6 Year old BB to join our school (Just a rant/story I need to tell--long)

[NPTKD]

I teach 3 yr olds... But I don't give the rank... What we do is teach is basic martial arts. We do test them in a formal setting ( no test fee) but you have to understand that these children are brothers and sister of our traditional students. They are learning and having a good time doing it. But the parents understand that these are two differant programs. when they turn five we move them up and the start at white belt. I have seen and still have children that have started in this program and move up and continued... Sometime you have to look at the way that you run the program.

 

[matt.m]

I have a 6 and 7 yr old pair. They are brothers, I tell you this.....they will test a belt a year for judo until brown 1st. Then I wont test anyone under 16 for their dan.

Oh, I have seen 10 year olds from other schools have their dan in tae kwon do. I just think, ya know 16 ok. If the kid is mature and it lets them be mentored then I think, ok.....all positives. However, I am a firm believer that no one should wear a 1st dan until 16 or after.

 

[miguksaram]

A quick comment about Mr. Sharkey's school's reputation if I may. His IS one of the top tournament schools in the USA. While tournament karate is not a major focus of my school (though some of our guys, including me, have been quite successful at it), I do recognize quality and people who have achieved excellence at what they do. Even though I am personally much more of a MMA, submission grappling, and full-contact/kickboxing guy, I still occasionally do open forms at the point tournaments and some of my students compete in forms, weapons and (even...egad) point sparring. Sharkey's people are a powerhouse on the open circuit and they have a high level of quality among their competitors;among the highest on the national circuit. Therefore, I really doubt that his generous approach towards the "imports from the McDojos" will do much to tarnish his rep.

First of all thank you very much for your kind words. They are much appreciated. Sensei Sharkey believes in training in the basics. One story is that he once told was of Mike Chat who was a top competitor in his day, was not doing well in the tournaments. He met up with Sensei and explained the situation. Sensei had him do hour of nothing else but Taikyoku forms (our most basic of forms). After that Mike became refocused and started dominating the circuit again.

I believe that if this girl did come to our school, that is excatly what she would be doing is just retraining in the baiscs. In order to get her to a place she needs to be.

 

[miguksaram]

The more I read, the more I realise what a considerable body of water the Atlantic is ...

Yes, becuase 6 year old black belts never happen in the Europe
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-15969358.html

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=68150&in_page_id=34

 

[Twin Fist]

Ok,
I thought I ought to repost to make myself clear. I dont really want to disparage anyone, or how they run their school.

If a school does a class for under 6, and they call it something other than martial arts, thats fine. Call it Lil' tumblers of something. I dont care.

IF you are claiming to teach martial arts to a 3 year old, I have a problem with that. It simply isnt possible, and claiming that it is is dishonest. Your kids at YOUR house? thats one thing. Little Johnny you only see twice a week? You aint teaching that 3 yr old actual martial arts.

If some 6 year old kid comes into my school, and they claim a BB rank, well, I would just go with "Well, show me some stuff, and we will see where you are at" and go from there. If they are not willing to down rank, and they WOULD have to down rank, then they can leave.

But no one, NO ONE is getting a Dan belt from me before they are 16. I would go with 18, but that might not be realistic.

 

[SJON]

Yes, becuase 6 year old black belts never happen in the Europe
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-15969358.html

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=68150&in_page_id=34

Well, the first example seems to be from the US, but I stand corrected regarding the second :xtrmshock.

Seriously, though, I have never seen that kind of thing with my own eyes in Europe and must therefore assume that the cases that do exist are relatively rare and probably imports from the US ...

 

[miguksaram]

and probably imports from the US ...

Bwahahahaha.....that was funny. I'm sure they exist just as well in Europe...perhaps the instructors are have just enough shame to not make a big deal about it like we do. ha.ha.ha.

 

[CDKJudoka]

Sorry, but six year olds should NEVER hold a Dan rank. We have the Lil Dragons thing going on at our dojang and we don't have a Dragon Black belt. It is class set up for 3-7 year olds that, like the Lil Shark program, teaches basic intro to TKD. It doesnt start teaching any of the curriculum until after they are 7 years old, and at that point they will be promoted to either a high white belt, yellow, or high yellow until they can test with the proper TKD curriculum to get their kups.

I was given a first dan going into the school that I am in currently, because of my 2nd Dan that I had earned previously, and that first Dan I had to test for before it was given to me in the new school.

 

[miguksaram]

Just an update to all of this. The 6 year old did come back and join the school. She was already in culture shock the first day. She told her mom it was a hard class and said "They made me sweat." ha.ha.ha. The mom gave her a choice to either go back to the TKD school or stay with us and she chose us. The mom told me that there were others from the school that wanted to join but were using her and her daughter as the test rats to see if ours was a better alternative.

