Dumping the Dan System

[philwhite44 1]

Has anyone here dumped the dan system from their school making black belt their top belt. No stripes. As a new school start up this is what we are planning on doing. I'm trying to remove some of the layers of politics belts create. I also feel like as a small family based school, this better fits our identity. I've gone back and forth on this idea a few times but I think its the right one. I'm sure some rank chasers may feel like we're not for them but I'm hoping those who enjoy what we do decide its a good decision.

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

I don’t really understand your motivation for doing this. It sounds a bit like, “Why not just make ‘ten’ louder?”

‘Removing layers of politics’? Humans = politics and being the bestower of grades will have you embroiled in evermore complex politics quicker than a maegeri-gyakuzuki combination!

Why not get rid of all kyu grade belts and have the first belt a black one? Why not have 256 kyu grade belts and make black belt 6 years to achieve? Just give people a number to denote their ability but ten has to be the highest, for obvious reasons (see above).

 

[wab25]

You could look at a boxing gym. The one I went to had a head coach. He was the guy. There were other coaches, that worked under him and did the training, each seemed to have his own specialties. The people training knew the pecking order. These guys fight higher up on the card, these guys fight at the lower end of the card, these guys are just here training.

They seemed to get along fine. Everyone knew who to listen to, whose advice to take. Everyone seemed willing to help each other out. About the only thing they could do was run around holding rank over each other....

This system might work for most of the martial arts out there.... if we can agree to put our colored thingies down and just train.

 

[philwhite44 1]

We all have different motivations. We are a small independent school that is not associated with a larger organization. When I first joined karate I had no idea there were degrees. I just thought karate was cool and something I wanted to pursue. My experience with degrees has been less than positive so I'm working on building something different. We are just doing White-Black which is where I am comfortable with teaching and I have no moral issues as I will not have to promote above my level.

 

[ap Oweyn19]

Bear in mind that I've spent most of my time in martial arts with no ranking system at all. Though I did follow ranking systems in the beginning, both for taekwondo and Doce Pares eskrima. All of that said, I don't see this as a bad idea at all. If (like we've discussed in the past) you're doing your own thing, then the ranking system is largely a reference for you as the teacher and for the students themselves. You're not beholden to fitting within a larger organisation. The black belt is THE reference point for most beginners anyway.

Personally, I like the idea that students who reach a certain level are going to continue to learn and train based on their own intrinsic motivations (though what those motivations are specifically may vary from one person to another). I got my first-degree black belt in eskrima and almost immediately walked away from ranking systems. So, despite starting martial arts in (give or take) 1983, I have precisely one first-degree black belt. And that's it.

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

The coloured belt system was brought in by Kano Jigoro as he believed it was good means of encouraging children (he was an educationalist)…by providing an incentive to ‘change colour’ like those little star sticker that are given for good behaviour/doing chores. By having just white and black belts you might find your younger students become demotivated to progress. My Karate style had just three belts; white, green and brown before the Dan-i system kicked in. It was a tortuously long time before changing colours but I was not an ordinary student with regards my enthusiasm and indeed, my obsession.

Might you be reorganising things based upon your own limited views and experiences and therefore be taking the risk of ‘getting it wrong’? Are you just reinventing the wheel in your own image (the best ones are always circular, incidentally)?

If I were setting up a new school (perish the thought), I’d absolutely join a national (preferably international) association with high-graded teachers who’d come in to teach seminars and ‘anonymously’ grade my students. They’re likely to have made all the mistakes and sorted them out, have a well-established belt/teaching system and insurance system.

 

[Flying Crane]

I think it could be a good trend. It always made me wonder why someone with enough stick-to-it-ness to achieve the Dan grades would continue to need a new trophy to chase after in order to keep inspired to train.

I’ve thought about a system having two Dan grades: one is achievable through skill and knowledge while the other is an authorization to teach. This recognizes that not everyone wants to teach, and there are many who should definitely not teach. The teaching credential is not necessarily higher than the non-teaching. Both rankings could be bestowed on a student at the same time, or the teaching credential could come later, or never, depending on circumstances.

