The belt system to me can be exploited and is arbitary in my eyes, the over arching organization has decided what belt needs to know to pass onto the next. in systems which arent good you can be stuck to your belt too long to keep you coming back to progress to the next level of knowledge or you can be fast tracked and it made meaningless. Its just convenient it exists since it helps them in a capitalist system, could have gutted what a white belt used to be taught to make it easier to get the next belt etc. How ever i understand the need for a system of marking progression, the one i thought up for was just some marker to say they learnt basics, one for intermediate and one for advanced. (same issue if you disagree with whats the foundation or maybe i am fast tracking or slowing down to get more money)
Plus in the TKD system, they even confess your actual teaching starts at black belt, so you arent technically climbing the tree until you are at the top of the tree and that stands contradictory to them putting a self defence marker on it. Useless for self defence if it takes you 20 years to learn it.
(after those 20 years of learning it fair game, but you cant guarantee you don't need your training until your a black belt, i have this issue with most traditional styles)[/quote]
Curriculum built around a belt system follow this philosophy: give you bites of information and let you digest it. Once you've digested it, you get put into the next part of the curriculum so you can learn the next piece of it. There's a lot to learn in martial arts. If we taught our white belts the stuff we teach in our black belt classes, it would be so far over their heads and they wouldn't be able to do any of it, would be frustrated, and would quit.
It's not about hiding the curriculum in secrecy. It's about teaching you what you're ready to learn.
And your idea for having a marker to say you've learned basics, intermediate, and advanced is nothing new.
In fact...it's what belt systems do. What you're saying is "I don't like cake, but I have an idea for a desert which is a fluffy, sweet bread-like baked good covered in frosting."
The comment about "not really learning until you're a black belt" is a bit tongue-in-cheek. It's mainly pointed at people who want to get their black belt and then quit training. It is expected that someone who is a black belt in Taekwondo has a firm understanding of Taekwondo, but it is at black belt where you learn to apply the techniques. But without the training up to that point, you wouldn't have the techniques to apply.
I think im just bias against TKD. I haven't had positive feed back to balance out the negatives i have been told/see about it. Most of my issues apply to most traditional styles like the time it takes to be proficient, kata etc. Some videos i watched on some of the elements of TKD have given me faith enough to try it again for a little bit. (Plus i think i may be at fault a little for the dislike i find in TKD, all i have to say about that) Same with what some of you have said about some of the moves being used for various things, i can tell you this right now im glad i have a ITF off shoot and not a WTF one.
If you don't want to take time to be proficient, you're not going to find any art that works for you. Krav Maga will be the most efficient at teaching you the basics of fighting, but guess what! It has a belt system! It also takes quite a long time and rigorous training to progress to higher levels. If you want to know more than "palm strike repeatedly to the face" you're going to need to take a lot of time to train.
And if you're not training at all - who cares if the art you're avoiding is fast or slow. If it takes you 5 years to become proficient in Taekwondo, or you spend 5 years waiting to find an art that you can be proficient in within a few months...Taekwondo is going to be faster.
