Being all serious

[Earl Weiss]

There's a fairly large subjective component to awarding rank in my calculus. I don't have some universal formula I use to determine if John is ready for his shodan or not. I use the eye ball test. Is he fit? Is he good? Do I actually believe he can fight if need be using the principles of the system I teach? Is John emotionally and intellectually ready to take a leadership role in my dojo? There are all factors I consider before I will allow a student to test for black belt. It's not a black and white deal (heh), but hey my dojo, my rules.

My point is that these things have to be arbitrary to an extent. Otherwise, rank does indeed become a paint by the numbers act.

I agree, your Dojo, you rules. Please explain WHY things have to be arbitrary to an extent?

While you and others may certainly "Play it straight" an arbitrary format is ripe for instructor abuse and has been abused greatly in the past.

 

[dancingalone]

I agree, your Dojo, you rules. Please explain WHY things have to be arbitrary to an extent?

While you and others may certainly "Play it straight" an arbitrary format is ripe for instructor abuse and has been abused greatly in the past.

Because I have to reconcile in my head whether John or Joe deserve black belt or not. John has always been more physically talented than Joe. Do I measure Joe's attainment up to John's? If so, he will always be wanting.

Evaluation of martial skill is inherently subjective and thus arbitrary. I don't pretend that things will always be equal or fair and that works because I have no ambitions to run a martial arts empire. You only need so-called 'objective' measures when you move beyond the small group dynamic.

 

[Steve]

Who is getting defensive? Not me.

I merely point out that TIME is the common link to skill acquisition and building bonds between the student and his instructor and school. It's fine to say rank should not be based on time, but that's really an illusionary statement. So what? It takes time to build skill. It takes time to build relationships. It takes time to mature in the art.

How much time? Different for everyone. Surely we can agree on this.

The problem with your position is that you are trying to reduce a martial ART into a 'check off the list' type endeavor.

LOL... some artists are born that way. If you want to make this about art, you're even more off base.

Let's talk about artists. How about Mozart? At age 8, he wrote a symphony. As an artist, he excelled in such a short amount of time, it was amazing. If belts were awarded in musical composition, surely he would have merited a black belt. Don't you think? He was an artist who was able to demonstrate skills that warranted acclaim.

Some people just get it. They paint, draw, write or compose art. Others work at it. The best do both. And some people just don't get it and never will. That doesn't mean that they can't appreciate and enjoy painting or writing. Just that they'll never make a living at it or become accomplished.

Once again, time has nothing to do with it.

Steve, just because I DISAGREE with your premise doesn't mean that I don't understand it. Capish?

I get that. some of the things you've said seemed to be more misunderstanding than disagreeing. If you understand and disagree, that's okay by me.

There's a fairly large subjective component to awarding rank in my calculus. I don't have some universal formula I use to determine if John is ready for his shodan or not. I use the eye ball test. Is he fit? Is he good? Do I actually believe he can fight if need be using the principles of the system I teach? Is John emotionally and intellectually ready to take a leadership role in my dojo? There are all factors I consider before I will allow a student to test for black belt. It's not a black and white deal (heh), but hey my dojo, my rules.

And, this is what leads me to believe that you don't understand my point. What you just wrote doesn't contradict what I've written at all. Once again, if you have standards that are applied consistently, and you don't make arbitrary exceptions, I'm on board. You've just articulated a standard.

Chances are, I'm not being clear.

My point is that these things have to be arbitrary to an extent. Otherwise, rank does indeed become a paint by the numbers act.

I think that if it's arbitrary, there's no inherent integrity in the program. It's worthless and subjective. No art in that, in my book.

 

[Steve]

Because I have to reconcile in my head whether John or Joe deserve black belt or not. John has always been more physically talented than Joe. Do I measure Joe's attainment up to John's? If so, he will always be wanting.

Evaluation of martial skill is inherently subjective and thus arbitrary. I don't pretend that things will always be equal or fair and that works because I have no ambitions to run a martial arts empire. You only need so-called 'objective' measures when you move beyond the small group dynamic.

It's inherently subjective and arbitrary if your art exists in the absence of objective, external feedback.

In other words, if you're teaching someone to defend himself and you have no mechanism in place to actually get some feedback on this, you have to sort of... guess.

Yeah, okay. Based on this, I guess I do disagree.

