Belt Testing

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I would have thought you would want to apply what works for you regardless if it is self defence or otherwise.

But otherwise if you think there should be a syllabus. Then you can still test that rigourously.

The idea isn't necessarily what works for you in self-defense, it is making sure that you fully understand the material. I'm not going to promote someone in a style that incorporates both grappling and striking for instance, if they only know how to escape while grappling so they can win with standup. They're winning they're matches but not going up in rank.
Also, just fighting won't get every aspect of self-defense. They could be winning, but do they know how to knife-fight (part of what my bb required)? Do they know weapon defense, how to deal with multiple attackers, how verbal deescalation works? Without these things, they're not getting promoted past a certain point.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

In the past, I have charged a small testing fee, simply to keep students (usually kids, whom I do not teach now) from coming to a test unprepared. They were wasting my time - time I could have been teaching them or someone else - by being unprepared to test. I've solved that in my program by no longer allowing the students to select when to test. Since formal testing is there to verify what I see in class, I now make the decision when a student is ready to test.

Students in our dojo do not ask to be promoted. They are promoted when sensei thinks they are ready. We have a written test, but it's open book so to speak. They may do a qualifying kata, but even if they do poorly, Sensei usually knows they know, so they get promoted if he thinks they're ready.needs to work for us.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

The idea isn't necessarily what works for you in self-defense, it is making sure that you fully understand the material. I'm not going to promote someone in a style that incorporates both grappling and striking for instance, if they only know how to escape while grappling so they can win with standup. They're winning they're matches but not going up in rank.
Also, just fighting won't get every aspect of self-defense. They could be winning, but do they know how to knife-fight (part of what my bb required)? Do they know weapon defense, how to deal with multiple attackers, how verbal deescalation works? Without these things, they're not getting promoted past a certain point.

I have a friend who runs a dojo and requires his black belts to run five miles in 45 minutes. I'm way too old and fat for his criteria, but I've pounded the crap out of some of his champion black belts, so..eh.

 

[drop bear]

The idea isn't necessarily what works for you in self-defense, it is making sure that you fully understand the material. I'm not going to promote someone in a style that incorporates both grappling and striking for instance, if they only know how to escape while grappling so they can win with standup. They're winning they're matches but not going up in rank.
Also, just fighting won't get every aspect of self-defense. They could be winning, but do they know how to knife-fight (part of what my bb required)? Do they know weapon defense, how to deal with multiple attackers, how verbal deescalation works? Without these things, they're not getting promoted past a certain point.

You can still test them in the areas that you want to test them.

You want to test their striking then have them do striking.
Weapon defence give the guy a rubber knife.
Multiple attackers? Then have multiple attackers.
Verbal deescalation. They can win a debate or something.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I have a friend who runs a dojo and requires his black belts to run five miles in 45 minutes. I'm way too old and fat for his criteria, but I've pounded the crap out of some of his champion black belts, so..eh.

I'm not a fan of criteria like that either. Did any of the things I stated sound like something you could not learn to do at your age?

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

You can still test them in the areas that you want to test them.

You want to test their striking then have them do striking.
Weapon defence give the guy a rubber knife.
Multiple attackers? Then have multiple attackers.
Verbal deescalation. They can win a debate or something.

I reread your original quote and realized I had misread. While for technique specific criteria, what you're suggesting isn't enough (you can't exactly test a form through striking) but thought you were referring to the arts where the way you advance is winning in tournaments, which would not work for some of those. What you mentioned is actually how I have been tested, with the exception of the debate, for that its basically just seeing if they know the things that can calm a person down who is enraged, and what to do in specific situations pre-fight.
As a side note, 'debating' with your opponent would be an absolutely horrible idea.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Might be down to the fact that I study a specific form of karate that doesn't have knife fighting or verbal judo as part of the curriculum. Just karate.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Most likely. If you were studying it, you would have to learn it. Similarly, I doubt I could rank up in isshinryu without knowing the forms.

 

[kuniggety]

I have a friend who runs a dojo and requires his black belts to run five miles in 45 minutes. I'm way too old and fat for his criteria, but I've pounded the crap out of some of his champion black belts, so..eh.

Looking back to when I was a kid, we had physical fitness requirements and I didn't question it at the time but now I think it's dumb. I am personally fit and have no problem running 5 miles in 45 min (okay, it might take a bit out of me because I haven't done a lot of running in the past 6 months) but I don't see the correlation between it and being ranked in a martial art. I recommend people to focus on their fitness so they're not gassing out in the middle of sparring but how many self-defense situations last more than a minute anyways? Maybe the instructor just wants to make sure his students can outrun you though so you can't whoop their butts.

