UKTA/ITF time scale?

[chrismay101]

Hi everyone.

Im 8th kup and I just want to know what the rough time scale is to get to black belt I only ask because gradings seems a bit haphazard!

Cheers for any input!

 

[Shaderon]

Ok GTUK time scale goes something like this;

Colour belts, grading quarterly, up until 2nd Kup.
2nd to 1st kup - 6 months
1st kup to 1st Dan 6 months (In reality your 1st Dan rank takes a year but the 1st Kup is a halfway house)
1st Dan to 1.5 - 1 year
1.5 to 2 - 1 year (so 2nd Dan takes 2 years but it's split into 2 easy bitesized chunks )
2 to 2.5 - 18 months
2.5 to 3 - 18 months

Well you can see the way this is going, basically it takes 1 year to get 1st Dan, 2 year to 2nd Dan, 3 year to 3rd Dan, invitiation and 4 year to 4th Dan, invitation and 5 years to 5th Dan... when after 6 I know no more...

 

[chrismay101]

Thanks again Shaderon!

 

[terryl965]

Well I do not believe in a timeframe to achieve a BB it is solely up to the individual.

 

[chrismay101]

I agree that if your noy ready to grade you will most likley fail so a time frame may not work.

My question stems from I was told late last year I would be grading then it got moved to mid Jan this year then moved again to beging of feb then moved again to mid feb. I ended up double grading! I understand you may not see the problem with this I didn't want to jump grades.
or is this normal?

 

[terryl965]

I agree that if your noy ready to grade you will most likley fail so a time frame may not work.

My question stems from I was told late last year I would be grading then it got moved to mid Jan this year then moved again to beging of feb then moved again to mid feb. I ended up double grading! I understand you may not see the problem with this I didn't want to jump grades.
or is this normal?

This is a question for your teacher, I personnally never skip a grade and I always test people on time, can I ask why you was pushed back so much, was it on your end or the instructor and did he give you a reason for said moves?

 

[chrismay101]

No my teacher is a first dan so I don't think he can grade (maybe wrong)
It was upto the head coach (4th dan) of one of the other schools in our club when the grading was he just kept pushing it back not just me but for everyone. Might have been his work commitments.

But right now I have not got a clue when the next grading is!

 

[Laurentkd]

So you are saying that the whole testing date got moved, not just your individual test, right?
Yeah, that type of thing is just dependent on the school you are in. You are probably right, if your instructor is a 1st dan he is probably expected to have someone of higher rank there to test (I don't know about UKTA/ITF specifically though).
I guess you just have to deceide if these inconviences are worth it or not. If everything else about the school is great, then don't worry about it. If not, start looking around.
When you skipped a test, did you still learn and know all the material required for both belts? If so, while annoying, I wouldn't stress too much about skipping a rank. Basically if you were the rank below for twice the time and learned everything you needed to be the rank you are, I don't see the problem with it. As long as it didn't happen that way all the time anyway, that would just be too frustrating to a student I think.

 

[Kacey]

I have no experience in the UKTA, but when I was in the ITF, the general timeline was gup testings every 3 months - so that was a minimum (which few people met) of 27 months from 10 gup (beginning white belt) to 1st gup (high red belt). Few people made the minimum for a couple of reasons - I knew few people who didn't miss at least one test sometime due to life events (job, family, school, etc.) that prevented them from being ready, and most classes didn't test at exactly three months due to holidays, availability of a testing instructor, etc.

So in theory (which rarely meets reality) the minimums are:

10th to 9th: 3 months
9th to 8th: 3 months
8th to 7th: 3 months
7th to 6th: 3 months
6th to 5th: 3 months
5th to 4th: 3 months
4th to 3rd: 3 months
3rd to 2nd: 3 months
2nd to 1st: 3 months
1st gup to I Dan: 6 months

Minimum training time: 33 months - so 2 years, 9 months - but then to add to the above interruptions in gup testing, the USTF in the Denver area (which is the ITF affiliate I started in) held group I Dan tests twice a year (so you tested with students from quite a few classes, instead of just in your own class), in (if I remember correctly) March and September - so if you weren't ready when that test was scheduled, you had to wait for the next one. I missed one color belt testing due to illness, and only had 4 months training when the first I Dan test after my 1st gup came around, and had to wait - I think it took me between 3 1/2 and 4 years to reach I Dan, and that was on the slow end of average.

 

[chrismay101]

Thanks Kacey!

 

[Kacey]

Thanks Kacey!

You're very welcome!