And calling it "art" to justify this is a problem, in my book.

 

[dancingalone]

How much time? Different for everyone. Surely we can agree on this.

Personal aptitude can be a factor. Perhaps even higher on the order of developmental factors is the instruction. There is a natural limit in how fast you can progress based on the frequency of instruction and its quality. If all a student only attends the group sessions, his progress will be limited by the necessarily lowest common denominator standard generally employed. I try to mitigate that somewhat by splitting the class into groups, but even then...

Personally, I believe all beginners who have the talent and determination eventually congregate around a standard band of time for achieving black belt. 5 years is a frequent benchmark thrown around because it has some validity to it, whether the limiting factor is the student OR the instruction itself.

LOL... some artists are born that way. If you want to make this about art, you're even more off base.

Let's talk about artists. How about Mozart? At age 8, he wrote a symphony. As an artist, he excelled in such a short amount of time, it was amazing. If belts were awarded in musical composition, surely he would have merited a black belt. Don't you think? He was an artist who was able to demonstrate skills that warranted acclaim.

Some people just get it. They paint, draw, write or compose art. Others work at it. The best do both. And some people just don't get it and never will. That doesn't mean that they can't appreciate and enjoy painting or writing. Just that they'll never make a living at it or become accomplished.

Steve, I am assuming things, but you don't sound like you've ever run a school or taught a class for a period of years and have advanced students to the rank of black belt. IMO, it's really not as free-form and spontaneous as you make it out to be. There are certain skills that must be acquired before higher level study can be undertaken and this takes time to achieve or develop. Some are talented and can reach this stage quicker than others can obviously. But it is not a case of a giant like Isaac Newton lapping his peers. Negative. With regard to martial arts, beginners fall into the same time bands for progress.

Once again, if you have standards that are applied consistently, and you don't make arbitrary exceptions, I'm on board. You've just articulated a standard.
....
....

I think that if it's arbitrary, there's no inherent integrity in the program. It's worthless and subjective. No art in that, in my book.

If I am measuring two people with the same test (perform this kata, break this board, spar me), yet I might fail one person with a result that I will pass another, that is inherently arbitrary. Unless you propose that I don't have different success scenarios for different people based on their athleticism or even their body types?

 

[dancingalone]

It's inherently subjective and arbitrary if your art exists in the absence of objective, external feedback.

In other words, if you're teaching someone to defend himself and you have no mechanism in place to actually get some feedback on this, you have to sort of... guess.

Yeah, okay. Based on this, I guess I do disagree.

And calling it "art" to justify this is a problem, in my book.

Would you prefer I use 'science' as the label instead.

I think you just come from a different martial background than I do so you have different thoughts on this. That's fine.

 

[dancingalone]

I should add that there is a minimum baseline of skill, again arbitrary in nature however, that should be respected to gain any rank, particularly black belt.

 

[Steve]

Steve, I am assuming things, but you don't sound like you've ever run a school or taught a class for a period of years and have advanced students to the rank of black belt. IMO, it's really not as free-form and spontaneous as you make it out to be. There are certain skills that must be acquired before higher level study can be undertaken and this takes time to achieve or develop. Some are talented and can reach this stage quicker than others can obviously. But it is not a case of a giant like Isaac Newton lapping his peers. Negative. With regard to martial arts, beginners fall into the same time bands for progress.

I don't teach martial arts. I have, however, been involved in training people for most of my adult life. The art )) of teaching people to do anything is the same, regardless of the activity. While it may look different, the mechanisms behind good training are consistent. Bad training, too. People only learn in so many different ways and good training is repeatable and very predictable.

I would never say that teaching people to be experts in something is free form or spontaneous. I'm saying exactly the opposite. It's deliberate, measurable and predictable. You appear to me to be arguing two sides of the same coin, which is, frankly, confusing me. You're arguing that something is arbitrary and subjective but then suggesting that I'm the one who's free-form and spontaneous. I don't get it.

One of the real problems I have with the way that most people represent martial arts is the idea that it is somehow different from every other thing we do. It's not. That's just ego talking.

Martial arts training is a physical activity sometimes combined with a philosophical component. There's a what and a why.

All artists are subject to external measures of skill and talent. There is, contrary to the beliefs of some, bad art. Bad poetry and bad paintings. While there is certainly an element of personal taste, there are also objective standards. Symmetry, alignment, color harmony. There's a vocabulary used, and an educated person can look at a piece of art and make observations.

