Time-in-grade requirements and prior experience, catch-up mechanics

[skribs]

This has kind of come up in a discussion in the Taekwondo forum, about someone transferring from a KKW school to an ATA school and how long it would take to "catch up" to their KKW rank. It got me thinking about a broader picture. Maybe going from KKW to ATA, but also maybe going from TKD to Karate, or something even bigger.

For the sake of this discussion, we'll use "Art 1" and "Art 2" as the arts we're talking about.

• Art 1 can be any art at all. It may or may not have a rank system.
  
  
• Art 2 is an art with a rank system, (i.e. belts) where the curriculum is expanded as you go up in rank. Someone in the white belt level will be doing the basic forms, techniques, and drills, while the people at the higher ranks will be learning advanced techniques, more complicated forms, higher resistance drills, and will have more freedom in sparring.
  
  Art 2 has time-in-grade requirements for testing for new belts, where you must be at one rank for a period of time before going on to the next belt. (As an example, my school does tests every 2 months if you're ready, but red belts have to wait at least 4 months, and black belts have to wait 1 year per current degree in order to qualify for the next degree - i.e. 2 years to go from 2nd to 3rd, 3 years to go from 3rd to 4th).

Someone with several years experience in Art 1 may be comfortable with starting over as a white belt in Art 2, but may quickly become frustrated if they already have much of the muscle memory and coordination the white belt curriculum is designed to teach, and have to wait until they are a green belt or a red belt to feel like they're learning anything.

Even if they don't know the forms and don't know the specific techniques, someone with a lot of experience in one art may pick up the techniques and patterns a lot faster than someone else. In my case, as a 3rd Dan in KKW Taekwondo, I imagine I'd pick up the forms and test requirements in an ATA school or Shotokan school a lot faster than I would have as a white belt, and definitely a lot faster than someone my age coming in off the street with no experience. (The hardest part for me would be to change the techniques that are done different at the new school).

And I've seen this with students that come to our school. Even though we're KKW, we do different forms from most KKW schools. But students who come in as green belts or red belts usually learn our forms pretty quick. We even just had a couple kids come in from a Shotokan school and they seem to be adapting pretty well at the same rank (which is why I made the assumption that I could go there and quickly assimilate).

Now, I'm not saying that I should just go to these schools and be handed a 3rd-degree black belt to complement my KKW certification.

However, I'd hate to move and go to a karate school and have to progress at the same rate a complete a newbie would. I would want to feel like my 9 years experience in Taekwondo would give me some good will towards time-in-grade requirements. For example, if I start as a white belt:

• If the school has scheduled tests, allow me to do private tests faster than those scheduled tests
• Allow me to do double or triple tests as I learn the forms
• If the school has tests scheduled every quarter, but requires 6 months between certain tests, allow me to test every quarter

Now, I'm not saying I should pass these tests unless I meet the requirements. I'm also not saying I would 100% be able to test like this. The goal would be a compromise where I still have to learn the art the way the new school wants me to and where I would have to progress, but where I could do so and catch up to where I was before.

In this case, with it being an art similar to what I've taken before, what I would prefer to do is to start as the highest colored belt before black belt, and learn the curriculum from there until I could test for my black belt. At that point, follow the first or third option above, allow me to test when I'm ready until I can catch up in rank.

Caveat 2: This is from my perspective.

I realize this is a fairly selfish ask, because it is about my goal to achieve the same rank again. It is entirely possible that the school could want me to start over so I ingrain things their way, and depending on how well I feel that's implemented I might go along with it. What I'm looking for is some compromise between "I'm a 3rd degree" and "not in our art, you're not."

Caveat 3: This hypothetical assumes I can quickly assimilate to the new art.

I specifically mentioned a few arts I think I could do this with. I do not think I could do this with regard to something like Judo or BJJ. In those cases, I would definitely have to start as a white belt. In fact, that's what I've done with Hapkido at the same school I take TKD, and I definitely haven't rushed HKD.

Caveat 4: This assumes the previous art had a ranking system.

What if I took boxing or wrestling for 10 years before moving to Karate or Judo? In that case, I couldn't test into the same belt I had before, but I might have a wealth of knowledge similar to a 2nd or 3rd degree black belt, if the art did have belts. In this case, I'd still want to be accelerated until I found myself at a point where the content was challenging. (Going back to Caveat 2 about it being a selfish ask).

