my instructor doesn't teach all the techniques. We learn 100 of them, rather than all 150 or so...
25 techniques for Orange (we don't have a yellow belt)
25 techniques for Purple
25 techniques for Blue
25 techniques for Green
Brown belt is mainly a teaching belt to reinforce what we've learned so far, the philosophy being that you don't truly understand something until you can teach it to someone else. It is a time where your knowledge really starts to mature and you're really required to understand the "why" of things rather than just the "how". We try to emphasize quality of techniques over quantity. The rest of the 50 techniques are either picked up as a brown belt from participating in the black and brown belt level class, or they're learned after black belt. We do learn the whole system, we're just not required to do it before black belt.
I am finding that not having any additional required techniques to learn at brown belt is very, very helpful to me. (although I have picked up some of the ones that I have to know after black) It gives me the opportunity to take another look at the techniques I learned several years ago through teaching them to other students. It makes me really analyze in my mind how and why these work.
I know a lot of people think that you should teach the entire system before black, and what my teacher does isn't my decision, but my reasoning is that if you take enough time to teach the how and the why of kenpo, fifty techniques won't make a huge difference, considering that techniques are only ideas from which to draw on, and in the street, you never have the perfect technique situation. you have to improvise, and if you know how and why kenpo works, you are capable of improvising, and that ability may save your life.
25 techniques for Orange (we don't have a yellow belt)
25 techniques for Purple
25 techniques for Blue
25 techniques for Green
Brown belt is mainly a teaching belt to reinforce what we've learned so far, the philosophy being that you don't truly understand something until you can teach it to someone else. It is a time where your knowledge really starts to mature and you're really required to understand the "why" of things rather than just the "how". We try to emphasize quality of techniques over quantity. The rest of the 50 techniques are either picked up as a brown belt from participating in the black and brown belt level class, or they're learned after black belt. We do learn the whole system, we're just not required to do it before black belt.
I am finding that not having any additional required techniques to learn at brown belt is very, very helpful to me. (although I have picked up some of the ones that I have to know after black) It gives me the opportunity to take another look at the techniques I learned several years ago through teaching them to other students. It makes me really analyze in my mind how and why these work.
I know a lot of people think that you should teach the entire system before black, and what my teacher does isn't my decision, but my reasoning is that if you take enough time to teach the how and the why of kenpo, fifty techniques won't make a huge difference, considering that techniques are only ideas from which to draw on, and in the street, you never have the perfect technique situation. you have to improvise, and if you know how and why kenpo works, you are capable of improvising, and that ability may save your life.
