How to deal with a 12 year old 2nd Dan

[Tez3]

Calm down Tez3. Most people outside the UK wouldn't know how a Yorkshire accent sounds and how unsnobby it is. At the end of the day, it's happened and the world has kept rotating. People joke all the time about more serious things than someone missing out on a gold medal (I've read loads recently about the Australian floods).

It doesn't mean they don't think it was/is serious, it's just a light-hearted way of blowing off steam.

Don't get your knickers in a twist, we're well known for having a sense of humour in England...

Oh dear you don't know me very well I'm afraid if you think I'm upset so please don't tell me to calm down. When you've been here a while you will realise that. I post always with tongue in cheek so don't get all po faced and precious please. If someone posts nonsense up they will get a sarky answer, simples.

 

[Bruno@MT]

I'd probably say that you train your students in groundwork and this 6th Dan didn't train in groundwork, so given the rules of the 'contest' your student bested him in unfamiliar rules. If you had said "no holds barred" I'd assume the 6th Dan could have pasted your white belt. However, I'd also expect the 6th Dan to have refrained from pasting him as he was a "younger student".

Overall I'd say this says nothing about rank...

+1.

Sometime ago we did something interesting in class. an opponent was supposed to hold us down, and we were to try to escape. To make it interesting, the other guy was allowed to grab us however we wanted without us resisting. The point of the exercise was to see if you could escape from a disadvantaged position. What I did to escape is something I only did because my trainingpartner and I know each other and we were both making the same assumptions about what could happen.

If I did what I did at e.g. a seminar to a white belt of another system, the chances are people would be very mad and I would be expelled.

And when I was helping teach kids JJ classes when I was younger, sometimes the kids would win because I did not do anything mean or very painful. Ditto for when I practiced free form groundwork during seminar breaks with students from other systems. The point was not to win or to lose but to have fun. It didn't say anything about who was good or bad.

 

[Tez3]

I don't expect all that much maturity from a 2nd Dan, anymore than I would expect them to contribute meaningfully in the types of discussions that we are having here. I know when I was a 2nd Dan, I wouldn't have been able to participate in many of the discussions that flow over the internet. At 2nd Dan, I was concerned with other aspects of the martial arts.

LOL, and the English have just been accused of being snobby! What about all the people under the grade of 2nd Dan who perhaps have taken years to get to first because their system doesn't promote quickly? Or who perhaps don't grade at all but have been in martial arts a very long time?
How old were you when you were 2nd Dan?
Do you think therefore anyone under say 3rd Dan rank shouldn't be contributing anything on here then?

 

[Bruno@MT]

A 2nd dan in Genbukan would have been training for about 12 - 14 years, and be over 20 at least. Given that time in the organization, I would expect a fair bit of maturity.

 

[andyjeffries]

Oh dear you don't know me very well I'm afraid if you think I'm upset so please don't tell me to calm down. When you've been here a while you will realise that. I post always with tongue in cheek so don't get all po faced and precious please. If someone posts nonsense up they will get a sarky answer, simples.

Fair enough and the "nowt" did make me wonder if you were just being cheeky

From one brit to another, understood

 

[Tez3]

Fair enough and the "nowt" did make me wonder if you were just being cheeky

From one brit to another, understood

We have a poster on here from Yorkshire who is now a 'Yorkshire-American' he hasn't been on for a while, busy serving in his new country's armed forces so over the years we've had a fair bit of 'Yorkshire' and Welsh too for that matter on here. I expect Yorkshirelad will turn up when he can though, he can't help being a Northerner but southerners do rule ok! (Hope that makes him post lol, we miss him!)

 

[andyjeffries]

LOL, and the English have just been accused of being snobby! What about all the people under the grade of 2nd Dan who perhaps have taken years to get to first because their system doesn't promote quickly? Or who perhaps don't grade at all but have been in martial arts a very long time?
How old were you when you were 2nd Dan?

That's a good point, Puunui is pretty senior in Taekwondo so I'd imagine he was quite young when he was a 2nd Dan. Personally I was 18 when I got my second dan, so I'd say my immaturity in anything I'd have posted then was because of my age rather than grade and it could be that Puunui is seeing things similar - if he was a 2nd Dan very young then he'd naturally associate it with immaturity.