Caveat 5: This is all hypothetical for me.

I'm not moving, and I have no plans to leave my school and go to another. If I did, it would be to fill in the gaps in what I already know, (i.e. I'm good at kicks and will be good at standing grappling, so maybe something dealing more with punches or ground-fighting). In those cases, we'll go back to Caveat 3.

This was more of a thought experiment on my part, that if I moved or if I had to change schools, how would I want to approach it, and what kind of a deal would I want to make with the master of the new school to allow me to train techniques at the level of advancement that best fits my needs.

I understand though for a lot of people this is not a hypothetical, either they're a student that has to change schools for one reason or another; or they're the master of a school that has experienced students coming in.

So I post this not for myself, but because I want to hear from these groups of people. What was your ask when you moved schools, and how well did that work out for you? Or if you get students that say "I have 6 years in this" or "I'm a 2nd degree black belt in that", how do you place them into your rank structure?

 

[Jaeimseu]

I judge this kind of thing on a case by case basis. Having said that, I often allow the student to wear whatever color belt they currently have, but expect them to learn our curriculum up to that rank before advancing. I also expect them to adjust their technique to our way (Kukkiwon way). This process assumes that the belt they bring with them comes along with similar length of time training. If someone comes in with a red belt and it’s the second belt at their previous school, I’ll give them the equivalent belt for my school.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Buka]

A belt helps you keep your gi on. Sometimes it acts as a little padding when you get hit to the body.

As for color, a fashion statement maybe.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

If you can do the basics better than other people, that's great for you. I'm not a fan of time in belt to begin with, but just because you are a 3rd degree black belt, and have been training for 'x' years, doesnt mean that you are better than a brown belt at my school. I hope it does, but I've been shocked in the past.

My personal preference is for people to start at white, and if they pick things up quickly because of their past training, theyll get promoted more quickly. Not artificially holding someone back, but not also promoting someone past the material that they know.

 

[skribs]

A belt helps you keep your gi on. Sometimes it acts as a little padding when you get hit to the body.

As for color, a fashion statement maybe.

A school with this philosophy wouldn't apply to this situation, then. I'm talking about schools where if you're a lower belt, you'll most likely be working on the foundations of the art, where a higher belt will work on more advanced techniques and applications.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

A school with this philosophy wouldn't apply to this situation, then. I'm talking about schools where if you're a lower belt, you'll most likely be working on the foundations of the art, where a higher belt will work on more advanced techniques and applications.

I enjoy learning new “advanced” techniques and applications, but honestly the greater part of my practice is still spent refining “basic” movements that I learned in my first six months of training.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I enjoy learning new “advanced” techniques and applications, but honestly the greater part of my practice is still spent refining “basic” movements that I learned in my first six months of training.

It occurs to me that I should add my own caveat to this comment...

I would have no problem in starting at a new school and having to spend my time practicing “basics” that I have already been working on for 20 years.

I would be annoyed if the instructor couldn’t or didn’t offer feedback on how to improve those basics at an appropriate level for my actual skill and knowledge.

 

[MetalBoar]

I REALLY dislike time in grade requirements. I sort of get why they exist, especially for larger, international organizations that expect all their affiliated schools to accept ranks awarded by any affiliated school, but they still rub me the wrong way.

I think I've only trained at a couple of schools that had regularly scheduled testing. Only one of those put any limits on what they taught based on belt rank and of course it was the one that had time in grade requirements. In general, I'm happy to start at white belt at a new school and I don't care at all what color belt I have. I want to be able to learn at my own pace, so if a school puts artificial limits on when they'll teach me new material based on time rather than ability it's not really a good fit for me.

That being said, I think the basics are really important so I'm pretty happy to just focus on that part of things. The only exception to that is the couple of times I've run into schools that teach a beginner version of a technique that has some real flaws or limitations because they think it's easier to learn than the "advanced" aka "real" version of the technique, which they teach a few belts later. I personally don't want that. Either teach me the correct technique to start with or don't teach it to me until I can get it. With my background I think I can usually get the real version at whatever point you're teaching the training wheels version unless it involves flexibility I haven't developed yet.

