Black Belt...Probationary? Decided? Senior? Huh?

[irgordon]

What is this system in some schools where they have this Deputy Black Belt, Probationary, Decided, Senior stuff? What the heck is that about??

I trained for over 6 years to get my black belt, it took a lot of grueling hard work...I don't understand these schools that make it seem like you have to jump through hoops to attain "black belt" and then have it broken down into some kind of hierarchy outside of "1st to 9th" Dan.

Maybe someone can explain it to me?

 

[dancingalone]

The more grades you have, the more belt tests you can administer. $$$ is the reason for the most part, though I am sure there are some exceptions.

That said, I think you can still have good instruction and good training regardless of the belting scheme. There's a good thread in the archives you can search for titled something like 'In Defense of the McDojo' where the correlation, active or not, between money-making and actual training is discussed.

 

[irgordon]

I suppose, I guess being from a more traditional schoo, it doesn't make sense because our goal isn't to make money. I was taught, if you are learning and training, rank really doesn't matter. You should be focused on becoming a better athlete or martial artist. Continuing to improve on what you learned the day before and helping to bring the junior students to where you are.

The whole McDojo debate is obviously something very American, because it focuses mainly on trying to breaking a system that works into something more commercial and trivial. A system has a rank structure, usually 9 gup levels and then the Black Belts where their are usually another 1-7/8 with just a time in rank between each...i guess they needed to convince students to stay so they broke the time in rank, into actual ranks of Probationary, Decided and Senior...so it justifies them keeping the student, who wants to continue to achieve rank...when if they trained them well or in another way, they would be focused on the training and the workout, not the piece of material on their waist...I think it just upsets me, that I worked so very hard and finally achieved my 1st Dan, that to see others hold it such lower regard that they had to break it down into something seemingly arbitrary....

But as they say C'est La Vie (such is life)...

 

[dancingalone]

9 gup ranks is a somewhat arbitrary number to begin with to be honest. The Korean founders could have picked some other number important in their culture... Why not 3 for example?

I wouldn't get too hung up on the idea of breaking apart curricula into multiple, easily digestible units. In the end, it's just a method of organizing material. What difference does it make if it takes 120 semester hours vs. 180 quarter hours to get a US bachelor's degree in say history? The same material is covered in both.

 

[sfs982000]

In the organization that I belong to there are recommended and decided ranks up through 2nd Dan. I've heard that there are some schools that make you test for both recommended and decided ranks for each gup rank, but my school only requires that we test for recommended and decided ranks once we obtain 1st Dan. I don't necessarily agree with the system, but I accept it because of the training that I get there, I personally believe either you're a black belt or not, but again I accept the grading structure and just press on with my training and try to improve.

 

[Gentle Fist]

I know many schools/styles in the U.S.A. have gone to junior and senior class ranks (non-black belt) for children so that they don't stay at one rank for too long. So for example; there would bellow a junior yellow belt followed by senior yellow belt. As far as probationary black belt goes, I have seen it used in some schools for students who are cross ranking and come into the school with a decent amount of prior experience.

 

[Earl Weiss]

We have a probationary period following the test. Been that way for 36 years. There is no monetary component.

 

[Kwan Jang]

Our schools have been, like Earl's, using a probationary period following the test ever since I was training under them and especially back then, money was never a consideration.

 

[andyjeffries]

I suppose, I guess being from a more traditional school, it doesn't make sense because our goal isn't to make money. I was taught, if you are learning and training, rank really doesn't matter. You should be focused on becoming a better athlete or martial artist. Continuing to improve on what you learned the day before and helping to bring the junior students to where you are.

I think it just upsets me, that I worked so very hard and finally achieved my 1st Dan, that to see others hold it such lower regard that they had to break it down into something seemingly arbitrary....

I find your views very conflicted. You say that "rank really doesn't matter" then you complain that it upsets you when it's achieved easier by someone else.

I used to be more in line with your views. I'd see another dan holder and think "man, they're rubbish, who on earth gave them that rank". Somewhere along the journey this changed to "good for them getting that rank, I hope they're using it to help pass on the art and help more people learn".

