF MY ART PLAIN AND SIMPLE.


Thank you for listening
Terry L Stoker:asian:
Just a humble student

 

[Adept]

The way I look at it is - You are only ever as good as you are. Strapping a coloured piece of cloth around your waist wont make you any better at learning, fighting/sparring, training or instructing.

What a rank does is allow people to form an estimate of your abilities. Black belts should be quite proficient, learning or beginner students should be uncordinated and simplistic in their approaches, and intermediate students should be, well, intermediate. Beyond that I feel we are over-seperating ranks, and including ranks simply for their own sake.

All people, no matter their rank, should base their opinion of someone (with regards to martial arts) on how good the person is at what they do, completely regardless of their rank or belt.

 

[47MartialMan]

I have a title. Actually 4.

One for each of my vehicles..:erg:

 

[Aegis]

The way I look at it is - You are only ever as good as you are. Strapping a coloured piece of cloth around your waist wont make you any better at learning, fighting/sparring, training or instructing.

What a rank does is allow people to form an estimate of your abilities .

Indeed. As I mentioned in my first post on this thread, that is how we as experienced martial artists see rank. However, the average person with no knowledge of martial arts DOESN'T know that, so when faced with the choice of training with a 3rd dan over a 10th dan, they'll probably go with the "more is better" approach and pick the (probably self-promoted) guy over the one who has made martial arts his life without caring too much about rank. Again, as I mentioned above, it is OUR responsibility to try to maintain some integrity for our way of life, and not allow people with very little experience to teach the public "lethal martial arts developed from ancient shaolin eating contests" or similar without at least giving them some way to find the real information on their teachers.

All people, no matter their rank, should base their opinion of someone (with regards to martial arts) on how good the person is at what they do, completely regardless of their rank or belt.

If everyone could do that there would be no problem. However, beginners can usually tell that a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick. They would have no idea what a good mae-geri looks like compared to a bad one, and they might well not be able to tell a really good throw pulled to avoid damaging the student from a throw where the student jumps to stop the master from looking bad. As such, people looking to join martial arts have nothing to go by but the extrenal trappings and their own research. So again, we come back to making the information about titles and ranks we want to claim available for those who look in the right places.

As an example, the website that my club sets up lists all the instructors as "Sensei" without going into a bio, without claiming high ranks, etc. There's a statement that they're all quallified to teach this style somewhere, and that's about it. With no claims, there's nothing to back up except their teaching credentials, which they can provide a copy of to anyone interested.

One of my other clubs lists the head instructor as a 7th Dan in iaido, which is more difficult to back up. However, searching for her name reveals numerous references to her from the British Kendo Association (a well respected legitimate martial arts organisation) within seconds, so external verification is easy.

Two different approaches, both acceptible because the proof to the claims they make (i.e. none in one case and their rank in the other) is easily found. Not always the case, especially when people claim hugely high ranks in a wide variety of arts.



EDIT: I also just noticed that I recieved a fairly major hit to my rep from a post I made in this thread, which was left unsigned. I would like to invite whoever did that to contact me, either in private or in public to discuss exactly what he or she would like me to "give a rest".

 

[Adept]

To be honest, I'd like to see most ranks abolished. Maybe only keep black belts to denote instructors and skilled practitioners, white belts to denote poorly skilled practitioners, and maybe blue to denote moderately skilled practitioners.

Sports like Wrestling, MMA, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, Boxing, etc do not have ranks, and people manage to join these sports all the time just fine. A coach or instructor or trainer should be chosen based on the quality of his fighters, his dedication, and his ability to train. His reputation, in effect. This is the sort of thing even a noob can research with minimal effort, and most people with a bit of nouse can tell a good fighter from a poor one, just from watching the boxing on the telly.

It's been so long since I was a beginner, I have problems thinking about what a noob would look for without any MA experience.

 

[47MartialMan]

Rank may have someone estomate your abilities, but it want help them with mine. I stop being concerend with rank a decade and a half ago. Well I do have some mimial rank, I rely on the learning. Two instructors i had were not concerend nor awarded rank.

One instructor I have now, is not concerend with rank either. So i guess training with him and not holding a rank, will give the impression I have less abilities?

Hmmmn, I wondered of all those fighrters/MA centuries ago had rank to have people estimate their abilities?

And while I agree there are some that take advantage, with this issue of rank/title, it would be hard to credit or discredit someone because the standards differ and are not singularly set.

My students and peers are well aware of my ranks (which they are low), however, they know that I speak from experience. Heck, I even give them references to other instructors if they desire to further research.

They would have no idea what a good mae-geri looks like compared to a bad one,
Well, that maybe true, but if they are lead to believe, their self-discovery may have them realise and move onto another teacher. Or some will be sastify via bliss and stay with the same one. There should be caution about waking up people from the "matrix" of things.

... and they might well not be able to tell a really good throw pulled to avoid damaging the student from a throw where the student jumps to stop the master from looking bad.
I at one time, slightly thought that about some Akidioists, though I will not discredit them or the art.

 

[evenflow1121]

They are important, granted there will always be frauds, but you have to separate the students from the teachers. I could have a vast amount of respect for white belts or beginners that work hard, and I do, but I would not want to learn from them. I however, do not believe you have to be a black belt to teach in all arts, but there must be some sign or recognition given in order to separate those who should be qualified to teach from those who are still learning the system.

 

[47MartialMan]

They are important, granted there will always be frauds, but you have to separate the students from the teachers. I could have a vast amount of respect for white belts or beginners that work hard, and I do, but I would not want to learn from them. I however, do not believe you have to be a black belt to teach in all arts, but there must be some sign or recognition given in order to separate those who should be qualified to teach from those who are still learning the system.

True, but how can you affix one set of standards ir qualifications from one art to another? How can one say for sure that one is not qualified?

 

[evenflow1121]

True, but how can you affix one set of standards ir qualifications from one art to another? How can one say for sure that one is not qualified?

Thats a really good question, I really cant answer it, there are just so many organizations sprouting out nowadays giving out ranks its very hard to keep up with the ones that are legit from the con artists.

As far as qualifications from different arts go, I dont mean every style should have a bb, but styles should simply differ the students from the teachers. For example, JKD does not use a belt system, but there is a recognition or certification given to those who can be instructors and those who are still just students. Just something that shows a person is qualified to teach the particular system, not necessarily a bb.