Have you notice how many BB quits?

[stone_dragone]

Another reason that some folks might not continue with their training after reaching black belt is a lack of "material" beyond black belt...meaning that even though there is a universe of information, their particular school might only teach a curriculum up to black belt and, following black belt, the student has to take the initiative to learn more in almost a self-taught manner.

my two bits...

 

[Robert Lee]

Youth and teen age students. Well they grow up go to college get a job get merried have children. Some come back later some just loose interest. I have seen more adults that start and stay with the M/A traing because they have a life sarted and found time for something else. You will see far more students sart and quit befor ever making a black belt. As they find it is work and they are not as ready as the thought. Its all most 100 or 300 to 1 for every person that stays long enough to make black belt. Thats if they go to a school that does not give away belts. And spend the 3 to 5 years of learning.

 

[pstarr]

Yes, I think that many of them feel that they're finally "experts" and that's that. We all (I hope) know better and it's important to get it across to students that shodan is just the beginning! It means that you've finally figured out how to do the basics correctly and now you're ready to learn the real art.

 

[Edmund BlackAdder]

Too many people see "black belt" as the destination, rather than the beginning. It is the hobbiest mentality that pervades things, I think.

 

[trueaspirer]

I think that for a lot of people, it is because they give up. Maybe for some it is too hard, or too time-consuming, but mainly I belive that people just stop caring. They don't have the dedication or determination to keep going, and switch to other activites. Many of these people just tried martial arts as a hobby, without any real goal or commitment.

 

[Dark]

There is another thing you haven't considered. That some belt systems godan was the highest level of achievement for a living person. Everyone above 5th dan was award those ranks after death. Other only achieve 6st and 7th Dans through excelling beyond the norm and 8th dans are considered the highest level achieved.

Some situations, say a system where godan is the highest one will achieve, a shodan means a great deal...

 

[Explorer]

climbing my mountain
peering over the summit
another mountain

 

[Gman]

I can say why *I* don't train as much as I used to, and maybe my experience is completely off the wall compared to others', but I just don't have as much time as I used to.

Since I recieved my BB, I've gotten married, bought a house, and started a business.

The others that stopped going generally moved, or couldn't train any longer due to time constraints as well.

I'd guess that time constraints and moving are two of the biggest reasons.

 

[Steve Nugent]

I quit about a year after receiving my Black Belt. I quit at the time because I could no longer aford to spend the 30 hours a week that I was spending in the dojo. I needed to begin my career, I was newly married. But I always felt that I had much more to learn. So after a nine year break I came back, I now have the ability to balance my professional life, my home life, with my love for Martial Arts.

 

[Flying Crane]

I quit about a year after receiving my Black Belt. I quit at the time because I could no longer aford to spend the 30 hours a week that I was spending in the dojo. I needed to begin my career, I was newly married. But I always felt that I had much more to learn. So after a nine year break I came back, I now have the ability to balance my professional life, my home life, with my love for Martial Arts.

Welcome back.

Keep in mind, you don't need to be training 30 hours a week. If you train 1 or 2 hours a day consistently, you will maintain your skills and not overload your time with training. Home and career still get the time and attention that they need.

 

[stone_dragone]

I tried quitting once in 2002. I wasn't going anywhere with my training and felt that I was only practicing because I didn't know anything else...just doing it to pass the time.



It lasted 10 minutes, 37 seconds...

 

[fnorfurfoot]

I didn't quit the Martial Arts, I just quit my instructor. I recieved my 4th Dan and stuck around with my instructor for four more years before I decided that I couldn't take his ego any more. That and he hadn't taught me anything new in over a year. I'm still active in the Martial Arts. I have been teaching my own students for the past eight years. That was another frustration. I had my own business, I had to make special trips back to my instructor's school, and I got nothing out of it.

 

[still learning]

Hello, Manly schools it is very easy to get a Black Belt. As time goes on you realize what it takes to be one. (Very hard work..no stopping of training/excercise)

So when you received a black belt...sometimes there are disapointments. Expectations of BB is different than what you thought it was suppose to be.

I agree with most of the above comments, the time for more family and work, other things come up as you get older in life. When you have kids it is you job to raise them and spend as much time with them in all their other activitives.

Things in you life just changes as you get older. ........Aloha

 

[Dark]

I want to go back to the old school, start with a white belt and when it turns black your a black belt. I have no real faith in Martial arts anymore since they seem to be adding 12th dans now. I don't put much stock in rank, unless its used as level of grading.