For me now, higher rank just means I can get my students to a higher rank. If I'm making a positive difference to my students lives and they are improving then I'm doing my job. As my students get higher rank, I need to keep getting higher rank to be able to help them.

Rank is just a marker along the journey. If you are improving constantly, then rank becomes very arbitrary, like just a flag in the ground behind that says I reached this level at that time in my life and now I've moved on.

I have a 3rd Dan student that only passed his 3rd Dan 18 months ago. I'm talking to him about preparing for his fourth dan and considering what he needs to do to get there (physical skills wise he's not far off now). His first answer was "I won't be doing it when I'm time eligible, maybe a few more years". My issue with that is that if he thinks like that he's not putting the focus on himself to improve. If that attitude is there a student is more likely to spin their wheels rather than actively trying to improve. If a student is constantly training and trying to improve then promotions should just happen (with never a concern over failing) as the improvement is a constant process.

I have a black tag who technically knows Taekwondo. Has been training for over a decade. He's, how can I put this, not very gifted physically. I'd let him test for 1st Dan whenever he's ready, but it's him that's holding himself back because he expects to be better before he gets 1st Dan. I don't know if he'll ever meet his expectations. I don't know whether others would feel he's worth 1st Dan. I do know that I don't care - he's much better now than he was 5 years and a lot better than 10 years ago and it's way past time he had the coveted piece of black cloth around his waist.

 

[Grenadier]

What is this system in some schools where they have this Deputy Black Belt, Probationary, Decided, Senior stuff? What the heck is that about??

It's really not much different from what a lot of schools do; it's simply the same thing from a different nomenclature.

From my days in Tae Kwon Do, whenever someone took an exam, there were four possibilities:

1) Decided rank - you basically passed unconditionally, with the full support of the judging panel, and your chief instructor. This was the typical exam result, since most folks would be very well prepared for their exams.

2) Recommended rank - most of the judging panel voted to pass unconditionally, but there may have some members who might not have agreed, and the final judgement call would go to your chief instructor, who would usually grant the unconditional pass if someone had been training consistently. This would occasionally happen, when someone made a couple of minor mistakes, but nothing major.

3) Probationary rank - when most of the judging panel decides that you did well enough to pass, but you have some deficiencies that must be corrected before you learn new material. Once you correct the deficiencies, then you were granted an unconditional pass.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of schools (not just Tae Kwon Do) do something similar, although they might not call it as such.


As for deputy black belts, we had such a ranking, which used a red belt with a black stripe on it, for 1st gup holders who had passed their next exams. Those with the deputy black belts basically didn't have an official gup or dan ranking, other than "pre-chodan," and would test for 1st dan the next time around.

Again, it's not really anything new, since a lot of systems out there consider 1st gup / kyu holders to be pre-chodan / pre-shodan. To make them look like apples to apples comparisons, you could simply shift the ranking systems over by one level, and they'd match up.

I trained for over 6 years to get my black belt, it took a lot of grueling hard work...I don't understand these schools that make it seem like you have to jump through hoops to attain "black belt" and then have it broken down into some kind of hierarchy outside of "1st to 9th" Dan.

Maybe someone can explain it to me?

In the older days, there weren't nearly as many color belts around. In the Karate world, you'd maybe have white belts, green belts, brown belts, and black belts. The problem with this, though, is that there may have been a very steep learning curve going from white to green, which is a time when a lot of students might not be able to handle such a large amount of information at one time, especially when it comes to younger folks.

Does adding more steps along the way make it look like more hoops to jump through? I do agree with you, that they do. However, I can also support such measures, since they give your students a tangible goal that they can see, without being overwhelmed. As they continue to train, they won't get overwhelmed nearly as easily as they did in their earlier days, and in the end, the finished product can be just as good as the one who didn't go through all of the steps.

A better way to look at a school is to see how their black belts are doing. If a school continually produces good black belts who represent well, and exemplify the very image of self-improvement, then I'd say that the school's methods work quite well. If, on the other hand, you have black belts who don't show significant self-improvement, then I'd question the school's methods for certain.