# What colour belt do you give at 1st poom?



## andyjeffries (May 17, 2014)

I'm canvassing opinions from my Taekwondo friends on here (amongst other places as there are people I respect in many venues).


This year I hope to be promoting students to poom rank for the first time ever.  They will only get official poom certificates from the Kukkiwon, but I wondered - do you make your poom students wear poom collars and belts, or let them wear a full black belt.  I'm leaning towards giving them the official Kukkiwon style half-red/half-black belts, but I see that the official WTF MNA in the UK (along with a lot of schools in the USA) gives out full black belts.


I don't want my students to feel that they are getting something less than they would get elsewhere (and a black belt is an obvious achievement to their friends and family whereas a half-red/half-black belt take more explaining - particular when compared to a red belt with a black stripe through the middle which is 1st Kup).  Thoughts/opinions please...


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## Vrall (May 17, 2014)

As someone who has worn the black and red belt I agree that it might require some explanations when talking about it with people who are not familiar with the ranking system.
However, I realized that if you believe that your own poom belt is worth as much as a black belt, which is true in my opinion, it doesn't really matter and you can take pride in it.

My advice would be to give them the poom belts and teach them not to feel inferior to people who got black belts when they should not.

Hopes this helps.


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## Archtkd (May 17, 2014)

andyjeffries said:


> I'm canvassing opinions from my Taekwondo friends on here (amongst other places as there are people I respect in many venues).
> 
> 
> This year I hope to be promoting students to poom rank for the first time ever.  They will only get official poom certificates from the Kukkiwon, but I wondered - do you make your poom students wear poom collars and belts, or let them wear a full black belt.  I'm leaning towards giving them the official Kukkiwon style half-red/half-black belts, but I see that the official WTF MNA in the UK (along with a lot of schools in the USA) gives out full black belts.
> ...



My poom students wear blackbelts uniform with poom collars in the dojang, but wear black belts and black collars in competition.


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## Archtkd (May 17, 2014)

andyjeffries said:


> I'm canvassing opinions from my Taekwondo friends on here (amongst other places as there are people I respect in many venues).
> 
> 
> This year I hope to be promoting students to poom rank for the first time ever.  They will only get official poom certificates from the Kukkiwon, but I wondered - do you make your poom students wear poom collars and belts, or let them wear a full black belt.  I'm leaning towards giving them the official Kukkiwon style half-red/half-black belts, but I see that the official WTF MNA in the UK (along with a lot of schools in the USA) gives out full black belts.
> ...



Andy. Another way is to look at it, is what do cadets and juniors wear in international WTF kyrorugi and poomsae competion? Solid blackbelts for both, but poom collars in poomsae.


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## granfire (May 17, 2014)

It was the 'probationary belt' in the ITA. They didn't give you the black, so you would return for one more test before departing...but the confusion with the red/black stripe was there.

so they turned it into the 'oreo belt' Black with white stripe. 

I don't really have an opinion. It's a trivial matter to me at this point. Give them the full black, or the poom. either has tradition. The oreo looked weird, but worked.


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## IcemanSK (May 19, 2014)

I talk about how poom belt is used from day 1 with my younger students. I also tell them how much more cool looking I think the poom belt/collar combination is to me. They look forward to getting the poom belt. Some have even been disappointed when they realize they will "age out" before they hit that rank & will miss the opportunity to wear it.


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## Gwai Lo Dan (May 19, 2014)

I was talking to a friend who is blue belt, and he relayed the opposite of giving BB's to poom holders.  At his school, everyone including adults gets the poom belt before BB.  And they call it the poom belt.  So I was quite surprised when he, a 40 year old, said he'd get the poom belt next year.  He had never heard that the poom belt is really a BB for under 15 years old.


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## sfs982000 (May 19, 2014)

The ATA uses the poom belt for their 1st Degree Recommended rank, which is bascially a probabtionary black belt.


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## Archtkd (May 19, 2014)

Gwai Lo Dan said:


> I was talking to a friend who is blue belt, and he relayed the opposite of giving BB's to poom holders.  At his school, everyone including adults gets the poom belt before BB.  And they call it the poom belt.  So I was quite surprised when he, a 40 year old, said he'd get the poom belt next year.  He had never heard that the poom belt is really a BB for under 15 years old.


 
That is common at many Kukkiwon/WTF taekwondo style schools, ours included. A poom belt in our dojang means 1st geup, but poom rank means a Kukkiwon certified blackbelt under 15.


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## skribs (May 19, 2014)

In my school the kids just wear a black belt.  But from sparring with them (we're talking 10-13 age range) and watching them do their forms, they're every bit as much a black belt as an adult black belt.

We call 1st keub (red with 2 black stripes...well, black with a red stripe in the middle) "Junior Black Belt" or "Red II", and they don't get the black belt treatment, but I've seen people who were Red I or Red II when I started 10 months ago that aren't BB yet, for what it's worth.

