Higher Ranking Black Belt Poomse

[Laurentkd]

What do you think?
Should a student wait until the specific rank (i.e. 7th Dan, 8th Dan, even 3rd Dan) to learn the form that corresponds to that rank? Or should a student learn them at any rank and figure that by the time they are testing for a specific rank they better just be really good at all the forms under their rank? (hope that makes sense).
I see both ways:
A) You can always improve any form you are working on, so why would you need to learn extra forms too early (in my opinion this point carries a lot of weight). Plus, then by the time you get to those higher ranks you will have no new form to learn and be excited about (I, at least, am always excited about new forms).
But...
B) You should learn these higher forms while you are still able bodied enough to perform them well. You should also learn them now from your master or grandmaster while you have the opportunity. For example, when I am an 8th Dan my Grandmaster will be in his 80's and my Master will be in his 60's. What if at that time either of them is unable to teach (no offense to my seniors here, I know many people do many great things in their 60's but this is for arguments sake) or even no longer alive? will I then just learn the form out of a book, or hope I can find someone else old enough to teach me but not so old as to be unable to teach me?

I can't decide what I think. Although, to be fair, my Grandmaster told my Master he would teach him any form at anytime. Although, also to be fair, my Master has refused to learn any form beyond his current rank!

 

[IcemanSK]

I think learning the higher rank forms anytime after BB is a great idea. It will give students an appreciation for them. Heck, it may even motivate them to continue training. In my first school, the only BB form I ever saw was Koryo. I honestly thought that all the BB's at my school were 1st Dans because of this! I thought that they higher forms were somehow mysterious simply because I'd never seen them.

Now I watch GM Lee, Kyu Hyung perform Hansoo & I'm inspired! I think higher rnk forms should be taught to BB's for that reason alone.

And yes, some of them are hard on older bodies. They seem to be made for younger folks.

 

[terryl965]

I believe you should two forms higher than your actual rank, so if you are doing Tae Guek 1, then you should be learning 2 and 3 as well. If you are doing Koryo then you should be working on Kuem kang and Tae Beck. This is just my take on things.

 

[Laurentkd]

I believe you should two forms higher than your actual rank, so if you are doing Tae Guek 1, then you should be learning 2 and 3 as well. If you are doing Koryo then you should be working on Kuem kang and Tae Beck. This is just my take on things.

Cool idea, I have never thought of that before. Care to say more about why you feel this way sir?

 

[Kacey]

In contrast, I think you should learn patterns - and especially black belt patterns - at the rank intended. Yes, there are movements in some of the tuls that require a level of athleticism most often seen in those in their 20s - but in the Ch'ang H'on pattern set, the most athletic tuls are those learned for III Dan, rather than the higher ones. That's not to say that a certain amount of athleticism isn't needed for the others - just that the higher ones are technically athletic (slow motion high section kicks) rather than athletically athletic (jump split kick - that's a twisting kick with the lead leg and a side kick with the rear leg, simultaneously, in the air).

Also, there is a progression in the tuls that would be muddied, at best, if tuls were learned out of order. Each tul has a personality, a technique or type of technique that is the focus of the tul - learning them out of order would blur those lines for most students and make finding the distinctions more difficult.

Many kicks are learned 2-4 gup ranks, or 1-2 black belt ranks, prior to those kicks being included in tuls; learning the tuls early would require learning those kicks (and quite a few other techniques) early, overloading students who are trying to learn basic techniques and more advanced variations at the same time. And learning a tul poorly and having to relearn it because a technique had not been learned far enough in advance that it has to be relearned is a waste time, for both the student and the instructor.

The line drill techniques used in class - which are the ones required for testing - are generally taken from the tuls the student is learning for the next testing. Sure, there are techniques that take longer to master, and I teach them sooner so that students have longer to work on them - but I want my students to be working on the tul(s) for their next testing, not for 2 testings after that.

In addition, while competition is not a major driving force in my instructional patterns (although we do spar more as we get closer to tournaments that my students will be participating in), students only allowed to compete with patterns up to their current testing tul(s), and, to ensure that they cannot be penalized for being unable to do a tul not learned yet (especially for those who tested shortly before the tournament and may not have learned the new tul(s) yet), they can only be required to do tuls up to the one(s) for their previous rank test. So teaching them tuls early would only penalize them, in that sense.

If your organization is set up such that you can - and especially, if it's set up that you should - be learning your forms early, great! But for myself and my students, I prefer to learn techniques at the rank for which they are required and intended.

 

[terryl965]

Cool idea, I have never thought of that before. Care to say more about why you feel this way sir?