Maybe I'll also see things differently when I reach the higher grades. I know I see 1st/2nd Dan very differently now to how I saw them when I was one

That doesn't mean that they shouldn't contribute - often times people learn things when they post and debate, it may strengthen their opinion or change it, but in any case everyone learns.

 

[Tez3]

That's a good point, Puunui is pretty senior in Taekwondo so I'd imagine he was quite young when he was a 2nd Dan. Personally I was 18 when I got my second dan, so I'd say my immaturity in anything I'd have posted then was because of my age rather than grade and it could be that Puunui is seeing things similar - if he was a 2nd Dan very young then he'd naturally associate it with immaturity.

Maybe I'll also see things differently when I reach the higher grades. I know I see 1st/2nd Dan very differently now to how I saw them when I was one

That doesn't mean that they shouldn't contribute - often times people learn things when they post and debate, it may strengthen their opinion or change it, but in any case everyone learns.

When I was 18 I was in the RAF in a responsible job as were many of my colleagues, I didn't start martial arts until I was in my thirties and I've been doing them for over twenty years now. I got my 1st Dan in TSD ( also 1st kyu Wado Ryu) eight years ago, I haven't graded since as I've been too busy with MMA as well as TSD. I train occasionally with a TKD friend in his class just for the fun of it.
I know a great many 18 year olds, not all in martial arts but all are very mature, war does that to people sadly. My student who was killed was just 20, age isn't everything but a 12 year old 2nd Dan is ridiculous. We don't even grade 'junior' black belts, they have to be 18 at least, they also have to be able to hold their own against the MMA people, a 12 year old may be able to do kata/forms/patterns but lacks the strength and the 'brain' to be able to intelligently defend themselves or even teach.

 

[andyjeffries]

When I was 18 I was in the RAF in a responsible job as were many of my colleagues...I know a great many 18 year olds, not all in martial arts but all are very mature, war does that to people sadly.

War definitely adds maturity. I wasn't meaning to say that there aren't mature 18 year olds (I felt fairly mature myself and was running a small Taekwondo club at 18). Just that most 18 year olds aren't (as I'm sure your local paper will attest as well as mine does).

We don't even grade 'junior' black belts, they have to be 18 at least, they also have to be able to hold their own against the MMA people, a 12 year old may be able to do kata/forms/patterns but lacks the strength and the 'brain' to be able to intelligently defend themselves or even teach.

Does that mean they should have no rank progression beyond 1st Kup then?

For that matter, if you had someone start when they were 6 and someone start when they were 14 (assuming 4 years to black belt) should they be considered equal when they both turn 18 and 1st Dan? The 6 year old starter has 12 years in the art compared to the 14 year old starter's 4 - and while I know they don't progress as much in the early years, surely the experience should count for something.

I'm not a fan of clubs giving juniors Dan grades (they can't get Kukkiwon Dan grades, but some independents call them 1st Dan), but I believe they should have progression and recognition of their years of training so I agree with the Kukkiwon's Poom grades.

Also, particularly as it's limited in how high they can go, I'm less bothered about 1st/2nd Dan now than I used to be. I used to see 1st Dan as super ninja killing machine, but as I've progressed in Taekwondo my outlook has changed

 

[andyjeffries]

I expect Yorkshirelad will turn up when he can though, he can't help being a Northerner but southerners do rule ok! (Hope that makes him post lol, we miss him!)

Southerners are best ;-)

(I'm about 30 miles north of London BTW).

 

[Tez3]

War definitely adds maturity. I wasn't meaning to say that there aren't mature 18 year olds (I felt fairly mature myself and was running a small Taekwondo club at 18). Just that most 18 year olds aren't (as I'm sure your local paper will attest as well as mine does).



Does that mean they should have no rank progression beyond 1st Kup then?

For that matter, if you had someone start when they were 6 and someone start when they were 14 (assuming 4 years to black belt) should they be considered equal when they both turn 18 and 1st Dan? The 6 year old starter has 12 years in the art compared to the 14 year old starter's 4 - and while I know they don't progress as much in the early years, surely the experience should count for something.

