Credentialing

[dvcochran]

People can be certified by different organizations. My Master and some of his older students are ranked in both KKW and ATA, and my Master has rank in multiple Hapkido organizations.

It's just like someone who might have a black belt in Karate, Taekwondo, and Judo.

Did some research on the Kukkiwon website. Is appears you are right and the Kukkiwon is trying to envelope all styles of TKD under one unified body. A big vision I cannot see happening.

 

[skribs]

Did some research on the Kukkiwon website. Is appears you are right and the Kukkiwon is trying to envelope all styles of TKD under one unified body. A big vision I cannot see happening.

That's not at all what I was saying.

I'm saying that my Master is certified in multiple organizations. Not that the organizations are trying to merge.

 

[wab25]

Although what I mean specifically about certifications for various locations is something like a school might require a certificate to prove you have the credentials you say you have if you want to open up a Hapkido class as an elective at the school.

Ok now I am a bit confused. Why are these certifications needed?

1. Are you looking to teach a class at an elementary school, high school, college or community center? In this case, you need to talk to organization. They may each have different requirements. You may need a formal teaching degree, a degree in physical education, First Aid and CPR training, some kind of background check... You would have to talk to each one, as each place may be different and require different things. You will have to satisfy the place you want to teach at, with their requirements. These are not standard... each place has their own set.

2. Are you trying to teach TKD at a Judo school? They might want more information on who you trained with and for how long. They may want certificates or letters of recommendation or a way to contact your TKD organization. They may also want some sort of First Aid and CPR training or even background check. Many will want you to provide your own insurance for your class. Again, you would need to check with the school you want to teach at, as they are all different, with different requirements.

3. Are you trying to start your own independent school? Here, you set your own requirements. You could even set your own rank, with certificates and all... its your school. But, like most are saying here, people will judge you by the product that you produce. Its not so much what you can do, but what you can teach your students to do.

The entity asking for the certification does make a difference in the answer. If you could clarify who needs to see such certification, you may get better answers.

 

[skribs]

Ok now I am a bit confused. Why are these certifications needed?

1. Are you looking to teach a class at an elementary school, high school, college or community center? In this case, you need to talk to organization. They may each have different requirements. You may need a formal teaching degree, a degree in physical education, First Aid and CPR training, some kind of background check... You would have to talk to each one, as each place may be different and require different things. You will have to satisfy the place you want to teach at, with their requirements. These are not standard... each place has their own set.

2. Are you trying to teach TKD at a Judo school? They might want more information on who you trained with and for how long. They may want certificates or letters of recommendation or a way to contact your TKD organization. They may also want some sort of First Aid and CPR training or even background check. Many will want you to provide your own insurance for your class. Again, you would need to check with the school you want to teach at, as they are all different, with different requirements.

3. Are you trying to start your own independent school? Here, you set your own requirements. You could even set your own rank, with certificates and all... its your school. But, like most are saying here, people will judge you by the product that you produce. Its not so much what you can do, but what you can teach your students to do.

The entity asking for the certification does make a difference in the answer. If you could clarify who needs to see such certification, you may get better answers.

I am not specifically doing anything right now. Although I'm more looking at question 1 and question 3.

Either A) how do you prove to potential customers your training competency, or B) how do you satisfy certification requirements if you are going to open up a class at a gym or a school? (i.e. a class from 5-6 PM at LA fitness or a physical education credit at a local community college).

 

[wab25]

A) how do you prove to potential customers your training competency

Freddy Roach is a well known boxing coach. However, no boxer wants him to be their coach because of what Freddy can do in the ring now, or could do in the ring before. He is in great demand as a coach, because of what his fighters can do and have done in the ring. Your customers don't care what you can do. They care about what you can teach them to do.

B) how do you satisfy certification requirements if you are going to open up a class at a gym or a school? (i.e. a class from 5-6 PM at LA fitness or a physical education credit at a local community college).

Again, you will need to talk to each organization. They will all have different requirements. A good start, in my opinion, would be First Aid and CPR training, backing from a large MA association and letter of recommend from your instructor and or organization. An overview and plan for the class would be good as well. Then go talk to them, and find out their requirements. They may be able to waive some, to take alternate requirements, but each place will be different. If they have a web page, requirements might be found there. At the end of the day, you have to convince the organization of what you can do.