Well One reason is simple my GM gas always required this in his students. The second reason is simle if you are going to try and make a National team for poomsae they can choose any poomsae from the first all the way up to two higher than your rank.

My GM Kim always pushed us to be a head of our position at his school, kinda like in school you could just do the grade level and get by or you could push yourself and really be a head of your grade. I have always been an over achiever so that is why.

 

[ArmorOfGod]

What do you think?
Should a student wait until the specific rank (i.e. 7th Dan, 8th Dan, even 3rd Dan) to learn the form that corresponds to that rank?

Overall, I think they should learn them sooner than 7th dan and 8th dan. Realistically, one would have to be at least 50 years old to be a 7th dan, so waiting that long would be a bit much.

AoG

 

[Kacey]

I will also add that the last rank at which one learns a Ch'ang H'on pattern is 6th dan.

Also, if you're not going to be a senior dan rank until you are 40 or 50 or 60 - that's the rank at which you'll have to perform the pattern - not younger. So why rush? Learn things in the intended sequence, do the best you can - no one can expect you to do more than your best anyway.

 

[terryl965]

I will also add that the last rank at which one learns a Ch'ang H'on pattern is 6th dan.

Also, if you're not going to be a senior dan rank until you are 40 or 50 or 60 - that's the rank at which you'll have to perform the pattern - not younger. So why rush? Learn things in the intended sequence, do the best you can - no one can expect you to do more than your best anyway.

This is true Kacey and I agree there is no rush to your training. I have to also agree with my GM here for those that require to be more than others, in other word being above the curve it is not a bad thing. I have always tried to be the very best that I personaaly can be, do I want the same for every student yes do they want that most likely not. We each must do what is best for us in our training and we must try our best to fellow our Instructor wishes as well.

 

[IcemanSK]

I guess perspective has a lot to do with how one looks at things. My perspective, having never seen the higher forms, I want to learn them all. From an instructor's point of view, Terry's looking two ahead at the most, makes sense. From that perspective, it makes a great deal of sense.

 

[exile]

Here's what I think of as the real crux of this question: where did the concept of a progressive gradation of form difficulty in tandem with a progressive advancement of technical competence come from? Because that's what this form <&#8212;> rank association is all about. And the evidence is pretty clear that it's a comparatively recent thing that TKD inherits from its Japanese karate parents.

We have a lot of very solid testimony that 19th c. MA training in Okinawa was of the one-on-one, mentor/protogé type, and that basically the master gave the pupil a kata to learn, study, analyze and apply, often for years at a time. We know that both Funakoshi and Motobu studied Naihanchi, intensively and almost exclusively, for years and regarded it as the foundation of their own combat methods. The idea was that with correct bunkai, each of these kata contained a whole universe of fighting methods, and that at most two or three would provide you with techniques applicable to almost every combat situation you would find yourself in.

But when

&#8226; Funakoshi took karate to Japan and began mass instruction in university gymnasiums, with karate becoming a kind of martial calisthenics (as per the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Education desiderata);

&#8226; bunkai largely dropped out of the curriculum (partly because of the Japanese government understanding of what karate was useful for, and partly because of the `Secret Pact' that Gennosuke Higaki attributes to the Okinawan expat karateka not to teach the true combat applications to native-born citizens of the racist imperialist occupying Japanese state); and

&#8226; a Kano-style belt system was introduced to quantify technical progress as reflected in `standardized testing', rather than the individual master/apprentice guild-type arrangement that had been in force in Okinawa...
​

... the role of kata changed enormously and technical advancement became partially defined by smooth performance of kata of increasing difficulty, without concommitant knowledge of how those kata were to be decoded and applied as the manuals of practical self-defense techniques they originally were. And the KMAists who learned their trade in Japan in the 1930s learned that model of kata status. And not much has changed since, in the crucial respects: hyungs, often largely composed of recycled and recombined bits of O/J kata, are organized on a gradient of difficulty which is only rarely coupled with analysis for combat use, and even more rarely trained for that purpose, under realistic street-defense conditions. Instead, the idea is that learning the hyung performances, and carrying them out flawlessly under examination pressure, using progressively more complex forms, is a way to chart your progress through the TKD curriculum and indicate the degree of mastery you've attained.

