How much should a "yellow belt" know about an art?

[skribs]

In the arts I've taken, Yellow Belt is usually the first belt after white belt. Maybe your art has different color next, maybe you have stripes in your school before you even get your 2nd belt, or maybe you don't even have belts, but the concept is going to be similar. I'm looking at a student who has either passed a single test in your art, or a student who has attended around 2-4, maybe 6 months worth of class.

How much would you expect a student with this level of training to know? Obviously they still have to build up muscle memory and their techniques won't be as crisp or natural as they will when the student is a black belt or has years of training under their belt (pun unintended), but what is it you expect? Are there certain foundations you expect them to have mastered already? Do you want them to fully understand the techniques (as in, everything they SHOULD be doing once they are proficient) or do you expect them to only know enough to work on the next detail? Are there relatively basic concepts that you don't expect them to fully comprehend?

I'm just curious to hear from other schools where you expect students to be either after the first test, or after 2-4 months, whichever comes first. I'd like to hear what type of art you teach, what you expect a yellow belt to know, and then how you build on that.

 

[dvcochran]

Interesting question. My first advise it to NOT have a preconceived idea of how every person is going to look doing the same move. It just doesn't work that way. Strength, flexibility, age, build, and many other categories affect how a move is done and how it looks. You have to look at the mechanics of the move. For example, I would expect anyone with 2-6 months of practice to know what a down block is. You have to take the individual and measure whether everything is mechanically correct; that doesn't necessarily mean it fits a preconceived notion of how you think it will look. Test it out. Does it work? Another point, at 2-6 months they may be easily intimidated. If they balk when given a command, it is your job as the instructor for figure out why so that you can help them get over the issue. Help them improve and advance. I expect everyone in class to do THEIR best, sometimes that means pulling them along or even calling them out (in the proper manner). Encourage, motivate. I try very hard to help a person see things from a different perspective. A very enlightening, very hard thing for most people. No I do not expect a novice to understand every detail of anything. If that was the case then why practice for years to master anything?

 

[Encho]

I would expect the student to have a decent structure in stance, a skeleton outline of a form, a rudimentary understanding of principles in application.

 

[Danny T]

Really depends on the school and it's curriculum.
In my adults warrior class which is fundamentals class for Wing Chun, Kali, and Combat Submission Wrestling a person testing for Yellow level needs to know the form Sil Lum Tao, first hand 6 hand drills, 5 punches, 5 kicks, knees, and elbows, Kali basic footwork, 144 striking actions and targets, in CSW; falls, rolls, hip escape, 5 basic positions, 4 arm lock for side control and mount, Hip escape drill, 4 Transitional drills, passing guard, countering the pass, when on your back going to your knees, taking the top positions back.

 

[drop bear]

I don't know. I mean we throw guys into full contact fights with 12 weeks of training.

So as far as short term expectations go. That is pretty high.

Otherwise our BJJ does belts but the first colored belt is years in the making.

 

[lklawson]

How much would you expect a student with this level of training to know?

I would expect them to know as much as the certifying body or organization has decided that they have to know.

Every "belt" or "rank" is 100% limited to that system and that organization and is pretty much arbitrary in relation to any other martial art.

Like a "black belt," it means, literally, nothing outside of the context of that particular organization.

This is a meaningless an unanswerable question.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[skribs]

I would expect them to know as much as the certifying body or organization has decided that they have to know.

Every "belt" or "rank" is 100% limited to that system and that organization and is pretty much arbitrary in relation to any other martial art.

Like a "black belt," it means, literally, nothing outside of the context of that particular organization.

This is a meaningless an unanswerable question.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

I also defined the time period of 2-4 months, and what you would expect a student to know after that. I'm also asking about YOUR school and YOUR art and YOUR opinion.

 

[lklawson]

I also defined the time period of 2-4 months, and what you would expect a student to know after that.

My answer doesn't change. It is entirely dependent upon what the organizing body decides.

I'm also asking about YOUR school and YOUR art and YOUR opinion.

My opinion is that it depends on what the organizing body wants. I don't care what other schools or clubs think "yellow belt" means.

Most organizations will get a board, council, or group together and hash out what they think is reasonable for a person to know/learn/demonstrate in X amount of time. They also publish these testing standards and you can find most of them on the web.

As for "my" arts, I've studied and continue to study any number of different martial arts with different standards, time periods, organizational designs, and organizational goals.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I would expect them to know as much as the certifying body or organization has decided that they have to know.

Every "belt" or "rank" is 100% limited to that system and that organization and is pretty much arbitrary in relation to any other martial art.

Like a "black belt," it means, literally, nothing outside of the context of that particular organization.

This is a meaningless an unanswerable question.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

If you focus on the specific rank, then yes. The OP's alternate formulation of the question - how much should a student with 2-6 months of training know - is more answerable.