In general, my experience has been that when instructors hear how much training I've done they tend to want to move me through the curriculum faster than I might think is ideal. I tend to train in smaller, more independent schools where there's less bureaucratic overhead to deal with so I don't know whether that's common or not. Still, I think that there are a lot of opportunities out there to get instruction at a pace that matches your abilities if you don't care about the actual color of the belt you're wearing. I think it's just one more thing to consider when you're looking at prospective schools that you should ask the instructor about if it's a big deal to you.

 

[pdg]

A belt helps you keep your gi on. Sometimes it acts as a little padding when you get hit to the body.

As for color, a fashion statement maybe.

Sometimes, they work just slightly loose and drop just a little.

Then they have a very unfortunate knot alignment when you drop on your front (say for a pushup)...

 

[skribs]

I enjoy learning new “advanced” techniques and applications, but honestly the greater part of my practice is still spent refining “basic” movements that I learned in my first six months of training.

The schools that I have been to, the basic curriculum is...very basic. Simple moves, simple combinations, and forms that are basically a couple of simple moves repeated over and over again. At the school I'm at now, there are some details of the techniques that aren't taught until later, or different ways of approaching a technique.

For example, the front snap kick can be done using the instep (to kick up to the groin or chin), with the ball of the feet (to kick straight through the knee, groin, gut, or nose), or with the heel (to similar targets as the ball of the feet, although I'd say it's better for lower targets like the leg). At the beginner level, at my school, all you learn is the instep version of the kick.

In the case of the beginner forms, I find that those basically serve to teach how to do a form. Our Basic Form 4 is basically the combination of our Basic Form 2 & Basic Form 3, which are both different expansions on Basic Form 1. If I am capable of doing Basic Form 4, it doesn't make sense to hold back on the first one in that case.

And for our self defense, the white and yellow belts are more learning how to do a drill than the drill itself.

So unless I really need to learn how to learn the art (because their training style is so different), I feel like I'd at least want to be at a point where we're learning the art.

I REALLY dislike time in grade requirements. I sort of get why they exist, especially for larger, international organizations that expect all their affiliated schools to accept ranks awarded by any affiliated school, but they still rub me the wrong way.

I think I've only trained at a couple of schools that had regularly scheduled testing. Only one of those put any limits on what they taught based on belt rank and of course it was the one that had time in grade requirements. In general, I'm happy to start at white belt at a new school and I don't care at all what color belt I have. I want to be able to learn at my own pace, so if a school puts artificial limits on when they'll teach me new material based on time rather than ability it's not really a good fit for me.

That being said, I think the basics are really important so I'm pretty happy to just focus on that part of things. The only exception to that is the couple of times I've run into schools that teach a beginner version of a technique that has some real flaws or limitations because they think it's easier to learn than the "advanced" aka "real" version of the technique, which they teach a few belts later. I personally don't want that. Either teach me the correct technique to start with or don't teach it to me until I can get it. With my background I think I can usually get the real version at whatever point you're teaching the training wheels version unless it involves flexibility I haven't developed yet.

In general, my experience has been that when instructors hear how much training I've done they tend to want to move me through the curriculum faster than I might think is ideal. I tend to train in smaller, more independent schools where there's less bureaucratic overhead to deal with so I don't know whether that's common or not. Still, I think that there are a lot of opportunities out there to get instruction at a pace that matches your abilities if you don't care about the actual color of the belt you're wearing. I think it's just one more thing to consider when you're looking at prospective schools that you should ask the instructor about if it's a big deal to you.

Kind of like you said about larger organizations, it applies to larger schools as well. We have somewhere between 150-200 students at my school. There's no way we'd keep track of where everyone is in the curriculum without some sort of progression system. This is even moreso when you have some instructors that will help out with different classes as they are able.

We have tests every 2 months, and typically have between 60-80 students test each time. If we were just going to let people test whenever, then we'd be doing 1-2 tests every day, and we simply don't have time for that. It makes much more sense to batch the tests and do them all over the course of a week, where we close the classes and have 1-2 tests each day of 10-30 students per test (based on belt and age).