Everyone still has room to learn and grow. People ought to be mature enough to recognize who their seniors are. But there needn’t be any more chasing after additional rank.

This also assumes that a teacher be mature enough to relinquish control once they bestow a teaching credential on their student. A newly credentialed teacher has authority to teach and bestow rank as they see fit. It could bring an end to empire building with senior teachers holding junior teachers under their control for whatever purposes. If you give someone a teaching credential, you need to trust in their judgement and capabilities and be willing to let go of the control.

 

[skribs114 134]

It's possible...but then you run into a few issues.

1. If black belt takes a short time to get to (let's say 3 years), then there isn't much to separate the students from the Masters or Professors or whatever you call them in your system. A TKD Master is usually 4th or 5th degree, which can take 8-12 years minimum (or more) to get to. A BJJ Professor is a black belt, which also typically takes that long or longer. I generally equate a TKD black belt to an Associate's degree, where a TKD 4th degree or a BJJ black belt would be more like a doctorate. How do you differentiate between an associate's and a PHD?
2. If black belt takes a long time to get to, (let's say 12 years), then you're just shifting the problem down. There will be politics in the red or brown belt. There will be politics between the black belts. It's just not going to get rid of the black belt.

I say that, and then I say this: for me personally, in a similar position as you (close to opening my school, without a high dan rank or a path to get one), I'm considering making 4th degree the highest in my system. At least for now. If more come later, then I will adapt. But for now the simple solution is to make it so 4th degree is the cap.

So I'm kind of doing the same thing you are thinking of.

I just thought of another thing to add to scenario 1 above. A lot of folks quit at the first goalpost. This is black belt in TKD or blue belt in BJJ (which are roughly similar in how long it takes to get and what it means to people within the art). Having another goalpost is a good way to keep folks motivated.

 

[philwhite44 1]

If black belt takes a short time to get to (let's say 3 years), then there isn't much to separate the students from the Masters or Professors or whatever you call them in your system. A TKD Master is usually 4th or 5th degree, which can take 8-12 years minimum (or more) to get to. A BJJ Professor is a black belt, which also typically takes that long or longer. I generally equate a TKD black belt to an Associate's degree, where a TKD 4th degree or a BJJ black belt would be more like a doctorate. How do you differentiate between an associate's and a PHD?
I just thought of another thing to add to scenario 1 above. A lot of folks quit at the first goalpost. This is black belt in TKD or blue belt in BJJ (which are roughly similar in how long it takes to get and what it means to people within the art). Having another goalpost is a good way to keep folks motivated.

We plan on extending the color belt timeframe within reason and we plan to do a lot to celebrate our long term students and future black belts. I'm sure there will be ups and downs with the decision but I think its the right one for our school.

As far as people quitting, I think this happens regardless of stripes. Black belts quit too and life happens for all of us.

 

[skribs114 134]

We plan on extending the color belt timeframe within reason and we plan to do a lot to celebrate our long term students and future black belts. I'm sure there will be ups and downs with the decision but I think its the right one for our school.

I had considered this, but ultimately decided against it. I got my color belts on a certain timeframe, it would feel strange to hold my students back in theirs.

 

[philwhite44 1]

I had considered this, but ultimately decided against it. I got my color belts on a certain timeframe, it would feel strange to hold my students back in theirs.

When I was in karate at my old school we had like 12 color belts. I believe they have added a few since then. They also created a secondary system with stars for black belts. There was a reason for this many belts/stars. It was to make money, not martial artists. We have 8 total belts (including black) and no testing fees.

I'm not reinventing the wheel, just changing how someone gets from point a to b. The techniques are the same. Standards may be slightly different. I feel its a fair approach. Again how long someone takes to get from white to black is largely dependent on committment. If someone went to every class and put in a little extra effort it may take 4 years. Someone else could be more casual and take 7.

 

[philwhite44 1]

Also when I mention MA politics... A lot of schools hold students in limbo for years by dangling belts infront of them. Brown belt limbo is definitely a thing and it happens at black belt as well. By withholding a belt, instructors string along people for indefinite timeframes. There are a lot of opportunities for manipulation and its unfortunate.

