Articulating your rank

[Patrick Skerry]

Yes, this is a parody of a famous Zen koan where one is meant to contemplate a semantic contradiction to the exclusion of all else: Such as the tallest girl in class was shorter than all the rest; the fastest runner in the race was slower than all the rest, One step forward - and two steps back. It is a variation of Zeno's paradox.

In Zen, the koan is a mind/meditative exercise to a quicker path to enlightenment than spending decades studying the sutras. One is supposed to solve the paradox in terms of Buddhist philosophy and theology.

So it simply means the more you have learned, the more you need to learn.

One step closer than yesterday and one step further away from understanding.

(I wrote this after the $1 beer happy hour at me local......so if you understand it shoot me an email)

 

[RRouuselot]

.............
So it simply means the more you have learned, the more you need to learn.

Not really.
It means the more I learn the more I figure that I didn't know so much before and that I there is always more to learn no matter how good I get.

 

[sifu Adams]

I have in many accations told my students that geting your black belt is like just getting out of high school. Now it's time for collage. If you go 3 years as a Math major then go to english you will have to start over. that dose not mean you forget the math. you just start learning english. If you are starting out in a new system where the white belt.

 

[Vadim]

If I were to study a different style at a new school I would definitely go back to wearing a white belt. I would want to show my fellow practitioners and instructors that I am open to learning new concepts and approach my training with a "beginner's mind" absorbing the knowledge and skill that is being presented.

-Vadim

 

[TimoS]

With us this actually very simple as at our club we only have two colours for belt: white and black. I train (under same sensei) at two separate clubs and at both the rule is you wear either white or black and during kata training even the black belts (and often sensei himself also) usually wear white. Sensei has also said that if he is teaching to people from a different style, he usually demands that everybody wears white because they are all beginners in the style he teaches

 

[RRouuselot]

I let people wear whatever belt they earned in another style. I am not such a budo snob to say they didn't earn that rank and can't wear it......Who am I to say they didn't earn that rank....... it's not rank in what I teach but they earned it none the less.
However, having said that I wouldn't wear my karate rank in a judo or something outside karate.

There is an infamous dan factory group (Kokusai Budoin) in Tokyo that I talked with one time and briefly considered joining. The group was headed by a guy named Saito or Sato who was a Judo teacher. He told me that if I joined his organization I would have to be "graded" by their members (mostly judo folks with one karate guy) . He said it was because we gaijin are to "over ranked"...I think I had trained about 18 years and was a mere 3rd dan ....I asked him what he knew about karate and what made him think he had the right to grade me. H esaid their karate "master" knew a lot and would be the deciding factor. I talked to the "master" and asked him if he knew any tuite and so forth found in kata, he didn't even know what tuite was........I told Saito or Sato that maybe I should grade their "master" since he my be a good "kata dancer" but didn't know as much as my kyu ranks about technique. Needless to say he was ticked off.....not that I cared.

I also had a Japanese 6th dan from Shotokai come to my dojo and claim he knew nothing and said he hadn't trained in many years since he was a kid. However it was obvious he did .....by looking at his knuckles you could see he was a big fan of the makiwara.
He got bounced around my dojo for a month or so by myself and my by some kyu ranks. On one weekend I happen to walk by a karate school and guess who was teaching......."Mr. I haven't trained in a long time" 6th dan!.......and he was teaching what I had showed him and not Shotkai stuff....and teaching it wrong!
I went into the dojo and told him infront of his class if he was going to teach what I taught him at least do it right. So I ended up teaching his class while he stood off to the side and tried to keep up.
People that try to BS me like that quickly lose my respect.
I expect people to come in and train hard, ask question if they don't understand.
There is a guy on this BB that comes to my dojo when he can. I respect the way he trains....comes in, works hard, doesn't moan or groan, and let's his technique do his talking...........as it should be.

 

[drunken mistress]

My son and I have started again in Kyokushinkai after studying 15 months of other styles of karate. We were asked to start again as white belts but also told we would probably progress quicker in the early belts as the result of having done something similar before. That seems pretty fair to me.

 

[still learning]

Hello, Each school has there own way of doing things and it is up to the teacher to decide the belt rank. I agree if the systems are about the same,including the kata's, your teachers choice.
But if is is total new and different than you should start at the begining belt level. It is only a color, to signal the level of the training material. Not your skills.

Joe Lewis was a train fighter before going to Okinawa to learn Karate over there. He started as a white belt and in 9 months got promoted to Black belt. He keep on busting up the other black belts. Teacher said you are a BB....Aloha

 

[RRouuselot]

Joe Lewis was a train fighter before going to Okinawa to learn Karate over there. He started as a white belt and in 9 months got promoted to Black belt. He keep on busting up the other black belts. Teacher said you are a BB....Aloha

Uh…you have no idea what you are talking about. Joe Lewis was a student of my teacher in Okinawa………and what you just wrote is basically WRONG