Time to get to BB

[miguksaram]

Since we are not veering away from the original posting in the Suing for KKW Cert thread I wanted to spin off a new thread.

My question is what is an acceptable time to reach BB? Glenn has stated that in Korea it is about 1 year. In America it averages about 2-4 years. Some people may feel that a student should be in their respective art for AT LEAST 4 years to be considered for a BB.

Are the Guep belts simply a measurement of minimum knowledge that you either know or don't know? Something that if you can demonstrate knowledge in, you will pass and once your reach Dan level this is when you will refine all your knowledge. Or should Guep stage be considered the time of refinement for when you reach dan level you are ready for more advance and in-depth knowledge?

 

[terryl965]

Here is my miminum time for guep rank.

Yellow Stripe 6 weeks
Yellow Belt 6 weeks
Orage stripe 3 months
Orange belt 3 months
gree stripe 3 months
green belt 4 months
blue strpe 4 months
Blue belt 4-6 months
Red stipe 4-6 months
Red belt 6 months
Red with Black stipe 6 months
Bodan half red/Black 6-9 months
Black

This based on my people coming 4-5 days a week for 1 -2.5 hours a day depending on what level they are.

If they are on compettion team they have extra sport practice they must attend to stay there.

 

[dancingalone]

I think 3 - 4.5 years is about right to attain a first dan in what I think of as TKD at roughly 4-6 hours per week class time with 1x-2x additional outside training time. Three years would be very fast with the student promoting at every opportunity and EXCELLING at that. Most people in my program would likely take longer.

I define TKD as primarily a striking art with a 60/40 or 50/50 proportion on kicking and hand techniques. SOME joint manipulation and throws should be included in the curriculum along with "self-defense" against common attacks and holds. Conditioning methods and ample free sparring should be present as well as minimum fitness standards (sorry, if you can't move or even breathe due to poor physical shape, you can't right either).

I look upon the belt levels as somewhat fluid markers of technical knowledge. I'm not too bothered if a student is somewhat behind in execution of a certain technique for their belt. However I think brown belt or red belt should be reserved for seasoning time if needed - where the belt holder must address deficiencies in technique or spirit or mental toughness/confidence BEFORE being awarded a chodan/black belt. I do not use the 'probationary black belt'. To me, that's a brown or red belt.

 

[andyjeffries]

Personally I would say 500-750 hours of training. I think the reason that mine is higher than Glenn's quoted Korea time of 250 hours is due to my failing as a teacher...

I'm sure as I get more senior the times required will decrease

 

[Twin Fist]

MINIMUM of 3-4 years, unless the student comes in with prior BB level training

 

[miguksaram]

Let's expand a bit. Why do you all feel it should take the minimum time you quoted?

 

[dancingalone]

Let's expand a bit. Why do you all feel it should take the minimum time you quoted?

Personal experience over the years in teaching. I know what students look like after only 250 hours of training. With my curriculum, that would be rather meager practice indeed.

I guess if a student spent that entire time frame on just the roundhouse kick and a reverse punch, they might have developed a couple of good strikes. Yet expanded to a full range of taekwondo techniques, patterns, sparring, self-defense, etc? Well, under those circumstances I can well understand why some here believe the chodan to be small potatoes - I myself would rather make the rank an honorable and respected rank with an expectation of technical proficiency and personal/mental maturity (not necessarily bound with age, but the two are strongly correlated).

 

[msmitht]

When they are ready. Some can do it in 3 years. Some take longer. Had a teenage girl, a genius, do it in 2 years. She was gifted in everything. Got her first phd when she was 21.
You have to wonder why, if it only takes 1 year in korea, they look better than americans who spend 5 years.

 

[dancingalone]

You have to wonder why, if it only takes 1 year in korea, they look better than americans who spend 5 years.

I doubt your experience is universal. I've related my own experience with Korean colleagues from my professional life before. They've attained BB as children and they did not take their accomplishment seriously.

There is nothing magical about being Korean or Japanese or Okinawan or Chinese or American for that matter. You reap what you sow. The more meaningful time you put into an activity, the better you'll be, and that's true whether we are talking about martial arts or scholastic endeavors.

 

[sfs982000]

Within the ATA the minimum promotion time is based on number of classes (to orange belt you need a min of 15 classes, blue belt a min of 33 classes, etc....) Our instructor holds firm to the minimum number of classes and normally you'll do quite a few more before he'll give you his blessing to test (not that it's a bad thing). On average in our school it will take a person a minimum of 3-3.5 years to make black belt, I've seen a couple make it slightly quicker than that, but that is just an average. I've sat down and tried to figure out the amount of time it'll take me to test for my 1st dan and at my current rate it'll roughly be around the 5 year mark for me.

 

[Manny]

A minimum of 4 years, training 3 times per week, for me this is good enough.