Now you can buy this story, or reject it. If you buy it, then clearly you shouldn't be getting ahead of yourself; you can't learn differential equations without calculus, and you can't learn calculus without algebra, so trying to learn how to solve differential equations when you've had exactly three weeks of algebra is pretty futile. But if you reject that story, then beyond the very basic `trainer' hyungs like the Kicho/Taikyoku series, the crucial consideration is not how complex the forms are but how good you are at extracting combat meaning from them. If you think of what the primary purpose of the hyungs, derived from their kata ancestors, is&#8212;to show you how to fight effectively against any initiation-move used against you by an attacker&#8212;then it doesn't make tremendous sense to think of a specific order of form learning as sacrosanct, because the key to competence isn't in the (often very slight) performance/athletic difficulty of the forms, but in the ability to derive hard, effective defense techniques from the forms. In which case, there's no particular reason to learn hyungs in any particular order: if you know the methods for extracting combat use from them, then rather than forming a kind of graded hierarchy, a ladder, of `difficulty', they're more like the petals of a daisy&#8212;different, but equally valuable, repositories of close-quarters defensive techniques.

The original kata weren't arranged in a a linear sequence of increasing difficulty in Okinawa; which one(s) you learned reflected your teacher's preferences, nothing more. If someone takes that same perspective with KMA hyungs, I don't see a good basis for disagreement. To my way of thinking, Palgwe Ee-Jang and Palgwe Chil Jang have the same depth of combat resources that careful bunkai can recover, though the techs will be at least partially different. And from what I've seen, the same is true for the black belt forms as well: they form a daisy, not a ladder. The fact that large top-down MA federations have played a fundamental role in determining which of these forms you learn when is, for me, cause for a great deal of doubt that there is any intrinsic logical order to the acquisition of these form. You can always tell a seemingly persuasive story after the fact. But I'm very doubtful that anyone could demonstrate convincingly that there was an unequivocal built-in order in which these `advanced' hyungs should be learned. My guess is, a gifted teacher could teach any of these forms in any order and get completely satisfactory results from the same set of students...

 

[IcemanSK]

Here's what I think of as the real crux of this question: where did the concept of a progressive gradation of form difficulty in tandem with a progressive advancement of technical competence come from? Because that's what this form <—> rank association is all about. And the evidence is pretty clear that it's a comparatively recent thing that TKD inherits from its Japanese karate parents.

We have a lot of very solid testimony that 19th c. MA training in Okinawa was of the one-on-one, mentor/protogé type, and that basically the master gave the pupil a kata to learn, study, analyze and apply, often for years at a time. We know that both Funakoshi and Motobu studied Naihanchi, intensively and almost exclusively, for years and regarded it as the foundation of their own combat methods. The idea was that with correct bunkai, each of these kata contained a whole universe of fighting methods, and that at most two or three would provide you with techniques applicable to almost every combat situation you would find yourself in.

But when

• Funakoshi took karate to Japan and began mass instruction in university gymnasiums, with karate becoming a kind of martial calisthenics (as per the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Education desiderata);​

• bunkai largely dropped out of the curriculum (partly because of the Japanese government understanding of what karate was useful for, and partly because of the `Secret Pact' that Gennosuke Higaki attributes to the Okinawan expat karateka not to teach the true combat applications to native-born citizens of the racist imperialist occupying Japanese state); and​

• a Kano-style belt system was introduced to quantify technical progress as reflected in `standardized testing', rather than the individual master/apprentice guild-type arrangement that had been in force in Okinawa...​

... the role of kata changed enormously and technical advancement became partially defined by smooth performance of kata of increasing difficulty, without concommitant knowledge of how those kata were to be decoded and applied as the manuals of practical self-defense techniques they originally were. And the KMAists who learned their trade in Japan in the 1930s learned that model of kata status. And not much has changed since, in the crucial respects: hyungs, often largely composed of recycled and recombined bits of O/J kata, are organized on a gradient of difficulty which is only rarely coupled with analysis for combat use, and even more rarely trained for that purpose, under realistic street-defense conditions. Instead, the idea is that learning the hyung performances, and carrying them out flawlessly under examination pressure, using progressively more complex forms, is a way to chart your progress through the TKD curriculum and indicate the degree of mastery you've attained.

Now you can buy this story, or reject it. If you buy it, then clearly you shouldn't be getting ahead of yourself; you can't learn differential equations without calculus, and you can't learn calculus without algebra, so trying to learn how to solve differential equations when you've had exactly three weeks of algebra is pretty futile. But if you reject that story, then beyond the very basic `trainer' hyungs like the Kicho/Taikyoku series, the crucial consideration is not how complex the forms are but how good you are at extracting combat meaning from them. If you think of what the primary purpose of the hyungs, derived from their kata ancestors, is—to show you how to fight effectively against any initiation-move used against you by an attacker—then it doesn't make tremendous sense to think of a specific order of form learning as sacrosanct, because the key to competence isn't in the (often very slight) performance/athletic difficulty of the forms, but in the ability to derive hard, effective defense techniques from the forms. In which case, there's no particular reason to learn hyungs in any particular order: if you know the methods for extracting combat use from them, then rather than forming a kind of graded hierarchy, a ladder, of `difficulty', they're more like the petals of a daisy—different, but equally valuable, repositories of close-quarters defensive techniques.

