What is this system in some schools where they have this Deputy Black Belt, Probationary, Decided, Senior stuff? What the heck is that about??
It's really not much different from what a lot of schools do; it's simply the same thing from a different nomenclature.
From my days in Tae Kwon Do, whenever someone took an exam, there were four possibilities:
1) Decided rank - you basically passed unconditionally, with the full support of the judging panel, and your chief instructor. This was the typical exam result, since most folks would be very well prepared for their exams.
2) Recommended rank - most of the judging panel voted to pass unconditionally, but there may have some members who might not have agreed, and the final judgement call would go to your chief instructor, who would usually grant the unconditional pass if someone had been training consistently. This would occasionally happen, when someone made a couple of minor mistakes, but nothing major.
3) Probationary rank - when most of the judging panel decides that you did well enough to pass, but you have some deficiencies that must be corrected before you learn new material. Once you correct the deficiencies, then you were granted an unconditional pass.
I'm pretty sure that a lot of schools (not just Tae Kwon Do) do something similar, although they might not call it as such.
As for deputy black belts, we had such a ranking, which used a red belt with a black stripe on it, for 1st gup holders who had passed their next exams. Those with the deputy black belts basically didn't have an official gup or dan ranking, other than "pre-chodan," and would test for 1st dan the next time around.
Again, it's not really anything new, since a lot of systems out there consider 1st gup / kyu holders to be pre-chodan / pre-shodan. To make them look like apples to apples comparisons, you could simply shift the ranking systems over by one level, and they'd match up.
I trained for over 6 years to get my black belt, it took a lot of grueling hard work...I don't understand these schools that make it seem like you have to jump through hoops to attain "black belt" and then have it broken down into some kind of hierarchy outside of "1st to 9th" Dan.
Maybe someone can explain it to me?
In the older days, there weren't nearly as many color belts around. In the Karate world, you'd maybe have white belts, green belts, brown belts, and black belts. The problem with this, though, is that there may have been a very steep learning curve going from white to green, which is a time when a lot of students might not be able to handle such a large amount of information at one time, especially when it comes to younger folks.
Does adding more steps along the way make it look like more hoops to jump through? I do agree with you, that they do. However, I can also support such measures, since they give your students a tangible goal that they can see, without being overwhelmed. As they continue to train, they won't get overwhelmed nearly as easily as they did in their earlier days, and in the end, the finished product can be just as good as the one who didn't go through all of the steps.
A better way to look at a school is to see how their black belts are doing. If a school continually produces good black belts who represent well, and exemplify the very image of self-improvement, then I'd say that the school's methods work quite well. If, on the other hand, you have black belts who don't show significant self-improvement, then I'd question the school's methods for certain.