Hopefully we will be rescuing a few more people soon.

 

[granfire]

Just an update to all of this. The 6 year old did come back and join the school. She was already in culture shock the first day. She told her mom it was a hard class and said "They made me sweat." ha.ha.ha. The mom gave her a choice to either go back to the TKD school or stay with us and she chose us. The mom told me that there were others from the school that wanted to join but were using her and her daughter as the test rats to see if ours was a better alternative.

Hopefully we will be rescuing a few more people soon.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA...can't help it! Hope she sticks with it!

 

[terryl965]

Hopefully they will stay

 

[miguksaram]

Hopefully they will stay

I hope so too. They started off with a 3 month agreement. So only time will tell, but hey at least they will know there are other alternatives to the belt mills.

 

[ATC]

Sorry, but six year olds should NEVER hold a Dan rank.

I did not think they could anyway. You cannot hold a Dan rank until the age 16 if I am not misstaken. Under 16 is considered a Poom, is this not correct?

 

[clfsean]

I did not think they could anyway. You cannot hold a Dan rank until the age 16 if I am not misstaken. Under 16 is considered a Poom, is this not correct?

Now-a-days... depends on the school/org.

 

[IcemanSK]

I did not think they could anyway. You cannot hold a Dan rank until the age 16 if I am not misstaken. Under 16 is considered a Poom, is this not correct?

Under Kukkiwon guidelines, you are correct. However, many schools don't make a distinction between poom & dan. It's one of the reasons & like the actual poom belt for poom ranks.

 

[CDKJudoka]

Under Kukkiwon guidelines, you are correct. However, many schools don't make a distinction between poom & dan. It's one of the reasons & like the actual poom belt for poom ranks.

Exactly, which is a big problem in my book, but I come from a very old school, traditional curriculum where it takes some time to go from 1st kyu/gup to 1st Dan. I started TKD at 12 and got my brown belt by 14, but I wasn't allowed to test for my BB til I was 17 years old.

 

[terryl965]

I did not think they could anyway. You cannot hold a Dan rank until the age 16 if I am not misstaken. Under 16 is considered a Poom, is this not correct?

That is correct but so many school never really tell anyone that.

 

[ATC]

Exactly, which is a big problem in my book, but I come from a very old school, traditional curriculum where it takes some time to go from 1st kyu/gup to 1st Dan. I started TKD at 12 and got my brown belt by 14, but I wasn't allowed to test for my BB til I was 17 years old.

That's 5 years and about right. Kids don't really get training in all aspects of TKD anyway. We do not teach them much SD as most won't work because of their size compared to an adult. We do teach them some basic excape moves but that is about it. Once they come into our adult classes they get more SD training.

We do let some kids as young as 12 into adult classes but these are big kids. We still have some 14 and 15 year olds in the kids classes due to their size.

 

[KickFest]

I think the article at http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?in_article_id=68150&in_page_id=34 is a classic example of the media misrepresenting the facts.

Although the article headline is "Martial Archie becomes youngest black belt", there are a couple of quotes which make me wonder what they mean, exactly.

"he is the youngest of just 15 to have reached junior black belt"
"Because of his progress, he will skip through two grades in his new class, and will begin as a yellow stripe next year."

This seems to be similar to a system run by my club, where the kids rank in a separate system and get belts which are white with a coloured stripe through them. When they enter the adult class they go straight to yellow belt. We don't have any 6 year old black belts though!

Not to be unkind to the Metro (without it I'd actually have to look at the other people on London Underground... eugh), but it looks like they've latched on to "black belt" and tried to make a story out of it.

 

[midnight star]

wow!

in our association,they dont take kids until they're 5-6 yrs old.
you can test every 3 months for a belt/stripe until redbelt, the u have to wait 6 month minimum before taking black tag,then 1 yr minimum before taking black belt grading.

having said this,you can only test IF your instructor thinks you are a)good enough and b)if you,ve put in the time and effort!

also before taking your black belt or any dan grade, you have to have been to at least 10 specific black belt training sessions and attended some events,be it competitions or seminars etc.Proof of attendance is required(signiture of the event organiser/instructor) and is submitted with your grading application form.

i take my 3rd dan this november and have been to many,many BB training sessions and events over the last 18 months since taking my 2nd dan.
I believe you need to show some commitment and show that ur prepared to put yourself out to show u are worthy of being ALLOWED to test for a dan grade!
i have no problem with doing this.