I'm not a fan of clubs giving juniors Dan grades (they can't get Kukkiwon Dan grades, but some independents call them 1st Dan), but I believe they should have progression and recognition of their years of training so I agree with the Kukkiwon's Poom grades.

Also, particularly as it's limited in how high they can go, I'm less bothered about 1st/2nd Dan now than I used to be. I used to see 1st Dan as super ninja killing machine, but as I've progressed in Taekwondo my outlook has changed

We only teach TSD and Judo to the children and they don't stay with us much beyond 3 years when they leave as their parents are posted out. It's one of the reasons we do MMA for the adults, we could do TSD/karate and grade them but as they are constantly either on exercise or deployment. MMA means they can come back and pick up where they left off, it's possible of course in a TMA but very discouraging. The military aren't bothered about rank in their martial arts really and prefer just to train.

We allow the children when they join us to keep the grade they reached at their last club ( some have had two or three clubs) it's unfair to take it away and make them start from scratch, it's bad enough having to change homes, schools, clubs etc without having to lose rank everytime. We just adjust around it, it probably wouldn't gain a purists approval but it means children can still train martial arts. We also try to teach them about as many other arts as we can, specifically the honourifics and etiquette so at their next club they won't feel too out of place.

We haven't had a Dan graded child in yet, probably because the children don't stay at any club long enough to gain it but if we did it would be understood that the child doesn't rank with us as a Dan grade, we can't endorse that high a rank we've had nothing to do with awarding. We'd have to discuss it with the parents etc to see how we'd handle it. It would depend on the child, the age and experience, we wouldn't want to demote any child though so we'd come up with a compromise.

 

[andyjeffries]

We only teach TSD and Judo to the children and they don't stay with us much beyond 3 years when they leave as their parents are posted out. It's one of the reasons we do MMA for the adults, we could do TSD/karate and grade them but as they are constantly either on exercise or deployment. MMA means they can come back and pick up where they left off, it's possible of course in a TMA but very discouraging. The military aren't bothered about rank in their martial arts really and prefer just to train.

Very interesting.

We also try to teach them about as many other arts as we can, specifically the honourifics and etiquette so at their next club they won't feel too out of place.

I think that's brilliant and very open thinking of you. It's important for kids not to feel out of place and as you say, they have enough of that to deal with in the rest of their young lives.

We haven't had a Dan graded child in yet, probably because the children don't stay at any club long enough to gain it but if we did it would be understood that the child doesn't rank with us as a Dan grade, we can't endorse that high a rank we've had nothing to do with awarding. We'd have to discuss it with the parents etc to see how we'd handle it. It would depend on the child, the age and experience, we wouldn't want to demote any child though so we'd come up with a compromise.

I'd be interested in hearing your approach if it ever happens...

I think you actually have a very nice way of dealing with things from your fairly unique perspective. It may explain some of the differences in thinking on here, so I want to thank you for taking the time to post it. I really appreciate it.

 

[Tez3]

Very interesting.



I think that's brilliant and very open thinking of you. It's important for kids not to feel out of place and as you say, they have enough of that to deal with in the rest of their young lives.



I'd be interested in hearing your approach if it ever happens...

I think you actually have a very nice way of dealing with things from your fairly unique perspective. It may explain some of the differences in thinking on here, so I want to thank you for taking the time to post it. I really appreciate it.

Thank you!

Our chief instructor was also army so he's had the same sort of martial arts career, doing whatever style was available wherever he was posted. It probably means we are more focused on what works rather than who our instructor's instructor was, our martial arts are very pragmatic. In fact I follow a lot of what Iain Abernethy does and go off and train on his seminars whenever I can, they also work very well for TKDists who are great attenders of his course.
While it would be nice to have the same style and instructor all your martial arts life, you can get very insular and cut off from other martial arts. With the MMA we are constantly on the look out for techniques that work, we have some students who have done TKD before they joined up and we've found TKD melds very nicely into MMA. We have people who've boxed, as well as most mainstream martial artists. Plenty of non martial artists as well start with us. It means rank isn't an issue with us, respect for everyone is much more important.
The Gurkhas here do TKD as part of their training and every recruit starts as a white belt even though some are higher grades from before they joined up.They have patterns for the Kukri which are very good to watch.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Yes, i have met a 12 year old 2nd Dan but it was intended or anything.