Rather than cover the 300% variance between 2 and 6 months, I'll pick the midpoint of 4 months. Obviously there's a huge difference between someone doing an intense fight camp with several hours per day and an average hobbyist. I'll theorize an average beginner hobbyist with no prior background or exceptional talent who shows up for 2-3 classes per week for 4 months.

For my primary arts, these are what I would expect:

In BJJ, I would want that student to understand the basics of distance control for punch defense, one or two takedowns, a couple of escapes from bottom of mount and side mount, some fundamental concepts for holding closed guard, a sweep or two from closed guard, some basics of holding top mount and side mount, one or two guard passes, and a handful of basic submissions. I don't expect the student to be good at any of those, but I expect them to have been doing enough live rolling that they can regularly try to go for the right move and occasionally succeed - at least against other beginners.

In boxing, I'd expect the student to have learned the basic mechanics of most of the fundamentals of the art - stance, basic footwork, jab, cross, hook, uppercut, overhand, parry, block, slip, bob-n-weave, and some standard combinations (1-2, 1-2-3-2,etc). That's not to say the student will be really skilled at these techniques - just that they have the basic form. Further development will come in the form of improving timing, distancing, reflexes, speed, power, ringcraft, feints, mental and physical conditioning, as well as situational variations of all the basic techniques.

In Muay Thai, as in boxing, I'd expect the student to be familiar with the basic stance, footwork, strikes, and blocks. I'd want them to be introduced to the fundamentals of the clinch, but would not expect them to be familiar with all its intricacies.

Note that this is a time based ideal, rather than rank. Boxing and Muay Thai don't have ranks. BJJ belts typically take longer to gain. (The average student takes about a couple of years to earn their blue belt, which is the first step up from white.)

 

[skribs]

Rather than cover the 300% variance between 2 and 6 months, I'll pick the midpoint of 4 months. Obviously there's a huge difference between someone doing an intense fight camp with several hours per day and an average hobbyist. I'll theorize an average beginner hobbyist with no prior background or exceptional talent who shows up for 2-3 classes per week for 4 months.

The reason I said 2-6 months is that different students learn at different paces. We have some kids come in who are well mannered and follow directions well right off the bat, and some kids come in that need to constantly be monitored so they're not hitting the person in front of them. (Not maliciously, just they don't pay attention and they move forward when they're supposed to stand still and punch, or they take 6 steps for every kick). The kids that follow directions usually test the first test they're at the school for, whereas we have some kids that are 4 & 5 years old and have severe attention problems that might be a white belt for 8-10 months.

In the adults it's a little bit different. Some people come in with prior knowledge, who have been watching their kids do martial arts for years, or they have prior experience in something like dance or gymnastics, where they had to control their body. Usually soldiers pick up the basics pretty quick, too. Then you have some adults that have never done anything requiring fine body control, and now their body is learning a new language at age 40.

As to your comments on this being about time instead of rank - that's why I put in the disclaimer. I knew some arts (like BJJ) have fewer, more meaningful belts, so I knew that even the first color belt in BJJ would put a student past the point I'm asking about.

 

[skribs]

My answer doesn't change. It is entirely dependent upon what the organizing body decides.

My opinion is that it depends on what the organizing body wants. I don't care what other schools or clubs think "yellow belt" means.

Most organizations will get a board, council, or group together and hash out what they think is reasonable for a person to know/learn/demonstrate in X amount of time. They also publish these testing standards and you can find most of them on the web.

As for "my" arts, I've studied and continue to study any number of different martial arts with different standards, time periods, organizational designs, and organizational goals.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

I'm trying to hear what other schools do. You can share what different schools you've attended have done. It's like you're willfully giving vague answers just to try to prove my question is a bad question.

 

[jobo]

my school puts very little value on belts, they are a 12 month thing, that's if he gets round to it that often, it may drift to 18 months, so a yellow belt may have anything up to 3 years of three times a week of learning under his belt, or as little as 6 months of every other week if he joined at the right time. There is there no meaningful way you can compare the abilities of each

 

[lklawson]

It's like you're willfully giving vague answers just to try to prove my question is a bad question.

No, I'm trying to tell you that the question you are asking represents a very narrow and rather superficial view of the concept. I'm not trying to be mean, but the question is, well, irrelevant. I know you think it is relevant, but when you really start to dig down into what you want to know, you find out that it doesn't answer your underlying questions; how to create a knowledge and skills relationship and comparison between disparate martial arts skills, systems, organizations, and knowledge bases. I'm trying to tell you that it's a lot like asking someone to compare the color blue with the flavor orange. We understand why you're asking what you're asking, and we can talk about what 'blue' is and what 'orange' tastes like, but in the end it's not going to drill down into what you want to really know or what is really important.

