Time in grade

[GouRonin]

I've heard several ideas. This was one. In a 24 based system.

Yellow - 4 months
Orange - 8 months
Purple - 12 months
Blue - 14 months
Green - 16 months
3rd Brown - 18 months
2nd Brown - 18 months
1st Brown - 18 months

Any other ideas? Love to hear them!

 

[tshadowchaser]

Every system has its own ranking so I guess it depends on what you consider the basics of a system and how much experience
you want a person to have befor they reah black.
I happen to be in a system where it takes 8-12 years to make black (usualy).
Yellow - 1 year then approximitly a year per grade/rank. Of course some learn faster or have learning that can be addapted so they go up the ranks faster.
My instructor would never give a black to anyone he didn't fully trust. It has never been just about learning certian moves or so many forms in this system but I realise that we are not the norm in our gradeing system.
For what you have given in a 2 year system the gradeing works. Have been in a couple of systems that graded that way (TKD) maybe thats why I like a person to study a little longer befor they get a black.
Shadow

 

[Blindside]

hey tshadowchaser, I think gou meant those as cumulative times.

We don't have any time in grade requirements for anything under black. However, when I look at the requirements that Gou put forth, our first three belts generally take exactly that amount of time (two years for purple). However, after that a relatively rapid advancement at our school would be 1 year per belt (with only one rank of brown), putting our fast blackbelt at around 6 years. That being said, not many of our blackbelts took that short amount of time. My instructor took 9, but he claims he's a bonehead about learning techniques. I suspect our "average" is around 7 years.

Lamont

 

[meni]

I agree that some time is needed in each belt but the problem is marketing: how many people going to show up for learning how to become a yellow belt if it takes 18 months?
It’s good for people that do it for the sake of martial arts, but as we know that not everybody come from this reasons!
When we talking P.R we need think about the masses not just the individual who for them an even a ten year in yellow belt won’t make a different

M

 

[tshadowchaser]

The last two posts make sense to me. I misinterpeded what GouRonin ment in the original post. Like I said I was in a TKD group many, many years ago when a person would test for black around 2 or 2 1/2 years.
Can't belive that everyone on this forum agrees on a subject. There have to be people out there that have diffrent opions on this subject.
Shadow

 

[cypress]

I don't believe in time in grade requirements. If a person can learn the material he should be advanced. If a person has prior martial arts experience then they usually pick up things quicker.

 

[Robbo]

Time in grade has to be modified if a person has prior MA experiance. However if I had a student that was awesome but was never exposed to any other arts then I would use a basic time in grade outline that they would have to follow regardless of how fast they picked the mat'l up or how good they were with the techniques. This allows for a certain maturing factor to take place (especially at blue and brown levels where traditionally they tend to be heavily tiger based). On average in our art I would think 5 years is not a unreasonable amount of time to grade to 1st degree.

 

[WilliamTLear]

It's not how long you've been in the art that matters, It's how long you've been "at" it that counts.

I think it's more important to grade people on the amount of skill they've developed rather than the time they've watched tick by.

Billy "Gou what are you smoking?" Lear :asian:

 

[Goldendragon7]

WoW. Doug..... where did you get this time chart?

It really does depend a lot upon how much the individual works but as a general rule of thumb assuming the student goes two to three times a week to class the following is a general chart which could be used by either the 24 or the 16 technique systems... the 16 tend to be on the shorter end the 24 on the longer end but this depends greatly upon the method of the individual instructor and is geared towards the adult not the children promotions .....

Yellow - 3 to 5 months
Orange - 4 to 6 months
Purple - 4 to 6 months
Blue - 4 to 6 months
Green - 4 to 6 months
3rd Brown - 6 to 12 months
2nd Brown - 6 to 12 months
1st Brown - 6 to 12 months
1st Black - 6 to 12 months
2nd Black - 18 to 24 months
3rd Black - 30 to 48 months
4th Black - 36 to 48 months
5th Black - 36 to 48 months

Again, this is just a general time in grade chart...is will change depending upon organization and personal commitment and effort.

:asian:

 

[WilliamTLear]

Hey Gou...

You must be wearing your white belt again. So let's see...
10 years at white belt (doing the math...)

You should be a black belt by the time my great grandchild is 30.

Well, as they say... better late then never. (LOL)

Billy "Wear it long enough and the dirt will make it black" Lear

:asian:

 

[Yari]

Originally posted by GouRonin
I've heard several ideas. This was one. In a 24 based system.

Yellow - 4 months
Orange - 8 months
Purple - 12 months
Blue - 14 months
Green - 16 months
3rd Brown - 18 months
2nd Brown - 18 months
1st Brown - 18 months

Any other ideas? Love to hear them!

I don't believe in putting a time span on belt gradings. But for the majority of the people grading in a system, there is a certain time it takes for a pupile to "understand" that level. And what I've seen is that yellow , or the first belt, is usally very easy, and can be taken in the span of 2 - 5 months. orange (next belt), would take 4 -5 months, and upto brown the grades would take about a year(pr. belt). Most systems I've seen have gradings in the end of a half year periode, so the gradings would follow that. From black it would usally take 2 years pr. belt upto san-dan. From there politics and other stuff have a tendancy to have al lot of influence.

But turing it around and saying that now I've been practicing this for 1 year I then consider myself god enough to grade, is in my world totally wrong.

I usally tell people it isn't the lenght of time you practice, but what you learn:

1) Yellow - stance, understand that you have to react, falling technics, basic technics
2) Orange - Showing that you are getting the feel of the technics, distance between yourself and your oppenent.
3) Green - Combining different endings to different technics
4) Blue - Defence against weapons like sticks, bottles.
5) Purple - Defence against multiple oppenents
6) Brown - Defence against knifes, show first aid, how to help somebody else in trouble. How to us a stick, in selfdefence

and so on. This is off the top of my head, but it gives an idea. Each level has to also be better than it was the level before.
For me principels are most important. I know that most people will be able to do the stuff in a certain time periode, but that's not my focus. By focusing on time your looking at the finger, not the moon.

/yari

 

[Goldendragon7]

Yari, I agree for the most part with you. One should not be watching the finger!!!! The student should concentrate on the material that he/she is taught and let the instructor worry about when they should be promoted......... after all ........ the instructor should be experienced enough to determine this..... (another topic in itself - lol).

The Time guidelines are merely a "guide" and an approximate goal for the student. In my experience some (not many) have fell into the guides estimated structure....... however I have also had people take several months and years to achieve various ranks due to the lack of skill or level of proficiency that I believed they should have had. So It only is a lose guideline I am not governed by it and I teach the students that as well.

The skill with the material is what is important not the time. Promotions are good and necessary as learning tools and a lose designation of what level you are at (but we all know this is a highly volatile subject). lol