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

I think it could be a good trend. It always made me wonder why someone with enough stick-to-it-ness to achieve the Dan grades would continue to need a new trophy to chase after in order to keep inspired to train.

Those people will continue training even if they received a congratulatory slap across the face for passing a grade! It’s those who are teetering and children who I think the coloured belt system may encourage.

I’ve thought about a system having two Dan grades: one is achievable through skill and knowledge while the other is an authorization to teach.

A bit like a ‘menkyo kaiden’

This recognizes that not everyone wants to teach, and there are many who should definitely not teach.

I wouldn’t want to teach beginners and children They shouldn’t be allowed

The teaching credential is not necessarily higher than the non-teaching. Both rankings could be bestowed on a student at the same time, or the teaching credential could come later, or never, depending on circumstances.

“Here’s a teaching rank that allows you to pay for the privilege of teaching, stop you from training yourself and cause irritation when the students repeat the same mistakes over and over because they don’t practise between classes.”

This also assumes that a teacher be mature enough to relinquish control once they bestow a teaching credential

In my experience, teachers tend to be more than a little protective of their teaching. Their martial arts expertise is often the only real position of responsibility they have in their lives, one in which they receive adulation and respect from others; who’d want to give that up when your work boss regularly denigrates you, your wife has her eyes permanently rolled back in their skulls in your presence and your children barely raise their eyes from their device and grunt at you on your return from your soul-destroying job?

on their student. A newly credentialed teacher has authority to teach and bestow rank as they see fit.

I think training duration and intensity (‘depth of practise’) is a more important criteria for teaching ability. I once asked a teacher how I might prevent my knee sliding here doing this when I had to do that. He said “Just stop doing it” He had no idea how to advise except with that unhelpful piece of advice. On asking an experienced teaching he looked at my performance and said, “Ah…I can see it the set up issue two moves before the issue presents. Try doing x, y, z.”

It could bring an end to empire building with senior teachers holding junior teachers under their control for whatever purposes.

It’s how every major association is structure. It’s far from perfect, like democracy, and hobbles along with issues splits etc from time to time, but we’ve seen how the alternatives do!

If you give someone a teaching credential, you need to trust in their judgement and capabilities and be willing to let go of the control.

Yes indeed, but how do you gain that confidence without years and years of association with them?

 

[skribs114 134]

When I was in karate at my old school we had like 12 color belts. I believe they have added a few since then. They also created a secondary system with stars for black belts. There was a reason for this many belts/stars. It was to make money, not martial artists. We have 8 total belts (including black) and no testing fees.

I'm not reinventing the wheel, just changing how someone gets from point a to b. The techniques are the same. Standards may be slightly different. I feel its a fair approach. Again how long someone takes to get from white to black is largely dependent on committment. If someone went to every class and put in a little extra effort it may take 4 years. Someone else could be more casual and take 7.

Here's what I mean. In my situation, I'm a 4th degree black belt. I got my 1st degree black belt in a little under 2 years (although 6 total years if you factor in my previous training when I was a kid), 2nd degree a year later, and 3rd degree two years after that. 4th degree took a lot longer (for reasons I've covered extensively in other threads, but will mention a bit in response to your next quote).

If I were to make it so that 2 years in you could test from yellow to purple, 3 years in you could test to orange, 5 years in you could test from green to blue, and 8 years in you could test from brown to black...I feel like I'm pulling the rungs up from under me and making it harder for people to make the same achievement.

To someone who knows the martial art, "I'm a purple belt in BJJ" really means something. But to most lay people, "I'm a purple belt in BJJ" means "I do BJJ, but I'm not a black belt."

I know these are minor things, and belts shouldn't be the be-all end-all. But it's something I really feel is that I shouldn't artificially hold people back.

---

Then there's the other side of it. If folks come to my school with previous training, how do I fit them into my system? Someone comes in with a red belt they got in 1.5 years, do I have them keep that red belt, even though it would be a 6-year belt in my system? What do I do with someone who comes in with a black belt, when black belt is the Mastery level in this model?