Contrast this to our Hapkido class, where we currently have 7 active students. In that class, we test whenever we're ready, and we test during class.

So if your school has scores or hundreds of students, a rigid test schedule makes a lot of sense. And if your school has a couple dozen or less, it makes more sense to do it when students are ready.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

If you want rank in our school, train in our school. Exceptions made only when students come from a recognized and respected dojo in our style, and even then, the student must meet our requirements for promotion. Outside training in other styles is great and we welcome it, but it still doesn't count towards promotion.

 

[MetalBoar]

Kind of like you said about larger organizations, it applies to larger schools as well. We have somewhere between 150-200 students at my school. There's no way we'd keep track of where everyone is in the curriculum without some sort of progression system. This is even moreso when you have some instructors that will help out with different classes as they are able.

We have tests every 2 months, and typically have between 60-80 students test each time. If we were just going to let people test whenever, then we'd be doing 1-2 tests every day, and we simply don't have time for that. It makes much more sense to batch the tests and do them all over the course of a week, where we close the classes and have 1-2 tests each day of 10-30 students per test (based on belt and age).

Contrast this to our Hapkido class, where we currently have 7 active students. In that class, we test whenever we're ready, and we test during class.

So if your school has scores or hundreds of students, a rigid test schedule makes a lot of sense. And if your school has a couple dozen or less, it makes more sense to do it when students are ready.

Wow! 150-200 students is literally about 10x more students than most of the larger schools I've trained with! I assume it's a full time school, not just 2 or 3 evenings a week? How large are the average classes? I assume you have different classes for the different belt levels? I can definitely see why a school that size needs to have some organization and procedures in place.

I remember reading in your first post that it was a 2 month in grade requirement below red belt and then 4 months from there until black belt, but it didn't really sink in. In the kenpo school I attended, I believe we tested every quarter, though it might have been every 2 months. I know it felt like it happened all the time in comparison to the aikido school I attended before it which was maybe every 6 months. My hapkido school tested very infrequently and without any real prep or scheduling, it was usually a surprise where you'd show up for class and it was a testing day. This was OK by me as your belt didn't directly effect what you were taught and not testing meant not paying the parent organization testing fees. Well, at least 95% OK by me, I have off and one wished that I'd received a black belt but never got there before the school closed because of the haphazard testing process.

Personally, testing every 2 months might be so quick that I don't think I'd even notice any time in grade requirements depending on how many belts and stripes and what not were involved. Maybe I'd notice if they wanted me to have a high level belt before sparring or competing or something. Every 4 months might be a bit slow if most/all of the material was review. Still, I'd be a bit frustrated if a school didn't allow double or triple advances when I tested if I knew the material even at 2 month intervals. I should note that I feel that a school should test and advance a student based on the rate they're learning the material regardless of whether they have any past experience or not. If you can show that you can do the work you should get credit for it and even if you've got an 8th degree BB in something else or from someplace else, if you can't do the work you shouldn't get credit for it.

 

[MetalBoar]

A question I should have asked in the post above; what do most people think of as a "normal" testing interval? Is 2 months for lower belts pretty standard? As I said above, I've not attended a lot of schools that had very formal grading formats so I have no sense of what most places that emphasize belts and rank do.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

A question I should have asked in the post above; what do most people think of as a "normal" testing interval? Is 2 months for lower belts pretty standard? As I said above, I've not attended a lot of schools that had very formal grading formats so I have no sense of what most places that emphasize belts and rank do.

I think it depends on the amount of belts a school has. To me once every six months is around what I would expect, but a style like tkd, that may have 12 belts before black, and consider black as a 'beginning' point that can be reached in 2-3 years, a test every 2 months makes sense.

 

[dvcochran]

This has kind of come up in a discussion in the Taekwondo forum, about someone transferring from a KKW school to an ATA school and how long it would take to "catch up" to their KKW rank. It got me thinking about a broader picture. Maybe going from KKW to ATA, but also maybe going from TKD to Karate, or something even bigger.

For the sake of this discussion, we'll use "Art 1" and "Art 2" as the arts we're talking about.

• Art 1 can be any art at all. It may or may not have a rank system.
  