 

[dvcochran]

That's not at all what I was saying.

I'm saying that my Master is certified in multiple organizations. Not that the organizations are trying to merge.

Wasn't at all talking about your Master. I was replying to your comment about certification.

 

[Jaeimseu]

The truth is that you don’t actually need any credentials at all. You simply tell prospective students that you are an (insert # here) degree black belt with (insert # here) Year’s of experience. There are plenty of people out there who have embellished there credentials. Some of them even have something worthwhile to teach.

Informed people may recognize something funny, but most prospects are not informed. They will believe whatever their first teacher tells them, even when confronted with the truth.


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[Gerry Seymour]

The subject of credentialing (being able to prove you are capable of teaching what you say you are) has come up in several threads recently, such as:

• Ranks are meaningless
• I used to think ranks are meaningless, but now I need one for bureaucratic reasons and I'm lower rank than I need
• My master in (Art 2) promoted me in (Art 1)
• My art doesn't have ranks and I need a certificate in order to teach a class at a particular location

Now, I don't want to have the discussion about how having a rank system in your art is meaningless/meaningful. I'm more curious about how a prospective student - especially an uninitiated student - would be able to assess the level of mastery an instructor has based on their credentials.

For example, a black belt in Taekwondo is usually a 3-5 year process. It was 23 months for myself, but I was also on a special apprenticeship and spent 20+ hours a week at the dojang for those last 11 months, and I had around 4 years of training as a kid. So really, even though it took me 23 months to go white to black at my current school, it was about 6 years of training total, and if you assume 150 hours as a year's worth of training (3 classes a week for 50 weeks), I did the equivalent of probably 6 years worth of training during those 11 months.

To be more specific, it usually takes a minimum of 2.5-3 years, and most people take around 4-5 years to get their black belt (not including McDojos).

Now compare that to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. According to a brief internet search, it's a minimum of 5.5 years to get your black belt in BJJ, and usually around 10 years.

Going back to Taekwondo, to go up a dan grade, you must do as many years as your current grade. So a 1st Dan takes a minimum of 1 year to get 2nd Dan, a 2nd Dan two years to get 3rd dan, etc. BJJ, on the other hand, it's the amount of years is equal to the rank you're going for (i.e. 2 years to get 2nd Dan, 3 years to get 3rd Dan).

So a person who has been training Taekwondo for 15 years may be a 4th or 5th degree black belt, but someone who has been training BJJ for 15 years may only be a 2nd or 3rd degree black belt.

Where I see this becoming an issue is if I'm a new student who knows nothing about martial arts, and I see that there's a Taekwondo School with a 5th degree instructor and a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu school with a 2nd degree instructor, which school do I think is more qualified to teach martial arts? Even though they may have around the same amount of training and (all other factors being equal) are likely just as competent as each other, the layman will see a big difference in training under a 5th degree than a 2nd degree.

To expand on this, let's take an art that doesn't have belt ranks or even certificates. How do you advertise your proficiency as a martial artist or instructor to prospective students? How can they verify your claims?

I'm just curious how arts that have a higher standard for black belt or who don't have ranks at all justify their seeming lack of credentials to the general public when advertising for classes.

Please note that I'm not saying that these instructors are not qualified to teach. I'm talking about 3 martial artists who all have similar skill levels in their respective arts, but due to the way the art is set up, their ranks are different.

I missed this thread when you started it, and haven't read any of the replies yet, so forgive me if I'm rehashing points.

I'll use my primary art, because this has been a point of discussion there for years. Within the NGAA (the largest organization, by an order of magnitude), there are technically 6 dan ranks, though only 5 have ever been used (head of style is currently treated as "outside the ranks", and will probably promote his successor to 6th). Since most arts instructors have taught around are closer to what you describe with TKD, there's long been a perceived issue. Average time to BB in NGAA is about 7 years - I took about 12. Most chief instructors are 2nd degree (last technical degree - all others are honorary), and most open schools with 1st degree (which also serves as instructor certification in the NGAA). From time to time, instructors petition the head of the NGAA to extend ranks to 10 dans (he did cave in and add the 6th a few decades ago, but never used it). Some of those who've left the organization have changed to a 10-dan system, though without actually fixing the issue for their students (they don't seem to change the qualifications for 1st and 2nd - just add more honorary ranks and promote each other to higher levels).

