A young first degree black belt opens a school...

[TallAdam85]

i would say watch one of his classes and you be the judge

 

[girlbug2]

Sorry I've been away from this thread for a while.

Yes, the instructor is Brazilian and he competes.

From what everybody is telling me here, he should be very experienced and competent. Okay, my concerns are alleviated .

(I had no idea before this how different the ranking system in BJJ was from other martial arts!)

Thanks to all who responded.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Actually this thread is fairly close to home for me. My Sensei -- two brothers nine and eleven years my junior -- were in this very position. Their sensei had left the club when they were in their early twenties, and they ended up taking it over. The elder brother was just out of university, if I recall, a brand new dan, and the younger had remained at brown belt for some time because of an injury. In order to grade the younger to black belt, a committee of examiners was struck, consisting of long-standing black belts.

They held to a long time in grade to first dan -- ten years. There wasn't another dan grading for many years after they took over. I believe I was about the fourth first dan they had ever graded, also by committee.

They worked really hard to maintain the integrity of the club because they knew that they would be seen as very young to have this responsibility. Now with both brothers nearing forty, and with extensive training in other arts, they don't have to worry about this issue.

 

[Touch Of Death]

What do you think about first degree black belts opening their own schools? In your opinion, would a first degree have enough experience either as a martial artist or as a teacher to be doing this? Under what circumstances, if any,would you consider taking classes from him/her?

The reason I ask is because somebody I know is contemplating signing on with a school recently opened by a first degree jiu jitsu black belt. I know next to nothing about that art, so I can't advise. But it sends up a red flag to me that the sensei is relatively young and IMO, therefore inexperienced. Or perhaps I'm just being age-prejudiced?

Your thoughts?

There are plenty of high ranking blackbelts that don't deserve the rank; so, I would just see how it goes before surrounding the school with torches and pitchforks.
Sean

 

[Bruno@MT]

There are plenty of high ranking blackbelts that don't deserve the rank; so, I would just see how it goes before surrounding the school with torches and pitchforks.
Sean

Also, it depends on the organization. Blackbelts in Genbukan can open dojo, but it is expected of course that they themselves keep on training under a higher level sensei.

And it is also not uncommon for higher kyu level students to become group leader and open a club for new students, under the tutelage of another blackbelt.
For example, my sensei is a kyu level instructor. He is still many kyu levels above us, so well qualified to teach us the first kyu levels. Every month, the head sensei (a master level instructor) teaches class, and checks up on us.
And of course, our instructor is expected to keep ahead of us.

It's a system that works fine, on the assumption that there is a top-down level of quality control.
After all, you don't need to be a blackbelt to properly teach someone the first kyu levels.

The advantage of this system is that there can be new schools opened if there is a dedicated person wanting to be group leader, and this helps the spread of dojo. But as I said, it depends on the quality control within the organization.

 

[searcher]

I agree that it depends on the style and the person involved.

If they can convey the information to the students and they hold high standards, then it should not be a problem.

 

[RRepster]

I agree that it depends on the style and the person involved.

If they can convey the information to the students and they hold high standards, then it should not be a problem.

True. Many "schools" are actually clubs anyway and have testings conducted by a panel of higher dans than their instructor. The TKD club I was a member of had a 1st dan instructor but we had advancements periodically by higher ranked organization members at organizational testing events. Of course that also turned out to be the problem because the leaders got busy and testing events kept getting cancelled and we couldn't advance. But that was 20 years ago. Some TKD orgs. now require the dan to be higher to teach because they advance them (IMO) too quickly to 1st dan. The 1st dans I've been seeing in TKD wouldn't last a minute free sparring the greens in the club I went to back then but do keep in mind this organization was small and very militaristic. On the plus side it made Basic training and AIT a breeze for me compared to others.