Manny

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

My question is what is an acceptable time to reach BB? Glenn has stated that in Korea it is about 1 year. In America it averages about 2-4 years. Some people may feel that a student should be in their respective art for AT LEAST 4 years to be considered for a BB.

The bolded words, respective art, makes this a general rather than TKD specific question. Kendo, both in Japan, and elsewhere, is an average of three to four years. Same goes for Judo, Aikido, and from what I have seen, most styles of karate.

In the states, I have seen everything from 18 months to four years +, with the average being two in most schools (based on my observation and that of other posters; no hard data).

Are the Guep belts simply a measurement of minimum knowledge that you either know or don't know? Something that if you can demonstrate knowledge in, you will pass and once your reach Dan level this is when you will refine all your knowledge. Or should Guep stage be considered the time of refinement for when you reach dan level you are ready for more advance and in-depth knowledge?

I would say that a lot depends on the mindset of the instructor. My main focus on colored belt students is to teach them the basics of the art and to train bad habits out of them as soon as they are identified.

In the context of taekwondo, every technique learned in tenth and ninth geub should be honed to a reasonable level of proficiency (doing it correctly) prior to moving on to eighth geub. That would include all techniques utilized in Taegeuk Iljang.

These are the foundational techniques of the art. My experience has been that in those grades, I am learning front kick, roundhouse kick, side kick, axe kick, and reverse punch strikes, low, middle, and high blocks, and horse, front, back, and walking stances.

As the student progresses, the same approach should be taken with new techniques as they are learned. My measure is not based on how long Koreans, Americans, or anyone else, take to do it. My measure is the development of the student. The belts are unimportant. Each student is different and has different lifestyle factors affecting their frequency of training.

Let's expand a bit. Why do you all feel it should take the minimum time you quoted?

Well, I teach a sword art, so my reasons may be different from others here, but I find that three to four years is the amount of time it takes to fully ingrain proper technique in the student. I teach a combination of practical sword skill (dobeop) and bamboo sword sparring (kendo/kumdo). This mirrors the dichotomy between taekowndo the art and taekwondo the sport that is discussed frequently in this section.

The skills between dobeop and kendo/kumdo overlap quite a bit, but also diverge in areas as well. While the quanitity of techniques is really not all that great, getting them right is time consuming. Footwork and posture especially. I will not move a student much further than eighth geub until their footwork and posture issues have been dealt with, as footwork and posture affect everything.

My own preference is to do a fair amount of honing prior to ildan, be it in kumdo/geomdo, hapkido, or taekwondo. It really has less to do with time in grade than effective training; why let a student learn bad habits because they have moved through the curriculum too quickly, only to have to spend another year between first and second dan unlearning those same bad habits and then relearning those skills correctly?

What constitutes too quickly? Depends on the student. Some students just get it and progress more quickly.

Why keep such a student in the same time frame as other students with regards to testing? One answer is that it will only make their current techniques more solid. Also, people have a tendency to forget what they learned if they move through the ranks too quickly, particularly with regards to forms or codified technique sets, such as one step sparring.

I personally am not attached to any particular time frame to ildan. Its not about the belts, but about the student's progress. In a sword art, I find that three to four years is optimal for most students.

In taekwondo? Depends. When I was a colored belt, I learned a whole host of HKD culled SD techniques along with the Kukkiwon curriculum. This included WTF tournament sparring and an in house sparring rule set that allowed for a broader range of techniques. That is a hybrid TKD and will take longer to learn than a straight Kukki taekwondo class. For that style of TKD, three to four years is optimal for most people.

Straight Kukki Taekwondo? Yes, I can see students training three to four days a week at the dojang plus practice outside of class making from tenth geub to first dan in a year and have a fair level of proficiency.

Daniel

 

[msmitht]

Within the ATA the minimum promotion time is based on number of classes (to orange belt you need a min of 15 classes, blue belt a min of 33 classes, etc....) Our instructor holds firm to the minimum number of classes and normally you'll do quite a few more before he'll give you his blessing to test (not that it's a bad thing). On average in our school it will take a person a minimum of 3-3.5 years to make black belt, I've seen a couple make it slightly quicker than that, but that is just an average. I've sat down and tried to figure out the amount of time it'll take me to test for my 1st dan and at my current rate it'll roughly be around the 5 year mark for me.

Did you know that you can take two identical eggs from the same chicken and one will take longer to cook than the other? Putting a minimum time is good, but should we ignore/hold back those who excell?

Doesn't matter to me about classes (laughable) or years. When the student is ready they are ready. Plain and simple.
Ata is one of the reasons tkd has such a bad rep in my area. I have had a few exp with bb from ata, none good.

 

[dancingalone]

Straight Kukki Taekwondo? Yes, I can see students training three to four days a week at the dojang plus practice outside of class making from tenth geub to first dan in a year and have a fair level of proficiency.