I was promoting tkd club at school when one kid asked what dan my instructor was and i truthfully said 3rd and he said we has training under a 8th dan and he himself was a 2nd dan.

While it was harsh i just laughed in his face and called him a fake, the next day i apologised and asked if he could atleast come and watch the class, just so i could understand if he actually was any good but he turned to me and said "Thanks for apologising but I dont want to go because your instructor cant teach me anything because he is only a 3rd dan".

If you called me a fake, I wouldn't attend your class either. Nor would I want to learn from your instructor. Its human nature. You cannot laugh at and insult someone and then expect them to want to come to you for classes; you've already set up an antagonistic environment.

At this stage i was absolutely fuming with rage, i was thinking a ruptured spleen would go well with such pig headed and arrogant comment but i just left.

The fact that you were fuming with rage demonstrates a serious lack of maturity on your end. You insulted him. You called him a fake. He will be defensive with you because you verbally attacked him first. You apologized. He declined your invitation on the basis of statistics: he trains under a paldan, you train under a samdan. He declined your invitation without returning you any insult and you are fuming with rage at him. Rage. Because a twelve year old that you insulted didn't want to come train with you.

You besmirched your instructor by behaving as you did.

You need to take a long look in the mirror at your own behavior, young man.

Now i wondering what i could to prove that he cannot actually be a 2nd dan let alone a black belt, i was thinking of printing article 8 of the kukkiwon regulations to show that his belt is fake but i would like to know opinions of more experienced people.

And what if his school is not Kukkiwon? What then?

And even if his school is Kukkiwon, this kid is what? Twelve? Like he knows the difference between a poom and a dan. There is no regulation in the Kukkiwon that requires poom grade students to be issued a belt of another color. Most schools give first poom students a black belt and a poom certificate. A twelve year old is going to be focused on that black belt, not on the color of his or her certificate.

Keep in mind, black belt is not a rank, but simply a belt that shows that the student has completed the geub grade material. That is. The rank is either first poom (under 15) or first dan (15 and over).

P.S. please dont tell me to forget him, why? because i would feel slightly guilty that i am allowing a possible crooked instructor exploit the naiveness of a kid, even if he dissed my hogu

I also demoed poomsae koryo infront of a massive group of people at school knowing that it may show that if a green belt can do it then his 2nd dan doesnt mean anything at all, it worked on everyone except him

Why is his second dan somehow meaningless just because you can do a blackbelt form at greenbelt? And when did your hogu come into the discussion? Before or after you called him a fake?

While I agree it's probably better to ignore any slight a 12 year old 2nd Dan may make, I can see it's galling to work hard over time for your rank and to have a child who by virtue of their age can't have put much time in.

Except that they're both children. Nuhash promoted his club at school, which the twelve year old obviously attentds. Sounds like middle school. This isn't an adult who worked his or her butt off for over a decade being outranked by some child. This is a child with eight to twelve months in being outranked by a kid with one to two years in.

I think nuhash has done well in posting because he's obviously learned something from this situation which has got to be a good thing. As for the 12 year old, as I said, pride goes before a fall.

Everyone keeps commenting about how prideful or arrogant this twelve year old was. I don't know; I just don't see it.

1. Kid sees other kid promoting TKD club.
2. Kid askes kid who's promoting the club what rank his instructor is.
3. Kid promoting club tells first kid that his instructor is third dan.
4. First kid is asked his rank.
5. Kid offered his rank by kid promoting TKD club .
Kid promoting TKD club laughs at him and calls him a fake.
6. Kid promoting club goes home and thinks about it and realizes that his behavior toward the other kid was not beneficial to promoting his TKD club so he apologizes and asks him to show up.
7. The first kid, being twelve, is as gracious as he can reasonably be: he thanks the kid promoting the club for the apology but declines to come because he's already learning from an 8th dan and doesn't feel that he will benefit learning from a 3rd dan (who's green belt student just called him a fake the previous day).

Doesn't sound like pride to me. Sounds like he's just trying to get the guy who insulted him off the phone. The OP posted a follow up that was a definite improvement, but he still seems to feel that his offering of an apology should result in the kid whom he insulted now wanting to come to his club. So accepting the apology apparently isn't good enough.