  
• Art 2 is an art with a rank system, (i.e. belts) where the curriculum is expanded as you go up in rank. Someone in the white belt level will be doing the basic forms, techniques, and drills, while the people at the higher ranks will be learning advanced techniques, more complicated forms, higher resistance drills, and will have more freedom in sparring.
  
  Art 2 has time-in-grade requirements for testing for new belts, where you must be at one rank for a period of time before going on to the next belt. (As an example, my school does tests every 2 months if you're ready, but red belts have to wait at least 4 months, and black belts have to wait 1 year per current degree in order to qualify for the next degree - i.e. 2 years to go from 2nd to 3rd, 3 years to go from 3rd to 4th).

Someone with several years experience in Art 1 may be comfortable with starting over as a white belt in Art 2, but may quickly become frustrated if they already have much of the muscle memory and coordination the white belt curriculum is designed to teach, and have to wait until they are a green belt or a red belt to feel like they're learning anything.

Even if they don't know the forms and don't know the specific techniques, someone with a lot of experience in one art may pick up the techniques and patterns a lot faster than someone else. In my case, as a 3rd Dan in KKW Taekwondo, I imagine I'd pick up the forms and test requirements in an ATA school or Shotokan school a lot faster than I would have as a white belt, and definitely a lot faster than someone my age coming in off the street with no experience. (The hardest part for me would be to change the techniques that are done different at the new school).

And I've seen this with students that come to our school. Even though we're KKW, we do different forms from most KKW schools. But students who come in as green belts or red belts usually learn our forms pretty quick. We even just had a couple kids come in from a Shotokan school and they seem to be adapting pretty well at the same rank (which is why I made the assumption that I could go there and quickly assimilate).

Now, I'm not saying that I should just go to these schools and be handed a 3rd-degree black belt to complement my KKW certification.

However, I'd hate to move and go to a karate school and have to progress at the same rate a complete a newbie would. I would want to feel like my 9 years experience in Taekwondo would give me some good will towards time-in-grade requirements. For example, if I start as a white belt:

• If the school has scheduled tests, allow me to do private tests faster than those scheduled tests
• Allow me to do double or triple tests as I learn the forms
• If the school has tests scheduled every quarter, but requires 6 months between certain tests, allow me to test every quarter

Now, I'm not saying I should pass these tests unless I meet the requirements. I'm also not saying I would 100% be able to test like this. The goal would be a compromise where I still have to learn the art the way the new school wants me to and where I would have to progress, but where I could do so and catch up to where I was before.

In this case, with it being an art similar to what I've taken before, what I would prefer to do is to start as the highest colored belt before black belt, and learn the curriculum from there until I could test for my black belt. At that point, follow the first or third option above, allow me to test when I'm ready until I can catch up in rank.

Caveat 2: This is from my perspective.

I realize this is a fairly selfish ask, because it is about my goal to achieve the same rank again. It is entirely possible that the school could want me to start over so I ingrain things their way, and depending on how well I feel that's implemented I might go along with it. What I'm looking for is some compromise between "I'm a 3rd degree" and "not in our art, you're not."

Caveat 3: This hypothetical assumes I can quickly assimilate to the new art.

I specifically mentioned a few arts I think I could do this with. I do not think I could do this with regard to something like Judo or BJJ. In those cases, I would definitely have to start as a white belt. In fact, that's what I've done with Hapkido at the same school I take TKD, and I definitely haven't rushed HKD.

Caveat 4: This assumes the previous art had a ranking system.

What if I took boxing or wrestling for 10 years before moving to Karate or Judo? In that case, I couldn't test into the same belt I had before, but I might have a wealth of knowledge similar to a 2nd or 3rd degree black belt, if the art did have belts. In this case, I'd still want to be accelerated until I found myself at a point where the content was challenging. (Going back to Caveat 2 about it being a selfish ask).

Caveat 5: This is all hypothetical for me.

I'm not moving, and I have no plans to leave my school and go to another. If I did, it would be to fill in the gaps in what I already know, (i.e. I'm good at kicks and will be good at standing grappling, so maybe something dealing more with punches or ground-fighting). In those cases, we'll go back to Caveat 3.

This was more of a thought experiment on my part, that if I moved or if I had to change schools, how would I want to approach it, and what kind of a deal would I want to make with the master of the new school to allow me to train techniques at the level of advancement that best fits my needs.