 

[kelly keltner]

Once and a while you just realize it's time to hang up the uniform and find something else to do. I hung mine up a year or so ago and didn't look back. Except for reading a few forums once and a while for entertainment.

Kell

 

[Darth F.Takeda]

The problem for our Dojo used to be that most of our students were Military before the war, so they would get transfered to another part of the country or world.

I remember sitting as the lowest rank person in line more than 10 years ago, and looking towards the 4 Black belts sitting to the legt of Sensei, and all the Blues, Yellows, Greens, and Browns in front of me and thinking that no mater what rank I would later acheive that I would always be sitting in the back.

Sadly, deployments, injuries, marital problems, burnouts, a death and the presistance of time have brought me to the #2 spot in the Dojo.

It still gets me though that many of my seniors are no longer with us and some who started before me made Shpdan, but did not put in the time training and teaching to reach Nidan as I have, I now outrank some of the people who were brown elts when I was a white.

I cant speak for those who did not have to move, go to war or have any real reason to stop training, that's their story and I bet they are all different. I can speak for why I have stayed.

#1- I still remeber that if I had stayed in TKD, I would have been a BB by 18, Once I found the Dojo and style I am with now, I told myself I would stick with it, even if there were times I was a bit bored with it or when work and romances tried to pull me away.

#2- Maybe a year after reaching Shodan, I was pretty wrapped up in starting my Kettlebell training bizz and of coarse mastering the tools thenselves, my relationship was in turmoil (and we had a Son, we have 3 now) so I did find myself sometimes going through the motions at class or sometimes skipping class alltogether. But I kept at it, I did not want to fade out and be one of those Shodan and gone types. I had put MA down before as a youth and I knew I lost out because of it and over time I fell back in love with Jujutsu and Martial arts.

#3- I have been blessed and luckey to train with my Sensi and late Sempai. Sensie Lamond is one of the few Traditional/Combat Jujutsu experts around and my late Sempai, Jim Tirey was an amazing martial artist, who even though he was very expeirienced and held BB in several systems as well as having trained all over the world as a Special Forces Officer. They both imparted alot of hard earned knowledge in me, I owe it to them to carry on, make it part of me and pass it along to others.
I cant leave, I will do Jujutsu and other MA untill I die.

#4- They might ban guns, outlaw knives and regulate combative training, but noone will ever strip my knowledge. An unarmed man is a Peseant, when you are the weapon, you are never unarmed and you will always have a chance.

#5- I have 2 son's and allthough much of modern society frowns upon such things, I think a man should know how to control, maim or kill other men, if the moment should arise. It's my duty to ensure they know how. They dont have to become Black belts, but they will know how to crush a windpipe, break a neck and throw an attacker on to his head.

#6- It' still alot of fun and it keeps me out of trouble. I am either working, doing MA, lifting Kettlebells and working out or at home. No time for bars.

 

[tellner]

For a lot of people the Black Belt is the goal. That's the mystical Superman Point. Or it's just a convenient milestone which represents a level of skill they feel comfortable with. Once they've achieved the goal they lose interest in the hobby. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. People should have their own agendas. It's only when the goals are based on bad information, they can't realistically achieve them, or they can't change them as they grow that there's a problem.

Looking back at the last oh-crap-has-it-really-been-sixteen years I realize that Tiel and I are the only two of Guru Plinck's original Portland students who are still with him. Narin might be coming back. Cotten and Steve Perry (the writer, not the singer) started a few years later. I think they're the only others who were with him before he ditched Bukti Negara. But Loren, Duc, Eric, "The Battle Dwarf", Chris Clarke, JD and the rest? They all quit or moved away. It's a shame. Some of them were really good. Cam had an excellent handle on it, but once he got engaged we never saw him again.

Of the people who are still with the program most have been at it for several years. That's longer than most martial arts students stick with a single teacher. Some of that is obviously because of the demographics of the class. We're a bunch of old farts by martial arts standards - no kids class, only one or two teens, several on the sunny side of fifty. Some of it is the quality of the teacher. Steve Plinck really is an exceptional teacher, and I say that as someone who has known a number of very good instructors. Some of it is the nature of Silat; if you don't choose a really athletic new style it's something you can do for life.

I'm convinced part of it is the lack of a rank system. With no set goal there's less of a tendency to say "I've gotten this piece of paper. Now would be a good time to stop." It's more a question of "Am I going to class this week? Why do I or don't I want to keep at it?" The focus is more internal than external. The guy leading class is the teacher. The rest are the students.