Even on a website you can see elements of art. How it's laid out. Where the eye goes. Tension. Contrast. Why a person chose a serif font or a sans-serif font. Font size and color... These are all things that an art director is trained to comment on.

The point is, these things aren't subjective. A good writer knows and understands these things. A good graphic artist does, too. The point I was making earlier is that some people know these things inherently and others learn them. But they're observable.

If you truly believe that you're training artists, but can't articulate the minimum requirements in terms that aren't arbitrary, that suggests to me that you don't really understand what being an artist actually means.

Anyway, it's clear that we disagree. We might just need to leave it at that.

 

[dancingalone]

I don't teach martial arts. I have, however, been involved in training people for most of my adult life. The art )) of teaching people to do anything is the same, regardless of the activity. While it may look different, the mechanisms behind good training are consistent. Bad training, too. People only learn in so many different ways and good training is repeatable and very predictable.

Yeah, I remember some such ideas from my educational psychology courses from college. What you say makes sense at first glance, yet as far as I know no published instructional design efforts have been made in the realm of TRADITIONAL MARTIAL ARTS.

The field of martial arts instruction remains very much one of individual practice. Some teach by rote repetition. Some endeavor to bolster more sensory cognition. No one really knows which approach is 'best'. As with anything, I think the answer is 'it depends' on the student and the teacher. Hmm, there's those words, arbitrary and subjective, again.

I would never say that teaching people to be experts in something is free form or spontaneous. I'm saying exactly the opposite. It's deliberate, measurable and predictable. You appear to me to be arguing two sides of the same coin, which is, frankly, confusing me. You're arguing that something is arbitrary and subjective but then suggesting that I'm the one who's free-form and spontaneous. I don't get it.

Well, you went off on the tangent about artists and colors and such. I just went with the flow. You mention several times the idea that there is individual variation with regard to learning time. I agreed on a general level, but I made clear that in martial arts when we are talking about true beginners, people really do fall into a predictable time frame for acquiring physical skills. In other words, the passage of a certain time frame is a decent enough measure for when one's students should reach a certain skill threshold if they've been paying attention and working diligently.

One of the real problems I have with the way that most people represent martial arts is the idea that it is somehow different from every other thing we do. It's not. That's just ego talking.

Sounds like you have an ax to grind on this.

Martial arts training is a physical activity sometimes combined with a philosophical component. There's a what and a why.

All artists are subject to external measures of skill and talent. There is, contrary to the beliefs of some, bad art. Bad poetry and bad paintings. While there is certainly an element of personal taste, there are also objective standards. Symmetry, alignment, color harmony. There's a vocabulary used, and an educated person can look at a piece of art and make observations.

Even on a website you can see elements of art. How it's laid out. Where the eye goes. Tension. Contrast. Why a person chose a serif font or a sans-serif font. Font size and color... These are all things that an art director is trained to comment on.

The point is, these things aren't subjective. A good writer knows and understands these things. A good graphic artist does, too. The point I was making earlier is that some people know these things inherently and others learn them. But they're observable.

Can we relate this to martial arts?

Consider that there is a rough guideline in one's mind on what presents a 'black belt' level of skill. It should be apparent that each student's performance will deviate in some way against the standard, either for better or worse.

It is the instructor's SUBJECTIVE opinion that tallies the benchmark. I say subjective, because martial arts techniques are not measured according to some definite grid of results. There is no way for me to rate a punch as a "10" and have that mean anything from a scientific perspective. What I can do as a teacher is to rate the punch from my experience over the years and say, yes that's good technique, or no, that is horrible.

An unquantifiable, unreproducible standard is the opposite of an objective standard. It is in fact SUBJECTIVE.

If you truly believe that you're training artists, but can't articulate the minimum requirements in terms that aren't arbitrary, that suggests to me that you don't really understand what being an artist actually means.

Probably. I took business and engineering courses in college, not communications or art classes.

I use martial art in the sense that I would imagine most here on MT do. It's a fighting system with some room for individual customization and adaptation. That is where the word 'art' comes in, rather than a pure sense of aesthetics.

Anyway, it's clear that we disagree. We might just need to leave it at that.

Yep.