Daniel

 

[Tez3]

To be fair the OP has not only stated that he was in the wrong and feels that it was a mistake so lambasting him even is a bit late, he already sees he's made a mistake and has said he'll learn from it. 12 year olds can be hugely annoying, they practice it a lot. One reason for not giving 12 year olds 2nd Dan 'status'. I may not have called the 12 year old a fake but I certainly wouldn't have thought a lot of him, his rank or his club/instructor.
Everyone, even me, was young once and the whole point is that you make mistakes and you learn from them. Hopefully the 12 year old will as well as the OP but then the OP has the benefit of us to put him right :lol:

 

[leadleg]

So, to you it's amusing that a young woman's dreams of Olympic gold are smashed then? Sarah is from Yorkshire and you'll find nowt snobby about her, she worked hard for years only to see her chances ruined by the judges favouring the Chinese girl.

Does this sound snobby or like a young woman to be proud of and see as a role model?


"I started Taekwondo at the age of seven, back then Taekwondo wasn′t as popular as is it today and there were a lot less opportunities available to us.
I know what it′s like to have to raise money or find financial support from your parents/families just to attend competitions or to buy equipment. I also know how hard it is to have a full time job and try to find the time to train. Taekwondo has come such a long way and nowadays our elite athletes receive great support from UK Sport via the BTCB and Sport Taekwondo UK.
We can′t all be blessed by being naturally talented and I don′t believe I am. I′ve always had to work hard to be where I am today, and I have always had great support and advice from the people around me, especially my Instructor Master Gary Sykes. Being a successful athlete can be like a rollercoaster, it′s not smooth ride and there have been so many ups and downs for myself and for every champion.
The message that I want to get across is that I have struggled at times, I have been seriously injured (a lot) and I know how hard it is to keep going when things seem to be going against you, but believe me, if you stick at it, believe in yourself and always give 100% in everything you do then you can achieve your goals whatever they may be."

http://www.sarahstevenson.net/

Dear, I certainly did not mean to be more than tounge n' cheek here. I have to say though that Sarah being in KKW TKD at the age of seven was probably one of those 12 year old bb's you seem to despise. Also I think my joke would be less ofensive to her than your snide remarks on the sport she has trained so long and hard for.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

To be fair the OP has not only stated that he was in the wrong and feels that it was a mistake so lambasting him even is a bit late, he already sees he's made a mistake and has said he'll learn from it. 12 year olds can be hugely annoying, they practice it a lot. One reason for not giving 12 year olds 2nd Dan 'status'. I may not have called the 12 year old a fake but I certainly wouldn't have thought a lot of him, his rank or his club/instructor.

Well, to be fair to the instructor, we still don't know that the twelve year old really is a second dan or if he's even Kukkiwon.

To be fair to the twelve year old, Nuhash never demonstrated that the kid was annoying prior to being insulted. I think that everyone just assumed that he was.

Everyone, even me, was young once and the whole point is that you make mistakes and you learn from them. Hopefully the 12 year old will as well as the OP but then the OP has the benefit of us to put him right :lol:

Indeed.

Daniel

 

[Tez3]

Well, to be fair to the instructor, we still don't know that the twelve year old really is a second dan or if he's even Kukkiwon.

To be fair to the twelve year old, Nuhash never demonstrated that the kid was annoying prior to being insulted. I think that everyone just assumed that he was.


Indeed.

Daniel

Of course he was annoying before being insulted , just by being a 12 year old boy, ask any 12 year old girl! In fact all 12 year old boys should be insulted :flame:

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Of course he was annoying before being insulted , just by being a 12 year old boy, ask any 12 year old girl! In fact all 12 year old boys should be insulted :flame:

Yes, but fourteen and fifteen year olds have their own reputations for being annoying. And I suspect that Nuhash is probably fourteen.

Daniel

 

[Tez3]

Dear, I certainly did not mean to be more than tounge n' cheek here. I have to say though that Sarah being in KKW TKD at the age of seven was probably one of those 12 year old bb's you seem to despise. Also I think my joke would be less ofensive to her than your snide remarks on the sport she has trained so long and hard for.

Not in the least snide, they are straight up, in your face.