I've never been bothered by it. Most of my time was spent training under 2nd dans, so when I created my own curriculum and structure, I just got rid of dan ranks. Ranks end at black belt. After that, I have two levels of instructor certification (instructor and senior instructor, the latter having the ability to certify instructors). I wear two stripes (stripes mark those instructor levels), and most in NGA think of that as "2nd dan", which is fine, because that's the closest match. Probably students would see it that way to, but I've never had anyone ask about rank, nor comment on it, except to ask how ranks work in the style. Heck, part of the time I'm wearing hakama, so you can't even see my stripes, and when I train at an NGAA school, I wear no stripes, at all (the equivalent in my structure of a BB student, not instructor).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

the short answer is you can't tell and nor past a certain point does the ability of the instructor matter as long as he has mastery of the techniques he is teaching,
.if some place you want to teach at requires a black belt, go and buy a blackbelt, easy, then you can say you have one,

Most places that require that actually want to see evidence of the promotion. I've had multiple places ask to see my instructor certification, which the NGAA has never issued, so I just give them the records of my promotions and leave it at that.

 

[jobo]

Most places that require that actually want to see evidence of the promotion. I've had multiple places ask to see my instructor certification, which the NGAA has never issued, so I just give them the records of my promotions and leave it at that.

how are a,record of promotions evidence of anything,tma is a,completely unregulated, industry , a record of promotions mean nothing, with out some back ground criteria, they could even be a record of self promotion. And mean much th same, all that happens is they have a box to tick and anything that allows them to tick that box is sufficient

there nothing to stop you and a couple of like minded folk, setting up the NGAA, instructors certificate association and giving yourself instructets certificates

 

[WaterGal]

Then I have totally misunderstood what you, and some others for that matter, meant by credentialing. I thought you meant something on the order of a separate training course of some sort, or purported set of training, that would then be used as proof of qualification to teach. I envisioned people wanting to use it when not yet belted in a school, or low belted and perhaps start a school. Apparently not what you really meant.

Some styles or organizations do have credentials for teaching, which would be something you'd get in addition to having a rank. For example, Kukkiwon offers a Master Instructor certification, which is a 40(?) hour course you can take that goes over teaching, details of the material, philosophy, etc. IIRC, you have to be a 4th dan in KKW TKD to even sign up for the class, so it's not an option for just random whoever. But the goal is to try to improve standards and make sure everyone is teaching the KKW curriculum the right way.

That's something that makes sense to me, because being good at doing a thing and being good at teaching it are different.

 

[Buka]

Thinking back over the years, I don't think I've ever been asked for any credentials, certifications etc from anybody for anything having to do with Martial Arts anywhere, ever.

That seems kind of odd to me right now.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

But that's the thing, most novices to MA aren't actually looking at the degree or accreditation. They see the 3 schools, they may glance at "okay, 6th degree...3rd degree...Kung Fu master...", and not look any more than that. More often than not, they will then say "oh that style looks/sounds cool/legit, I'll check them out", or "they're schedule is 7-830 each night, that works better for me than the 6-7 3 times a week", or "They cost $95, that school costs $125". Those are generally on people's minds before the question of rank. Then when they go to the place, their focus is on how friendly and/or impressive the person seems, and how much they enjoy the first class.

And for the people who do focus on rank, they're likely also the ones who will go online looking up "what should I watch out for", and hear all the things about high level BBs being frauds, and running mcdojos, and who knows what they will choose then.

So no, credentialing is not nearly as important as someone might think.

As an answer, since that was on a tangent and didn't really address the OP: Something I've seen is people putting down "trained 25 years in X". To me that looks less impressive, since I can claim "trained 20 years in martial arts", and be entirely truthful, but that's still misleading (7 of those were before I was 10, some of the years I did not train all that much, some of the years I was on overdrive).