It's easier to say "I got the coveted Black Belt after five years. Now I'll quit," than "I've learn six out of eighteen juru juru, twelve defensive and four offensive sambut sambut and he's not telling me to relax every class. That's good enough." One aspect of this is the cyclical nature of the training. Sera is a very small system. There isn't much curriculum. What changes is the quality of what you do. When you see the same stuff come back every few years but your understanding and body mechanics have changed each time there isn't quite the well defined stopping point that there is in many other arts.

Status - let's face it humans are status conscious animals - is based on time in grade and ability rather than the collection of certain colored tokens. That moves the discussion away from rank-chasing and into other areas. Oh, it's still there. "Oh that? You'll get that when you learn juru eight," or "The last time we did those was when we were still training in Cotten's garage." You can't escape the game. But the field it's played on has a different shape.

We taught classes in North Portland for several years. We don't have teaching certificates or black belts. Our teacher just said "You want to teach some beginners?" Of course, after a while we'd say "You know, if you want better instruction Longview is less than an hour away." Pretty soon they were in the same class and we'd dumped the St. John's practice group entirely. That could have been a blow to the ego, but with a good attitude it doesn't even sting. If we'd had belts and fancy titles it might have been more of an issue. There would have been more of a sense of it being our school and them being our students.

 

[thardey]

I had more than a "1st Black is just the beginning" speech -- I had it rammed home by example!

Right after I got my 1st black - my new uniform had just arrived, and I hadn't even worn it to class yet, I went to Las Vegas to help a friend of mine do a demonstration for his 5th Degree (master's) graduation ceremony.

Back at home I was proud of my new belt as I made that transition from "underbelt" to "Mr. Hardey", and all the congratulations and such, I felt pretty good about my achievement, as I should.

But at Las Vegas, I was practicing for my part in the demonstration around 6 new 5th degrees, and being watched and helped by the 10 board members of our system -- the highest in our rank, up to and including Chuck Norris himself (our only 10th degree). Suddenly I felt like a white belt again, not in a bad, frustrating way, but in the feeling that there was still sooooo much to learn, that these guys had a lifetime of both knowledge and teaching experience, that it really raised the bar for me, and gave me a new goal, if less defined than a Black belt.

----------------
On another note, one thing that I have noticed in the year and a half that I've had a BB, is that if I were looking for some kind of social recognition for my achievement - you know extra respect for the BB, outside of the dojo, that I would have been sadly disappointed.

Let's face it, for people who don't do Karate, most of them don't really care, or remember what rank you have. Other than the Hollywood legends about Karate, outside the dojo, a BB and $2.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

I think insecure people get a BB, and then parade out into the world to show it off for status, expecting the general public to treat you differently. When that doesn't happen, they get disillusioned, and set off to achieve some other goal that will get them they recognition they crave.

Others sometime have other goals that they put on hold until they get their BB, it doesn't really mean they've "quit" they're just developing themselves in a different way. Many people have a list of goals they want to accomplish in their lives. Getting a BB might be alongside of visting Europe, or learning to play a violin. It's a checkmark off of a list. The check is satisfied, time for another.

I quit Ballroom dancing for much the same reasons, I passed "bronze" level status in my favorite dances (I am proficient in 10 of the basic dances), and then changed my focus to Karate. Ballroom Dancing wasn't a lifetime commitment for me. I could be a "Gold" level dancer now, if I had put the same time and energy into dance that I had in Karate, but I had other things to do. Many of the people I danced with don't understand how Karate replaced dance, since they have no interest in anything other than dancing. I imagine that the same thing happens to people who leave Karate.

 

[CoryKS]

Some people are "experience chasers". They will flit from one activity to another in the belief that by constantly challenging themselves they are becoming better, more well-rounded people. Perhaps, having achieved black belt, they will then train for a marathon. Or climb Everest. Or whatever. I think there are those who want to be seen as "X, the accomplished pianist/martial artist/master chef". At least they'll leave an interesting obituary.

 

[thardey]

Some people are "experience chasers". They will flit from one activity to another in the belief that by constantly challenging themselves they are becoming better, more well-rounded people.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that in and of itself, but I fully agree with the following:

Perhaps, having achieved black belt, they will then train for a marathon. Or climb Everest. Or whatever. I think there are those who want to be seen as "X, the accomplished pianist/martial artist/master chef". At least they'll leave an interesting obituary.

There's a huge difference between making the most of every opportunity, and wanting the reputation of having done "everything". One depends on what an individual wants out of life, the other is a mark of immaturity.

There's a good thread about this in "The Renaissance Man"