 

[StudentCarl]

Interesting discussion! Thanks Terry, for opening the can of worms.

Disclaimer: I'm a 3rd gup.

Long ago in officer training, I was told that there are certain things you need to "BE, KNOW, and DO" to be a leader. When I see black belts and think about what one means to me, my thoughts fit that structure:

There are things you need to be: character, maturity, attitudes, judgment

There are things you need to know: knowledge, skills

There are things you need to do: fitness, contribution, set a good
example, effort.

I don't have an opinion about time, but I am increasingly able to identify a 'black belt caliber' person when I see them. I think it varies from person to person.

Some day I will be one.

 

[Steve]

Okay. Since you took some business and engineering courses in college (and one psych course), just suffice to say that the term "art" actually means something. There's an actual definition. "Art" is both as broad and as specific as saying "engineering." So, when you capitalize the word ART in a sentence, I think it's reasonable to assume you meant to emphasize that term. And when you use it and don't know what it means, it leads to misunderstanding.

What kills me is that you have restated my basic points in each and every one of your posts, but then move away from those points into some weird place where you disagree with us both.

So. Rather than butt heads when we are obviously coming from two different places, I'll just to bring this back to the OP. Schools where the criteria for promotion are only in one person's head are, in my own opinion, a big part of the reason why a black belt is a largely meaningless rank. Applying any kind of arbitrary time frame or subjective standards further dilutes the already watered down community. As I said in my first post, the time frames for me are between one month and never, depending upon the person. YMMV.

This doesn't mean that every black belt is meaningless. Some people work really hard to achieve the rank. Rather, that the rank is becoming meaningless because even within one style there's no standard. It's "subjective" and "arbitrary." I think that's very sad.

 

[terryl965]

Interesting discussion! Thanks Terry, for opening the can of worms.

Disclaimer: I'm a 3rd gup.

Long ago in officer training, I was told that there are certain things you need to "BE, KNOW, and DO" to be a leader. When I see black belts and think about what one means to me, my thoughts fit that structure:

There are things you need to be: character, maturity, attitudes, judgment

There are things you need to know: knowledge, skills

There are things you need to do: fitness, contribution, set a good
example, effort.

I don't have an opinion about time, but I am increasingly able to identify a 'black belt caliber' person when I see them. I think it varies from person to person.

Some day I will be one.

You are absolutely welcome and remember I am enjoying this as well.

 

[terryl965]

Okay. Since you took some business and engineering courses in college (and one psych course), just suffice to say that the term "art" actually means something. There's an actual definition. "Art" is both as broad and as specific as saying "engineering." So, when you capitalize the word ART in a sentence, I think it's reasonable to assume you meant to emphasize that term. And when you use it and don't know what it means, it leads to misunderstanding.

What kills me is that you have restated my basic points in each and every one of your posts, but then move away from those points into some weird place where you disagree with us both.

So. Rather than butt heads when we are obviously coming from two different places, I'll just to bring this back to the OP. Schools where the criteria for promotion are only in one person's head are, in my own opinion, a big part of the reason why a black belt is a largely meaningless rank. Applying any kind of arbitrary time frame or subjective standards further dilutes the already watered down community. As I said in my first post, the time frames for me are between one month and never, depending upon the person. YMMV.

This doesn't mean that every black belt is meaningless. Some people work really hard to achieve the rank. Rather, that the rank is becoming meaningless because even within one style there's no standard. It's "subjective" and "arbitrary." I think that's very sad.

Well here goes a little tidbit, I am asking this because I was told that you must have a certain amount of time before each Dan rank by the KKW and guess what it does state that, but yet I see all these people that are of high rank without the proper timeframe or age requirement how can this be? Article eight under regulation oh hell here is the link see for yourself the requirements and age requirement for yourself.

 

[dancingalone]

Okay. Since you took some business and engineering courses in college (and one psych course), just suffice to say that the term "art" actually means something. There's an actual definition. "Art" is both as broad and as specific as saying "engineering." So, when you capitalize the word ART in a sentence, I think it's reasonable to assume you meant to emphasize that term. And when you use it and don't know what it means, it leads to misunderstanding.

Umm, I do know what martial art means. I don't know why you persist in trying to apply some obviously non-martial meaning to the 'art' part of 'martial art', since we are on MARTIAL TALK.