I understand though for a lot of people this is not a hypothetical, either they're a student that has to change schools for one reason or another; or they're the master of a school that has experienced students coming in.

So I post this not for myself, but because I want to hear from these groups of people. What was your ask when you moved schools, and how well did that work out for you? Or if you get students that say "I have 6 years in this" or "I'm a 2nd degree black belt in that", how do you place them into your rank structure?

I got lost in a lot of the ramblings but here is the gist of my opinion on experienced people coming into a school. Size does matter but the style or promoting standards are more important. If a school is steeped in tradition that says it takes a higher than average numbers of years to get to black belt then I do not think there is much value in allowing a person with experience to come in at any belt other than white. It sets a bad precedence and can lead to hard feelings by other long time students.
In Kali there were no belts until you got to black belt so the point was somewhat moot. Also because it was so very different from the styles I had previously done.
TKD, which I started in 1984, has evolved over time. Like you, we now test at around 2-3 months. We also have transfers come in often. If a person has a BB (of any rank) but has not worked for years or decades we recommend they start over at white, with the caveat they may jump a rank if it is deemed justified. This requires time for conditioning and proof of expected knowledge for a given rank. It is not uncommon for experienced adult white belts to jump to green for example. If a transfer comes in with a documented rank or at least claims to be xxx rank I suggest they start class as a white belt just like a new student. After 3 months, if they are clearly at the BB rank they claim, they wear a black belt with no markings until they work up to said rank. This is done on a open format with all students as not to create tension and allows the black belt to "save face" if that is an issue for them. If they cannot accept this format they likely were not going to stay around very long anyway.
There have been a few exceptions over the years where highly accomplished students (former school owners)have came back and picked up close, but never quite, where they left off.

 

[skribs]

Wow! 150-200 students is literally about 10x more students than most of the larger schools I've trained with! I assume it's a full time school, not just 2 or 3 evenings a week? How large are the average classes? I assume you have different classes for the different belt levels? I can definitely see why a school that size needs to have some organization and procedures in place.

We have 10 different classes based on age/belt:

1. Kids 4-7 White & Yellow
2. Kids 8-12 White & Yellow
3. Kids Purple & Orange
4. Teen & Adult White - Orange
5. Kids Green (and Green 1-stripe)
6. Kids Blue (and Blue 1-stripe and Blue 2-stripe)
7. Kids Red (and Red 1 and Red 2)
8. Adult Green - Red
9. Kids Black
10. Adult Black

For the most part each class has between 15-25 students. So actually we probably have more now that I think about it. It's hard to keep track because some people come to the wrong class (because they can't make it to the time their class is), some come for make-up days only, and some are intermittent in attendance.

I remember reading in your first post that it was a 2 month in grade requirement below red belt and then 4 months from there until black belt, but it didn't really sink in. In the kenpo school I attended, I believe we tested every quarter, though it might have been every 2 months. I know it felt like it happened all the time in comparison to the aikido school I attended before it which was maybe every 6 months. My hapkido school tested very infrequently and without any real prep or scheduling, it was usually a surprise where you'd show up for class and it was a testing day. This was OK by me as your belt didn't directly effect what you were taught and not testing meant not paying the parent organization testing fees. Well, at least 95% OK by me, I have off and one wished that I'd received a black belt but never got there before the school closed because of the haphazard testing process.

Personally, testing every 2 months might be so quick that I don't think I'd even notice any time in grade requirements depending on how many belts and stripes and what not were involved. Maybe I'd notice if they wanted me to have a high level belt before sparring or competing or something. Every 4 months might be a bit slow if most/all of the material was review. Still, I'd be a bit frustrated if a school didn't allow double or triple advances when I tested if I knew the material even at 2 month intervals. I should note that I feel that a school should test and advance a student based on the rate they're learning the material regardless of whether they have any past experience or not. If you can show that you can do the work you should get credit for it and even if you've got an 8th degree BB in something else or from someplace else, if you can't do the work you shouldn't get credit for it.

For the most part, we don't. There are a few exceptions. We have a lot of adults who have come in with a lot of experience more than a decade ago, and been given the opportunity to start over at white belt or to start at their old belt level. Most people opt to start over. I was one. They've been given the opportunity to test faster or double test, but for the most part haven't taken that opportunity.

