How Important Are the Number Of Black Belts In A School?

[Daniel Sullivan]

So, what are your thoughts on this? Do you feel that if you walked into a school and the instructor said that he trained 30 people to BB level vs. him saying that the BB rank is hard, not impossible to reach in his school, thus he only has a handful, that that is a factor in whether or not someone would join the school?

My personal thoughts are that I want to see the quality of the students. The instructor boasting about how many BB's he has promoted is white noise. Actually, 30 isn't really all that many, so I would wonder why he was boasting about such a number or if it were an indication that it was challenging and thus only 30 people actually have gotten to that point thus far.

A healthy school should have a mix of students in all grades, ideally with a preponderance of students in the kyu grades. A school with few to no black belt (or equivalent rank) students is an indicator of a retention issue. A school with a preponderance of good quality black belts is likely having a recruiting issue. A school with a preponderance of black belts who look like green belts or yellow belts is probably handing them out like candy and is probably suffering from other issues.

A brand new student walking into a school will not have the same perspective that I do, however.

 

[MJS]

My personal thoughts are that I want to see the quality of the students. The instructor boasting about how many BB's he has promoted is white noise. Actually, 30 isn't really all that many, so I would wonder why he was boasting about such a number or if it were an indication that it was challenging and thus only 30 people actually have gotten to that point thus far.

A healthy school should have a mix of students in all grades, ideally with a preponderance of students in the kyu grades. A school with few to no black belt (or equivalent rank) students is an indicator of a retention issue. A school with a preponderance of good quality black belts is likely having a recruiting issue. A school with a preponderance of black belts who look like green belts or yellow belts is probably handing them out like candy and is probably suffering from other issues.

The 30 was just a random number. It could be replaced with fewer or more. As for the 2nd paragraph, you're right....however, just because there aren't 50 (again, random number here) BB's running around, could simply mean that the inst. is putting quality over quantity. I mean, lets use the BJJ testing standards for discussion purposes. Sure, someone may have promoted people to Black, but the time that it took, well, its obvious they (the inst) didn't have tons of them initially. Think about it...how many arts can we honestly say, follow that kind of promotion standard? Not many.

A brand new student walking into a school will not have the same perspective that I do, however.

True, however, depending on age, and given the fact that people seem to think the BB is some magical, mystical thing......

 

[puunui]

So, what are your thoughts on this? Do you feel that if you walked into a school and the instructor said that he trained 30 people to BB level vs. him saying that the BB rank is hard, not impossible to reach in his school, thus he only has a handful, that that is a factor in whether or not someone would join the school?

Today, no. I think having a lot of black belts is a good thing. It is always good to have seniors that you can mentor with. I think it is kind of strange when the head teacher is grandmaster level, the school has been around a while, and his students are all color belts.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Today, no. I think having a lot of black belts is a good thing. It is always good to have seniors that you can mentor with. I think it is kind of strange when the head teacher is grandmaster level, the school has been around a while, and his students are all color belts.

I agree with that. But if the school is healthy, meaning that yudanja are eventually being trained to step out on their own, and thus are leaving a few years after earning their first dan (say at around fourth of fifth dan), mudanja are moving up to fill the void left by promoted chodans or departing chodans, and new students are enrolling to replenish promoted mudanja and departing mudanja.

Thus there should always be more colored belts than black belts. There is a percentage of colored belt students who will leave for various reasons prior to reaching chodan and there is a percentage of students who will leave upon or some time after reaching chodan.

Those who stay long enough to attain chodan and then continue on long enough to actually become instructors themselves are a kwanjang's core students and part or all of the instructional staff.

This is the normal cycle of students in a healthy school.

If a school is losing its yudanja and senior students more quickly than students are becoming yudanja and senior students, it is a signal that something is wrong. The tempation at that point is for the GM to promote people more rapidly to replenish their yudanja, but the quality suffers and the rapidly promoted students do not have the depth in the art to effectively mentor junior students.

The inverse, loss of mudanja prior to chodan resulting in a top heavy student body is also a sign of trouble.

The former is an issue with retention. The latter is an issue with enrolement.