What kills me is that you have restated my basic points in each and every one of your posts, but then move away from those points into some weird place where you disagree with us both.

Perhaps it's just a matter of subjective perspective. You frankly are the one moving in weird places to me.

So. Rather than butt heads when we are obviously coming from two different places, I'll just to bring this back to the OP. Schools where the criteria for promotion are only in one person's head are, in my own opinion, a big part of the reason why a black belt is a largely meaningless rank. Applying any kind of arbitrary time frame or subjective standards further dilutes the already watered down community. As I said in my first post, the time frames for me are between one month and never, depending upon the person. YMMV.

And you're entitled to your opinion. Yet I will leave one last thought. Martial artists have relied on teacher to student transmission as a means of perpetuating their knowledge. In my world, the relationship between a teacher and his pupils is paramount. It's presumed that the teacher knows best, particularly within his subject domain. I think this is generally a good assumption if we don't hold dark suspicions about the Confucian model.

Are the ideas of objective measurements outside of the teacher compatible with Confucianism and the senior/junior instructional model? Something to ponder indeed.

 

[Steve]

Umm, I do know what martial art means.

Hey, listen. Being all serious, because that's what this thread is about. It's all good.

Ultimately, we have different opinions and I'm okay with that. But this one thing made me laugh out loud because you seem so confident. I, on the other hand, don't think that any two people on this board could agree on what "martial art" means.

As I said, I know what art is, and when it's emphasized in the term "martial art" that means something very specific to me (and to any artist). But "martial art" might as well be Klingon.

 

[ralphmcpherson]

Time has to play some part in my opinion because it helps with the 'grey area' in promoting students. At the club where I train a requirement for second dan is to break a thick piece of timber with a jump spinning kick. Now there are some people (actually lots of people) who will just never be able to do a good jump spinning kick let alone actually break timber with it. It could be age or a life long injury or just a lack of the rquired flexibility but some people will never be able to achieve this 2nd dan requirement and I dont have a problem with the odd 2nd dan who cant do this if they have trained for the relevent amount of time and know all other grading requiremnts. Its not always possible to just have a 'checklist' of requirements or some people would never be able to achieve a black belt irrespective of the time put in.

 

[dancingalone]

Well here goes a little tidbit, I am asking this because I was told that you must have a certain amount of time before each Dan rank by the KKW and guess what it does state that, but yet I see all these people that are of high rank without the proper timeframe or age requirement how can this be? Article eight under regulation oh hell here is the link see for yourself the requirements and age requirement for yourself.

If there are official, published time-in-rank requirements, then obviously they should be adhered to, unless there are official avenues to waive them. This can be as simple as because the KKW president said it is OK as long as that is in the by-laws.

Goodness, you big org guys put up with a lot of BS.

 

[Steve]

Time has to play some part in my opinion because it helps with the 'grey area' in promoting students. At the club where I train a requirement for second dan is to break a thick piece of timber with a jump spinning kick. Now there are some people (actually lots of people) who will just never be able to do a good jump spinning kick let alone actually break timber with it. It could be age or a life long injury or just a lack of the rquired flexibility but some people will never be able to achieve this 2nd dan requirement and I dont have a problem with the odd 2nd dan who cant do this if they have trained for the relevent amount of time and know all other grading requiremnts. Its not always possible to just have a 'checklist' of requirements or some people would never be able to achieve a black belt irrespective of the time put in.

In lieu of a timeline, I mentioned earlier the idea of a reasonable accommodation. If it's not a firm requirement, you can get by with equivalencies. Again, the important thing for me is whether you're establishing equivalent standards or lowering the standards. If your measure is simply time in grade, personally, I'd call that abandoning the standard altogether.

The other way to look at it is this. If the standard is firm and only a few people can meet the standards, your choices are to change the standards if you feel they're too strict, or just accept that not very many people are 2nd Dan material. It sounds like you've functionally adjusted the standard, whether officially or not.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Are the ideas of objective measurements outside of the teacher compatible with Confucianism and the senior/junior instructional model? Something to ponder indeed.

Could you please explain the above statement. I do not understand your point.

 

[rlobrecht]

There's an interesting article linked in the Kempo area, which mentions 10,000 hours to achieve expertise. If we assume 1,000 hours to 1st Dan, this should mean you'd reach 10,000 hours (or expertise) by 3rd or 4th Dan.