I'm not a big fan of resetting people at white belt. This is based on my experience in BJJ where your belt color follows you from gym to gym, and my experience going to a Hapkido school where the guy's attitude was, "I don't care what belts you've gotten in other schools, I've never given you a belt, so you're a white belt here." (Meanwhile I'm a black belt in Hapkido).

Having the initial black belt be a more forgiving rank and then going up to 4th degree gives me the leeway for folks to come in with rank and represent that rank well.

Also when I mention MA politics... A lot of schools hold students in limbo for years by dangling belts infront of them. Brown belt limbo is definitely a thing and it happens at black belt as well. By withholding a belt, instructors string along people for indefinite timeframes. There are a lot of opportunities for manipulation and its unfortunate.

I feel this is something that definitely happened in my case, it's part of why I didn't get my 4th degree until very recently, why it wasn't registered with the organization, and ultimately why it fell apart.

I was thinking about this again recently. To sum up my relationship with my previous Master: he was a great teacher, a poor manager, and a terrible mentor. He could teach the skills and was very polished in his teaching up through the 1st degree black belt curriculum, but past 2nd degree he didn't always remember the curriculum very well, and he wasn't very good at setting expectations with his staff. He also tended to get jealous whenever someone would come to me for advice instead of him (because he's the Master).

Also, something I didn't really think of until recently, is that in the other school I visited since moving away from him, the owner referred to his wife as "Master", where in my main school, the owner referred to his wife as "Mrs.". I think my previous Master did not want to call someone else "Master", because then he would be "a master" and not "The Master" of the school.

There's another student at the school who is 4th degree in a different organization, 3rd degree in our organization. He is referred to as "Mr." despite also being referred to as a 4th degree. When formally introduced, he is introduced as "4th degree black belt", not "4th degree Master black belt."

So I wonder if part of the reason he wasn't very inclined to promote me to 4th degree is that he didn't want to share the Master title.

 

[skribs114 134]

You could look at a boxing gym. The one I went to had a head coach. He was the guy. There were other coaches, that worked under him and did the training, each seemed to have his own specialties. The people training knew the pecking order. These guys fight higher up on the card, these guys fight at the lower end of the card, these guys are just here training.

They seemed to get along fine. Everyone knew who to listen to, whose advice to take. Everyone seemed willing to help each other out. About the only thing they could do was run around holding rank over each other....

This system might work for most of the martial arts out there.... if we can agree to put our colored thingies down and just train.

I think it makes sense to combine rank and title requirements if you have a martial art with a large organization and you're trying to standardize across thousands of gyms with hundreds of thousands of practitioners.

Something like:

• Red/brown belts are assistant instructors
• 1st degree black belts are junior instructors
• 2nd degree black belts are instructors
• 3rd degree black belts are senior instructors
• 4th degree black belts are chief instructors
• 5th degree black belts are masters

This is great if your organization has hundreds of upper degrees, thousands of 4th degree black belts, and tens of thousands of black belts at the other ranks.

It's not so great if you're just starting an unaffiliated school and you really need yellow belts to help with the 4-to-6-year-old class because you need someone -ANYONE- to help herd the cats.

In my BJJ gym, the first coaches* in the tots class were 10-12-year-old gray-and-white belts, because they were our highest ranked kids at the time.
*Coach in this context is the same as an assistant instructor.

---

This pecking order exists in my BJJ gym largely absent of the belt system. Here's some anecdotes about how it's worked:

• One of the brown belts is running a kid's Muay Thai class. The owner/Professor wants to use the corner of the mat to stretch. He asks, "Can I be on the mat right now?"
• Right now, we have a new black belt we've brought in to my gym to be the head Professor of this gym, so the owner/Professor can float between all of our locations more easily. For right now, I'm the one running the little kid's class. Because I have more experience with this class, I'm the one showing the black belt the ropes on how we operate.
• I've mentioned this in other threads, but the Professors and coaches at my gym tend to defer to whoever is running a class or even who has expertise in a specific area. When a brown belt is running a Q&A session, Professors will add on extra thoughts, but will let the brown belt run it. They don't take over, they don't argue. They may debate a little bit or say, "what works for me is...", but there's no need to flex their black belt over the other. And when a wrestling question comes up, the brown belt -despite having pretty good wrestling- turns to a blue belt who's been nationally ranked as a wrestler and asks for his input.