 

[drop bear]

Looking back to when I was a kid, we had physical fitness requirements and I didn't question it at the time but now I think it's dumb. I am personally fit and have no problem running 5 miles in 45 min (okay, it might take a bit out of me because I haven't done a lot of running in the past 6 months) but I don't see the correlation between it and being ranked in a martial art. I recommend people to focus on their fitness so they're not gassing out in the middle of sparring but how many self-defense situations last more than a minute anyways? Maybe the instructor just wants to make sure his students can outrun you though so you can't whoop their butts.

Some martial arts schools consider fitness part of their package

Being a douche may not matter in self defence but is generally considered a bad result in a martial arts school.

 

[Buka]

I have a friend who runs a dojo and requires his black belts to run five miles in 45 minutes. I'm way too old and fat for his criteria, but I've pounded the crap out of some of his champion black belts, so..eh.

That's because they weren't using what their Sensei taught them properly, Bill, they should have been running away from you.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Ah I see. My Head Instructor used to have testing just whenever the student was ready but that was when we only had four students. Once we moved locations and almost quadrupled in size (15 students) this became difficult with only 2 instructors. So we have recently just moved to a system where there is a belt test every three months, and he will just announce who is ready around 2 weeks beforehand. He is a firm believer in not failing students.

I don't like failing students, but I don't want them to pass simply because they prepared for the test. Remember that mine is a self-defense oriented style, so my focus is on them being capable, rather than seeing if they prepared for the test.

Note that I have no issue with styles and schools that choose a scheduled, formalized test. As long as it fits with and supports the training objectives, there's nothing wrong with it. I just think it's contrary to a self-defense training objective - others likely disagree with that opinion, and that's a good thing.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Some martial arts schools consider fitness part of their package

Being a douche may not matter in self defence but is generally considered a bad result in a martial arts school.

I'll add that higher fitness does translate to self-defense. Being able to outrun someone may be a much better option than trying to out-fight them. I'll take that option any time it's presented. Also, there's strong evidence that someone who is more fit (and, to some extent, stronger) will be more resistant to injury, better able to endure and continue fighting after injury, and more likely to survive after a serious injury. All of that is part of self-defense.

Now let's add a long-term focus. I want to be able to defend myself when I'm 60+. My best bet for that is to care well for my body now. So, I encourage the same in my students.

I've never instituted any specific fitness requirements, but I wouldn't object to an instructor asking them of me, as long as they are reasonable.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Students in our dojo do not ask to be promoted. They are promoted when sensei thinks they are ready. We have a written test, but it's open book so to speak. They may do a qualifying kata, but even if they do poorly, Sensei usually knows they know, so they get promoted if he thinks they're ready.needs to work for us.

That's pretty much my philosophy - I just layer some actual testing in there to give me a chance to check my own memory. I'm not the most organized and systematic guy out there, so it's helpful to me to get a quick view of all of their techniques to make sure I didn't miss anything. Now that I think of it, I'm more testing my observations than their skills. Crap, I think I'm going to fail myself!

 

[drop bear]

Belt testing could be used as basic goal setting. Which is a trick used to raise your performance.

I think it would be a lot harder to progress in ability if you are not working towards something.

But to achieve that you need to make the belts worth something to the student.

From what I have seen belt testing looks a bit half done. You could inspire students to be better with a more difficult test but instead settle for their current performance

The idea that we will take a guy off the street and the expectation is they will focus 12 weeks of their life on a 9 minute fight. Compared to the expectation on a person showing up for a black belt test should at least be equal to that.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Belt testing could be used as basic goal setting. Which is a trick used to raise your performance.

I think it would be a lot harder to progress in ability if you are not working towards something.

But to achieve that you need to make the belts worth something to the student.

From what I have seen belt testing looks a bit half done. You could inspire students to be better with a more difficult test but instead settle for their current performance

The idea that we will take a guy off the street and the expectation is they will focus 12 weeks of their life on a 9 minute fight. Compared to the expectation on a person showing up for a black belt test should at least be equal to that.

That's the basic concept, as I understand it, that Jigoro Kano had when he instituted colored belts for Judo. They were meant to be intermediate goals to help motivate the students and provide parity when sparring during class. For me, the belts were not important as goals (I spent more than a year at each belt), but made great tools for knowing what you could use on your "attacker" during defensive scenarios. Since the ranks I came up under closely corresponded to the curriculum, I could tell which techniques the student could take the fall from by the color of their belt. I was personally always just motivated to progress by the curriculum - I wanted that next technique, to see how it fit with what I knew already.