The original kata weren't arranged in a a linear sequence of increasing difficulty in Okinawa; which one(s) you learned reflected your teacher's preferences, nothing more. If someone takes that same perspective with KMA hyungs, I don't see a good basis for disagreement. To my way of thinking, Palgwe Ee-Jang and Palgwe Chil Jang have the same depth of combat resources that careful bunkai can recover, though the techs will be at least partially different. And from what I've seen, the same is true for the black belt forms as well: they form a daisy, not a ladder. The fact that large top-down MA federations have played a fundamental role in determining which of these forms you learn when is, for me, cause for a great deal of doubt that there is any intrinsic logical order to the acquisition of these form. You can always tell a seemingly persuasive story after the fact. But I'm very doubtful that anyone could demonstrate convincingly that there was an unequivocal built-in order in which these `advanced' hyungs should be learned. My guess is, a gifted teacher could teach any of these forms in any order and get completely satisfactory results from the same set of students...

exile,

Once again you have given us food for thought. I tend subscribe to the idea that skill level (mastery if you will) of a certain boon hae in a form should be graduated from what is "mastered" in previous forms. In my organization, Bassai Dae (Pal Sek) is practiced for 3rd Dan testing. However, in the 1960's (when my GM learned it) it was taught as a 1st gup form. It can be debated that yesterday's 1st gup is today's 2nd or 3rd Dan, but that is not my point here. My GM, who's GM is Park, Hae Man (Tae Guek author) also is a proponent of graduated techniques for forms. I think in the case of Bassai Dae, the 3rd Dan test seemed to e the best place to add the form. He adds Yun Bi (Yum Bi, as he calls it) as one of 4 4th Dan forms. (When is Yun Bi "traditionally" tested?)

 

[Laurentkd]

The original kata weren't arranged in a a linear sequence of increasing difficulty in Okinawa; which one(s) you learned reflected your teacher's preferences, nothing more. If someone takes that same perspective with KMA hyungs, I don't see a good basis for disagreement. To my way of thinking, Palgwe Ee-Jang and Palgwe Chil Jang have the same depth of combat resources that careful bunkai can recover, though the techs will be at least partially different. And from what I've seen, the same is true for the black belt forms as well: they form a daisy, not a ladder. The fact that large top-down MA federations have played a fundamental role in determining which of these forms you learn when is, for me, cause for a great deal of doubt that there is any intrinsic logical order to the acquisition of these form. You can always tell a seemingly persuasive story after the fact. But I'm very doubtful that anyone could demonstrate convincingly that there was an unequivocal built-in order in which these `advanced' hyungs should be learned. My guess is, a gifted teacher could teach any of these forms in any order and get completely satisfactory results from the same set of students...

I had never thought of this, but you make a (several) great point. When I learned Tae Baek I couldn't get over how similar it was to Pal Gwe Sam Jang. And the idea that a 3rd Dan form was so similar to one of the third Pal Gwe seemed odd. Help me out here, but I believe the Black Belt forms weren't developed until the Tae Gueks were, so maybe the idea was just to incorporate the bunkai found in PG 3, which would be lost otherwise (totally shooting from the hip here- thoughts anyone?). I also have always found Koryo to be (on the surface) the most technically difficult of any Black Belt form that I have learned, which also seems counter-intuitive for a 1st Dan form.
Like what you said, I think as long you know how to pull out the application of the movements you should be ok with anything.
At least that is my opinion only looking at learning high ranking forms from this angle...

exile,

Once again you have given us food for thought. I tend subscribe to the idea that skill level (mastery if you will) of a certain boon hae in a form should be graduated from what is "mastered" in previous forms. In my organization, Bassai Dae (Pal Sek) is practiced for 3rd Dan testing. However, in the 1960's (when my GM learned it) it was taught as a 1st gup form. It can be debated that yesterday's 1st gup is today's 2nd or 3rd Dan, but that is not my point here. My GM, who's GM is Park, Hae Man (Tae Guek author) also is a proponent of graduated techniques for forms. I think in the case of Bassai Dae, the 3rd Dan test seemed to e the best place to add the form. He adds Yun Bi (Yum Bi, as he calls it) as one of 4 4th Dan forms. (When is Yun Bi "traditionally" tested?)