It's easily possible to separate the rank system from the title system and establish a pecking order. I honestly think its easier than combining them together. It's just less manageable at scale.

 

[Gyakuto115 124]

Also when I mention MA politics... A lot of schools hold students in limbo for years by dangling belts infront of them. Brown belt limbo is definitely a thing and it happens at black belt as well. By withholding a belt, instructors string along people for indefinite timeframes. There are a lot of opportunities for manipulation and its unfortunate.

I suppose that the disadvantage of grading your own students, something of which I’ve never been a fan.

 

[skribs114 134]

I just realized another reason why this might not work out well: tournaments are usually based on a standardized system. If you promote your students too slowly for the competitions would take part in, then your students are effectively sandbagging or cheating.

If my blue belt takes 5 years to get minimum, and the rest of the blue belts at the tournament have been training between 1-2 years, then my students should win because my students have been training more than twice as long as the others. But it's not a reflection of my teaching ability, but simply that my students are sandbagging.

This isn't something that tends to come up in my TKD experience (especially because high-level competitions require you to be a black belt anyway), but is something that's very important in an art like BJJ. It's very controversial whether competitive gyms should hold back rank to give you more wins at your current rank against easier competition.

I'm not sure how that would apply to your Karate school. However, it's one of the big reasons I am avoiding this in mine.

I may have just spent the last half-hour or so workshopping this idea to see if I could adapt it to my system, and that's when I hit that realization. If I were to take 5-year blue belts to a competition, I would effectively be cheating the other schools that have a faster program.

 

[philwhite44 1]

@skribs I'm not looking to make belt progression as slow as BJJ. Its more or less settling in on a 4-7 year timeline. Also unless you are 100% tournament focused you should not let competition dictate your program flow.

And the sandbagging phenominon is mostly a BJJ thing. I don't think too many karate or TKD fighters put much weight in blue belt competition wins.

 

[ap Oweyn19]

I'm inclined to challenge the idea that it's reinventing the wheel for the sake of it. It's just a different wheel.

If I were teaching again, I wouldn't use a ranking system at all. But assuming you have one, I don't see any harm in having a black belt be the end of that ranking system, marking the transition to a different set of motivators.

I think the argument around what differentiates a black belt from a seasoned black belt is fairly simple. It's knowledge and/or ability (recognising that literal ability may deteriorate with age). We're "ranked" by what we do and what we understand. The belt system represents that difference semiotically, but I do question whether that's necessary. Or reliable for that matter. We've all seen plenty of schools that gave out black belts that we questioned. So how useful a symbol is it if it could represent an almost limitless range of possibilities in terms of skill level?

So then there's two solutions: 1) overhaul the awarding of all belts everywhere, guaranteeing that the belt is a true representation of a universally recognised standard or 2) do away with it and focus on demonstrated capability. Actually, come to think of it, there's a third option: 3) accept that a belt system is mostly relevant as an internal gauge of skill level in relation to others within your training environment. In that case, it seems to me that the belt system should be set up in a way that best serves as a reference for that particular teacher or school.

The black belt is a huge attrition point whether a school has Dan grades or not. Given that "black belt" is the universally recognised symbol of martial arts skill (rightly or no), I don't know that further levels beyond that are that powerful a motivator regardless.

Do what makes sense to you. You're teaching. That's the advantage of not being affiliated. If you trust in what you're teaching, your metrics are your business.

 

[skribs114 134]

And the sandbagging phenominon is mostly a BJJ thing. I don't think too many karate or TKD fighters put much weight in blue belt competition wins.

Back in the 90s, my Mom entered a tournament with an intermediate belt. There was a woman who was a black belt who had never won a gold medal, so she put on an intermediate belt and competed. What she lacked in technique or precision she made up in power, leaving multiple women in the bracket with contusions or other injuries to their legs.

My Mom never competed again after that.

It's definitely something that can affect a TKD tournament.