Agreed. In fact, I think consumers are likely more swayed by number of years than a rank (or lack thereof). My rank within my curriculum is just "black belt", and I am a Senior Instructor. But "Seymour has been studying and training martial arts since 1982" is far more influential to most prospective students. Hell, I still react more to that than a rank, when I hear some of the MT folks talking about their training back in the '70's.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Because people know the difference between basketball and hockey. To the layman they're all "karate".

This is largely true, except where they may know the name of a specific art or two (I often get asked if I teach BJJ, even after they've watched part of a class, proving they know the name but have no idea what BJJ actually is).

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Any rank or grade is only as good as the body awarding it

It has been known for people to go online and ummm order a scroll all made out in proper writing etc ...so yes anyone pushing the rank at the fore front is on an ego trip ...is hiding something or has maybe not actually got it in the first place ...

It may be not that easy for a newcomer to tell that the person that teaching not quite the real deal as it were ...yes folks that do study will tell but newcomers may not ...

As for grading etc possibly a way for a newcomer to check that out if he/she so wishes is to find out who actually awards the grades ...not the kyu grades but the Dan ranks as that may give some insight

Just as a random thought or two the Akikai scroll you get in a dan rank has a watermark on the back that I don't think has been faked yet but I could be wrong (it also numbered to lol) also it should be noted that it not just the Martial Arts of Japan that use rankings lol so does the tea ceremony and others lol ...so an instructor may be a shichidan or hachidan but it might be in flower arranging lol...sorry just my humour

I don't think most consumers are informed enough to figure out which are "legitimate" grading bodies, much less what those ranks mean based upon who awarded them.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Half of my Taekwondo students come in and tell me they're excited because it's karate class today.

It's like if was to go "Xerox something" on a Ricoh copier.

And it often takes months for my students to finally "get it" that I don't teach "Aikido" if they knew what that art was, coming in.

 

[Jaeimseu]

Some styles or organizations do have credentials for teaching, which would be something you'd get in addition to having a rank. For example, Kukkiwon offers a Master Instructor certification, which is a 40(?) hour course you can take that goes over teaching, details of the material, philosophy, etc. IIRC, you have to be a 4th dan in KKW TKD to even sign up for the class, so it's not an option for just random whoever. But the goal is to try to improve standards and make sure everyone is teaching the KKW curriculum the right way.

That's something that makes sense to me, because being good at doing a thing and being good at teaching it are different.

I am a Kukkiwon certified master instructor. You can take the course before receiving 4th dan. However, you receive a certificate of completion rather than instructor certification. Assuming you pass the exam at the end, you can apply for instructor certification upon attaining 4th dan.


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[Gerry Seymour]

how are a,record of promotions evidence of anything,tma is a,completely unregulated, industry , a record of promotions mean nothing, with out some back ground criteria, they could even be a record of self promotion. And mean much th same, all that happens is they have a box to tick and anything that allows them to tick that box is sufficient

there nothing to stop you and a couple of like minded folk, setting up the NGAA, instructors certificate association and giving yourself instructets certificates

I agree. I'm just saying that buying the belt doesn't satisfy the requirements of those places. Where I've given copies of my records, nobody there has any idea what the NGAA is, who Richard Bowe or John Wyndham are, or whether any of that even matters. They're probably just covering their butts for liability purposes.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Thinking back over the years, I don't think I've ever been asked for any credentials, certifications etc from anybody for anything having to do with Martial Arts anywhere, ever.

That seems kind of odd to me right now.

Both places I've run my program asked for it, as did a group that was considering having me in for to teach a workshop. It always seems odd to me. The closest comparison I can think of is if I asked somebody to tell me who worked on the car I'm considering buying. I probably don't know that mechanic/shop, and I'm not sure what it can possibly tell me about the car.

 

[jobo]

I agree. I'm just saying that buying the belt doesn't satisfy the requirements of those places. Where I've given copies of my records, nobody there has any idea what the NGAA is, who Richard Bowe or John Wyndham are, or whether any of that even matters. They're probably just covering their butts for liability purposes.

no your right, just buy the belt isn't enough, you have to have a ceremony do a lot of bowing and present it to yourself along with a certificate you knocked up on Microsoft word, then your good to go