The other opportunity is my Master will sometimes accelerate for someone who will be leaving (i.e. they get their Red 2 in April, and are moving in July, so they'll test for Black Belt even though it's only been 2 months). This especially applies to kids whose parents are moving or soldiers who are being relocated. But they have to work really hard to learn the material in that 2 months.

He'll also let people who will be on extended trips, especially for business or soldiers being deployed, double test to help make up for the lost time. Again, they have to work extra to learn everything during the available time.

The last opportunity was to me. When I got my Green 1-stripe, he told me he wanted to make me an instructor. Starting at Blue Belt, I was at the dojang 20+ hours a week, learning to teach. He let me test as fast as I was able to. So I did 3 tests in 4 months, and did my red belt every 2 months.

There's a lot on the tests at my school, and even if you have prior knowledge, it does take a while to memorize everything.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The schools that I have been to, the basic curriculum is...very basic. Simple moves, simple combinations, and forms that are basically a couple of simple moves repeated over and over again. At the school I'm at now, there are some details of the techniques that aren't taught until later, or different ways of approaching a technique.

For example, the front snap kick can be done using the instep (to kick up to the groin or chin), with the ball of the feet (to kick straight through the knee, groin, gut, or nose), or with the heel (to similar targets as the ball of the feet, although I'd say it's better for lower targets like the leg). At the beginner level, at my school, all you learn is the instep version of the kick.

In the case of the beginner forms, I find that those basically serve to teach how to do a form. Our Basic Form 4 is basically the combination of our Basic Form 2 & Basic Form 3, which are both different expansions on Basic Form 1. If I am capable of doing Basic Form 4, it doesn't make sense to hold back on the first one in that case.

And for our self defense, the white and yellow belts are more learning how to do a drill than the drill itself.

So unless I really need to learn how to learn the art (because their training style is so different), I feel like I'd at least want to be at a point where we're learning the art.

In my primary arts, “basics” would be things like:
Jab
Cross
Hook
Slipping a punch
Parrying a punch
Round kick
Checking a kick
Fighting stance
Advancing, retreating, and lateral footwork
Collar tie
Body lock
Double leg takedown
Falling safely
Getting up safely
Maintaining and escaping basic ground positions (mount, side mount, closed guard)
Triangle choke
Guillotine
Straight armlock
Kimura
Etc

These are all techniques that you learn in the first 6 months. They are also techniques that fighters commonly use to win world championships.

If a student isn’t actually “learning the art” from day one, then I think something is wrong.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'll catch up on other posts in a bit, but here's my early reaction. Short version: time-in-grade requirements are there for a purpose. If they don't serve that purpose in a specific case, there's no reason to enforce them.

I'll use my TIG requirements as an example, and a visitor I had early this year. Here are my requirements (actually guidelines - I'll try to remember to clarify that later) as best I remember them. I've never actually needed them, as it takes longer than this for students to progress through the work.

• White belt to "foundation" (a special subset of key principles and simple techniques taught to develop some quick competency and build a foundation for later work): 10 classes, minimum.
• White to Yellow (includes foundation time): 6 months.
• Yellow to Blue: 6 months.
• Blue to Green: 8 months.
• Green to Purple: 8 months.
• Purple to Brown: 10 months.
• Brown to Black: 12 months.

So, let's say a 20-something German student of Jujutsu (a formalized system found in Germany) moves to my area and wants to join my school. She has 12 years of JJ, starting from an early age, and is pretty competent at grappling with a good start at striking. She already knows most of the techniques I teach, though differently applied, and with a different emphasis. I could keep her to that same set of requirements. Before I decide to do that, I'd have to ask why I have those time-in-grade requirements. And the answer is so they have time to actually learn the curriculum and develop the principles necessary to progress at the next level.