I would really like to see this clearly explained. I know it's been mentioned the KKW requirements are actually sparse with just 1 set of poomsae to be learned and some sparring mandated.

What about raw physical technique? Is there no official KKW guideline to delineate expected dan technical standards? What about hoshinsul? This is left entirely to the individual instructor per my understanding?

Certainly the less material you have to cover, the shorter the amount of time to transmit and learn it. I suspect I have rather more material I expect my students to learn compared to the minimum KKW requirements.

 

[troubleenuf]

One of the things that really floored me was when my old instructor told me that the "new" theory was to "get" students to black belt in a year and "then start to train them". Thats the direction he took his organization in. His theory was to take their money, tuition, test fees and High black belt test fees and then for those who stuck around after they got their black belt work with them to make something of them. He has, and still is, making a lot of money doing this. The funny thing is the reputation he used to have as a tough instructor he still has... its the instructors under him that have had to bear the burden of his "new training".

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I would really like to see this clearly explained. I know it's been mentioned the KKW requirements are actually sparse with just 1 set of poomsae to be learned and some sparring mandated.

Taegeuk iljang through paljang and WTF style sparring.

What about raw physical technique? Is there no official KKW guideline to delineate expected dan technical standards? What about hoshinsul? This is left entirely to the individual instructor per my understanding?

Even if you are learning twenty to thirty kicks, ten to twenty blocks, and twenty to thirty different hand/arm strikes, a year should be sufficient to learn them correctly assuming the training frequency that I mentioned. There is no detailed hoshinsul in Kukki taekwondo so far as I have seen (I have the paper back textbooks 1 & 2), so there is no ground fighting, joint locking or throwing involved.

Certainly the less material you have to cover, the shorter the amount of time to transmit and learn it. I suspect I have rather more material I expect my students to learn compared to the minimum KKW requirements.

I suspect that many of the instructors who are commenting about three to four year time frames are also adding material to the KKW curriculum. If you slap on HKD style hoshinsul, lets say ten to twenty techniques, you're looking at probably at least four to eight months worth to really learn it with proficiency.

If you slap on a full HKD style hoshinsul curriculum (many are close to or over 100 techniques from white to black belt), then you've got at least an additional two years.

If you are adding Palgwe pumse to the curriculum (students learning both Palgwe and Taegeuk pumse), expect to add on a year for that.

If you start sticking weapons in at the high colored belt levels, again, expect to add another six months to a year (that is assuming that the student is only learning solo weapon forms and nothing more; an actual meaningful weapons curiculum will add several years, particularly if there is more than one weapon).

I cannot imagine that one year students in Korea are learning anything more than the taegeuk pumse (and the techniques contained therein), perhaps some kind of kibon pumse, and doing a lot of kicking and punching drills and formal sparring. That is ample material, but not so much that a year would not be sufficient (with the training frequency that I mentioned) to gain enough proficiency to warrant ildan.

Daniel

 

[dancingalone]

Even if you are learning twenty to thirty kicks, ten to twenty blocks, and twenty to thirty different hand/arm strikes, a year should be sufficient to learn them correctly assuming the training frequency that I mentioned.

I am quibbling, but I believe there's more to learning a technique than just how to execute it in the air.

I understand what you are saying in the main however and I appreciate the information.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

I am quibbling, but I believe there's more to learning a technique than just how to execute it in the air.

I understand what you are saying in the main however and I appreciate the information.

I don't think that you are quibbling at all, and I agree with you 100%. I suspect that the one year mentality is to get them doing it correctly in the air and in sparring and then to deepen the knowledge in the dan grades. In four year BB schools in the US, this honing of technique and deepening of knowledge is begun in the geub ranks.

I don't really view either time in grade method as being better or worse: I suspect that a student practicing for four years in either school (again, with the training frequency that I had mentioned) will end up looking and performing the same. In the Korean school, he will have a second stripe on his belt, will have paid for four years of training, and will have paid for twelve tests instead of eleven. Trappings aside, you're still looking at four years worth of classes either way.

On the other hand, trappings aside, if you compare the basic techniques of both students after one year, I suspect that the student in the four year to BB school will look better but have fewer techniques while the same student in the one year to BB school will have learned more techniques but will not be as solid with them.

Daniel

 

[terryl965]

Let's expand a bit. Why do you all feel it should take the minimum time you quoted?

I do not feel the minimum is the correct time in grade, that would be the ealiest they could test.

 

[Twin Fist]

Let's expand a bit. Why do you all feel it should take the minimum time you quoted?

because unless they are Bruce Friggin Lee, it takes that long to get that good.

wait, thats only half true.

it takes that long to ge that good AND to learn to teach it.

if i never worried about someone learning to TEACH?

prob 3 years