Special Belt for Experienced Students From Other Schools/Similar Styles

[MadMartigan98]

Looking for thoughts on potential pitfalls that I may not have considered:

Using a belt color (like Grey, or maybe a brown with a white stripe running through it, etc) that has nothing to do with my school's regular belt system for experienced transfer students.

Not active transfers from the same style (old style Taekwon-Do), but for people like:
- A karate Brown Belt moving to my town and starting to learn our style
- A former black belt in a very similar style of TKD, but who was starting back again after over 20 years away from training

These people are not white belts. Their experience and general knowledge sets them apart from the beginners, but they are missing specifics of our curriculum or are just really rusty. They could then test into our ranking where it makes sense after an appropriate evaluation over several months or more.

I know (and agree) that 'it's better to wear a white Belt and have people ask why, than to wear a black belt, and have people ask why'.

I've had this idea rolling around in my head for over a year, and am now really considering giving it a try. I think this could be a good way to recognize and validate the new tranfer, while showing that... Yes, they are a senior student, but that they don't know all our stuff yet.

Any thoughts on whether this would or would not work, and why?
Thanks

 

[ap Oweyn13]

If I'm being honest, my gut reaction was to just let them begin again. It's what I did in changing styles. Though, when I take a minute, the reasoning behind that was obvious. I was changing from TKD to Eskrima. And, beyond some very fundamental attributes (e.g., balance, awareness, etc.), I was learning a brand new skill set without a ton of carryover.

But when I start thinking about this from the perspective of other people in the class, I warm to the idea a lot. It's human nature to judge yourself and your progress by the people on either side of you. If you're a 55-year-old like myself, you might rake yourself over the coals for not being as readily flexible as a teenager (a feeling that obviously doesn't make sense rationally). Comparing yourself with a newer student at your school when they have substantial experience in something else isn't really fair to you.

If this belt makes other students look at the "new" student and say "well, they're not starting from scratch though, are they," I think that could be a good thing.

There's a lot about a belt system that's actually about signaling something to other people. And, given the reality of people exploring different styles and schools, signaling that you're new here BUT not just naturally gifted... I kind of like it.

At the same time, it conveys the idea that someone is something different until they've earned their placement in the current system. So there's some accountability built into it as well.

I also like the idea of gray, as this represents sort of a gray area in terms of ranking systems.

All that said, I haven't participated in a ranking system in decades. And it's been more of a "know what you know" setup. But if you are using a ranking system, I rather like this idea. For whatever that's worth.