Well, by that reckoning, she's already performing at something like green-belt level (maybe significantly better - I didn't get to work with her enough to know). So, for her, once I establish what competency level she's at (using what she already knows), I'd consider waiving the time requirements (but not the testing requirements) up to that level. So, say she's able to perform, in general, well within that green-belt competency level. I'd get her learning the techniques and principles required for Yellow (she'd probably test out of all but a couple of the foundation pieces straight away), and test her as soon as she's ready. She could probably have managed that within 4 weeks if she was really focused. Once she tests past that, I'd repeat that for blue, then for green. Assuming she doesn't hit any stumbling blocks (for instance, if she wasn't able to keep up in sparring), I'd have no need to enforce those time requirements until she was wearing a rank that fit her current competency level.

Of course, there might be other reasons I'd slow someone down. Since I really hope students never need the fighting skills, I'll sometimes make alterations to help them develop more discipline, give them a struggle to work through, or even just to make things more fun for a while. So, maybe I slow this young phenom down and hold her at yellow belt for the full minimum 6 months. That's still pretty fast, as most folks take at least a year to get there at 2 classes a week, but it would be a lot slower than she could have completed that portion of the curriculum and the related testing.

For a more similar comparison to the OP opening... Let's say someone came to me from my primary instructor's school. That's a significantly different curriculum - effectively a different style of the same art. I know some of what they're capable of, but not whether they can manage other parts of my curriculum. If they had the striking and sparring skills, and the ability to grapple with resistance, then I'd consider testing them fairly quickly up to the same rank they held at the other school.

****

All that said, that's my approach, because of what I - me, personally - use rank for. And I'm entirely independent, so I have full leeway to do whatever I want. There are some good arguments for never having time-in-grade requirements, just as there are some good arguments for having and always enforcing them.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

A question I should have asked in the post above; what do most people think of as a "normal" testing interval? Is 2 months for lower belts pretty standard? As I said above, I've not attended a lot of schools that had very formal grading formats so I have no sense of what most places that emphasize belts and rank do.

In my primary art, there was no set testing interval. Individuals tested when they were ready. Never were more than 2 people tested at a time (2 partners, taking turns doing the techniques), and even that was rare. And the time-in-grade requirements for the association were from 6 weeks (for white to yellow) to 3 years (for shodan to nidan).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I REALLY dislike time in grade requirements. I sort of get why they exist, especially for larger, international organizations that expect all their affiliated schools to accept ranks awarded by any affiliated school, but they still rub me the wrong way.

I think I've only trained at a couple of schools that had regularly scheduled testing. Only one of those put any limits on what they taught based on belt rank and of course it was the one that had time in grade requirements. In general, I'm happy to start at white belt at a new school and I don't care at all what color belt I have. I want to be able to learn at my own pace, so if a school puts artificial limits on when they'll teach me new material based on time rather than ability it's not really a good fit for me.

That being said, I think the basics are really important so I'm pretty happy to just focus on that part of things. The only exception to that is the couple of times I've run into schools that teach a beginner version of a technique that has some real flaws or limitations because they think it's easier to learn than the "advanced" aka "real" version of the technique, which they teach a few belts later. I personally don't want that. Either teach me the correct technique to start with or don't teach it to me until I can get it. With my background I think I can usually get the real version at whatever point you're teaching the training wheels version unless it involves flexibility I haven't developed yet.

In general, my experience has been that when instructors hear how much training I've done they tend to want to move me through the curriculum faster than I might think is ideal. I tend to train in smaller, more independent schools where there's less bureaucratic overhead to deal with so I don't know whether that's common or not. Still, I think that there are a lot of opportunities out there to get instruction at a pace that matches your abilities if you don't care about the actual color of the belt you're wearing. I think it's just one more thing to consider when you're looking at prospective schools that you should ask the instructor about if it's a big deal to you.

In my opinion, a good time-in-grade requirement should be significantly shorter than the expected time to progress between ranks, which limits its impact on people who simply learn fast.

And I'm not a big fan of actually restricting material by rank. You might prioritize it, but there's no need to restrict based solely on rank. For instance, there are some throws that are held until late in the curriculum in NGA because the falls are technically difficult. If I had an experienced Judoka join, I'd have no reason not to share those with them earlier, so long as it wouldn't confuse them on what's being tested. So, maybe I have a more advanced rank who needs to get that technique - I can pair them with this Judoka and teach it to both, though it's well outside the newer student's testing requirements.

Now, that's different from having a "normal" progression by rank, which is tied to the testing requirements.