I think I agree with what you are saying! I think the Tae Gueks are definitely in an order that get more complex as you go through them. To learn them in any other order wouldn't be helpful to the student. But, once a student is at a level that all basic movements come easily (you could argue when this would be, probably 2nd or 3rd Dan would be my opinion) I would think (like Exile said) that you could learn any form and be able to have the grasp of it. At least according to your level at that time. I am sure as you mature in the arts your opinions/expression of the form would change, but would it really be more difficult for a 5th dan to learn an 8th dan form than a 5th dan? Having no knowledge of either of them I guess I wouldn't know!
I don't think I am familiar with Yun Bi. I don't think it is a "Kukkiwan" form. Can you tell me more about it or how it is used in your system?

 

[IcemanSK]

Lauren,

Both Bassai Dae (Pal Sek), & Yun Bi pre-date the Kukkiwon. Bassai is sometimes used by TSD folks, but rarely TKD folks in my experience. I'm not sure about Yun Bi.

 

[terryl965]

Lauren,

Both Bassai Dae (Pal Sek), & Yun Bi pre-date the Kukkiwon. Bassai is sometimes used by TSD folks, but rarely TKD folks in my experience. I'm not sure about Yun Bi.

I don't know about that I'm TKD and I do Bassia and Yun Bi and have been for ever it seems and I teach them in my curriculum as well.

 

[rmclain]

I don't know about that I'm TKD and I do Bassia and Yun Bi and have been for ever it seems and I teach them in my curriculum as well.

This would make sense, since you learned Okinawan karate from your father. Or did you learn these forms from your TKD teacher?

Your son did a nice job demonstrating Bassai Tae when I visited your school a while back. But, I didn't think you knew Yun Bi. I would have liked to see that form demonstrated also.

R. McLain

 

[newGuy12]

What do you think?
Should a student wait until the specific rank (i.e. 7th Dan, 8th Dan, even 3rd Dan) to learn the form that corresponds to that rank?

Yes. This is the way that I was taught, and I follow this path blindly (I do that from time to time).

I see both ways:
A) You can always improve any form you are working on, so why would you need to learn extra forms too early

Yes, that's right. No one has the form perfectly. No one. So, it is better to keep it simple and only learn the hyung that you have right now.

B) You should learn these higher forms while you are still able bodied enough to perform them well.

The Master Instructor can do these hyungs even if they are an Old Man. This is not a concern.

When I still had my GrandMaster with me, He would get VERY ANGRY if anyone were trying to look too hard at the upper belts doing their forms. And, don't even think about trying to do the motions and getting caught. You will do YOUR form, and review the previous ones. That is the way that it was for us. And, I accept that.

In this day in age, it is much easier to skip ahead if you wish, because there are resources available on the Net, but I do not.

I do have an inclination to try to learn the HUNG-GA Tiger&Crane form, but that would only be for my own, not for any TKD, and that is a special case. I do not have time to do that right now, though.

 

[terryl965]

This would make sense, since you learned Okinawan karate from your father. Or did you learn these forms from your TKD teacher?

Your son did a nice job demonstrating Bassai Tae when I visited your school a while back. But, I didn't think you knew Yun Bi. I would have liked to see that form demonstrated also.

R. McLain

Yes you are right that I learned it from my father but also my old GM tought it as well and yes i and my sone does Yun Bi, maybe next time we get together after the first for the grand opening of the new school we can show you. Thank you for the kind words about my son.

 

[e ship yuk]

In the gup ranks, keeping someone to their current rank form, or within a couple of ranks, is probably best, but I'd say it's really a call for the instructor on an individual basis. Is the student demonstrating proper execution of his/her current forms? Are they demonstrating knowledge pertaining to that form (name meaning, applications, history, etc, as applicable to your school)? Challenge them. Give them a new form. See how they do with it, how they play with it. Learning a form "early", to me, isn't about "complexity" or how "advanced" the form is - it's about brain load. You don't want to give a student so much new information they lose some of the old.

In the dan ranks, go for what you're comfortable with. Again, at the instructor's discretion, but the student has much more input here. The instructor may say, "Looking good, want to learn a new form?" The student says, "Yeah, how about X?"

 

[terryl965]

I will give you a scenio for your thoughts, I have a yellow belt that cannot seem to remember Tae Guek Il jang but for some strange reason he can do Koryo. When I ask how come is answer was a sincere one because it looked cooler to do than the other one. Sometimes it is a matter of intensity for the student, some wish to be challenged while other are just fine being at the level they are at. I do not let him proform Koryo around any student but he can in privates with me, do I personnally like this no, for he does not understand anything except movements but I applaud his work ethic.