It's actually funny, because our blue belt and red belts get 1 and 2 stripes between belts, and the 2-stripe belts are basically a plain black belt with a stripe on one side.  One of the girls in sparring club is Red II and she flipped it around at a tournament to spar with the black belts.


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## Gwai Lo Dan (May 20, 2014)

skribs said:


> It's actually funny, because our blue belt and red belts get 1 and 2 stripes between belts, and the 2-stripe belts are basically a plain black belt with a stripe on one side.  One of the girls in sparring club is Red II and she flipped it around at a tournament to spar with the black belts.



Don't the BB's have to provide the KKW number, to register as a BB in the tournament?


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## skribs (May 20, 2014)

I was an orange belt at the time, so I have no idea.  I do know there were a few red belts who sparred in the black belt brackets, but they usually wore their red belts.  (They also had a tendency to win that bracket).

This is the much better alternative to black belts dropping down to purple or green for the sake of winning easily, which has happened in tournaments I went to as a kid.


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## Kong Soo Do (May 20, 2014)

I haven't read through the thread, only the OP.  Just tossing this out for consideration, perhaps the red/black belt is the better option.  It is distinctive but also reserves the black belt for the actual Dan level.  This is a motivational tool in that there is something to look forward to, beside the Dan cert, when they reach the appropriate age (15 or 16 IIRC).


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## WaterGal (May 20, 2014)

Well, I can see the argument for and against. I think, if you go with the red/black belt, it'd be important to make sure the poom students don't feel bad about it, like they're not "real black belts" or whatever.

We're coming up on the same landmark as you, and we're planning on giving them the same physical belt as adult students.  My feeling is.... most people understand that a 10-year old and a 25-year old's black belts don't convey the same level of skill, knowledge and strength.  We have specific black belt requirements that everyone regardless of age must meet, but every student - adult or child - brings their own size, strength, coordination, stamina, creativity, maturity, intellectual development, etc to the table, which will influence how they meet those requirements, and we have to take that into account. Obviously, a typical 10-year old 1st geup is not going to be able to fairly spar a typical 25-year old 1st geup, but neither is a typical 60-year old.  I think this stuff has to be relative.

And if an adult has a problem with a kid getting a black belt and thinks it dilutes the meaning of the rank or whatever, I can talk to them about the poom grading and that KKW doesn't consider it the same.


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## skribs (May 20, 2014)

> most people understand that a 10-year old and a 25-year old's black  belts don't convey the same level of skill, knowledge and strength.



With the exception of strength, I would completely disagree with this statement, at least for my school.  One of the smartest black belts is a 10-year-old, and probably the best 1st Dan sparrer is around the same size.  Some of the kids in the 8-to-10-year-old range are incredible; *much* better than their adult counterparts.


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## outsider0506 (May 28, 2014)

andyjeffries said:


> I'm canvassing opinions from my Taekwondo friends on here (amongst other places as there are people I respect in many venues).
> 
> 
> This year I hope to be promoting students to poom rank for the first time ever.  They will only get official poom certificates from the Kukkiwon, but I wondered - do you make your poom students wear poom collars and belts, or let them wear a full black belt.  I'm leaning towards giving them the official Kukkiwon style half-red/half-black belts, but I see that the official WTF MNA in the UK (along with a lot of schools in the USA) gives out full black belts.



In Korea, they usually use a black/red belt for under 15 (along with black/red collared uniforms). The majority of schools in the U.S. simply use full black. Many schools in the U.S. use the black/red belts as 1st Kup; so much so that many people in the U.S. believe the black/red belt is not actually a black belt for kids. This causes some confusion in local tournaments where they don't check for Kukkiwon certification.

My daughter (11) uses a black/red one for competition poomsae (looks nice with the JCalicu poom uniform with the blue/red collars), but uses an all black belt for tournament sparring.

I prefer the black/red belts for poom students because it draws a distinction between the adult students and the children students...


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## skribs (May 28, 2014)

> so much so that many people in the U.S. believe the black/red belt is not actually a black belt for kids.



Maybe if they could get everyone using the same belts for Keub ranks, this would matter.  As it is, I've seen stripes done different way, the colors in different orders, and some colors omitted (in fact, I'm not sure how my old school when I was a kid translated to Keub ranks, considering they had one more color than we do at my current school, and did more stripes per color).  I don't even think red was the highest belt in my school (or else it was, and a friend at a different school had brown as the highest).


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## Gorilla (Jun 1, 2014)

Kong Soo Do said:


> I haven't read through the thread, only the OP.  Just tossing this out for consideration, perhaps the red/black belt is the better option.  It is distinctive but also reserves the black belt for the actual Dan level.  This is a motivational tool in that there is something to look forward to, beside the Dan cert, when they reach the appropriate age (15 or 16 IIRC).



I agree but most Dojang's don't do this unfortunately.


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## terryl965 (Jun 1, 2014)

If they are under 15 it should be a poom, half red half black. At 15 it can be transferred over to the Black belt Dan grade. But is society nobody cares about proper rules and tradition so everyone gets the black belt,


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