Tony gave a pretty good description of the skills he expects to see from a 4 month student in BJJ. That's difficult, but not impossible, to compare to the skills that a coach might expect to see from a 4 month student in Collegiate Wrestling and it gest further away from meaningful comparison when applied to his description of Boxing. Care to guess what happens when compared to 4 months training in Bowie Knife or Tomahawk to the skills you'd expect to see in BJJ?

I'm trying to help you understand that you can't compare superficial attributes of ranking from one martial skill set to another very well and that the more different the arts are from each other, the less comparable the technical requirements for "rank" or expected skill at a given time are.

The fact is that there is probably a Board which gets together and, based on their training experience, history, and tradition, decides what skills a semi-dedicated hobbyist should be able to acquire after 4 months and calls that "yellow belt." But more than that, no two groups are going to decide on exactly the same thing. While the United States Judo Association and the United States Judo Federation recognize each others ranks, their testing requirements are not exactly identical and they're both frick'n Judo! Heck, the USJA just changed their requirements for all ranks across the board, meaning that a USJA "yellow belt" standard is now different from what it was 5 years ago.

It's not good or bad (skipping over my personal feelings about USJA changing their standards), it's just what they decided. That's what I'm trying to get across.

I'm not saying the question is "bad" per se, I'm saying the question represents a "yellow belt" view of martial arts and I'm trying to help you rank up.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[skribs]

Jobo, what art is that? I also have to say - I can agree with a beltless system, but a belted system where the master just doesn't care about the belts seems like it wouldn't be useful at all.

LKLawson, do you have any of your experiences you'd like to share in the thread? I'm not trying to compare X or Y. I want to hear about the experiences others have had. Others have had clear answers, so obviously the question is answerable. So if you'd like to provide your experience about 4 months in collegiate wrestling, 4 months in boxing, 4 months in Bowie Knife or Tomahawk, 4 months in USJA, or 4 months in whatever art or arts you've done, I'd love to hear it.

I'm not looking for answers. I'm looking for stories. In this case, I'm looking for Chapter 2 of the average story at your school. I'm not looking for which yellow belts are best or which yellow belts know best. I'm looking for experiences.

 

[lklawson]

LKLawson, do you have any of your experiences you'd like to share in the thread?

Yes. The State of Ohio issues Drivers Licenses. To get a Lerner's Permit requires the candidate to be 16 years old, take a driving course of (ims) 16 hours, and pass a written test. The Learner's Permit is then used to accrue 50 hours of supervised drive time, 10 of which must be night driving. After that the candidate can test for a license.

If we break that in to 2 hours per session, 2 times per week, that equates to a tad more than 4 months. So, roughly speaking a new drivers license is the equivalent of a "yellow belt" in driving a car. What skills would you expect a driver to have at that point? What skills would you expect and expert driver to have and how long would you expect it to take to acquire those skills?

Then split that up into 5 to 8 sub division.

Now, if you'd really really like I can tell you that I don't give "belts" in bowie knife but I do apply "ranks," from Bronze to Gold. There is no time frame. At all. Period. I have a set of skills and abilities which I set at as "the Gold Standard." That's an expert. But it's just my opinion of an expert. I have a set of skills and abilities which I set at "Bronze." If a student walks in and shows me that he knows those skills immediately, then, well, he's Bronze. If not, then it takes as long as it takes.

 

[Flying Crane]

After 4-6 months I would hope a student is beginning to understand how to root into his stance and use that rooting to make a full body connection in throwing his punches. Rooting would be practiced while stepping as well, and hopefully that full body connection would be starting to manifest within 2 or 3 of our primary punching techniques.

I might throw a kick or two into the mix for him to work on as well. Depends on what it think he can handle at that point.

 

[Balrog]

In my school, a Yellow Belt is the 4-6 month range. By that time, the student should have developed a good front and middle stance, an acceptable back stance (still working on it), a good front kick and side kick, still working on round kick, good punch and several blocks. They will begin working on crescent kicks and jump front kicks, as well as learning several of the blocks they already know done as open hand instead of closed hand.

They're also getting ready to spar. Their one-steps are more complex and contain several sparring combinations.

 

[marques]

On may main old school, a yellow belt is someone who is understanding the training way, rules and objectives. Techniques are secondary.

 

[Buka]

It's different everywhere, as it should be. Who the hell is anybody to say the way things should be in the Arts?

Anyway....
I expected my yellow belts to know all the dojo rules, proper dojo ettiquette, all class schedules, all open times at the dojo when classes weren't taking place but you could still work out. I expected yellows to come to class with mouthpiece and all fighting gear whether sparring was scheduled or not. If you couldn't afford sparring gear we gave you used gear, which you were both responsible for and would return if you quit.

I expected my yellow belts to be ladies and gentlemen. Some leeway was given to white belts concerning this - some, but very, very little. And if you weren't a lady or gentleman, you damn well better be able to fake it until you were.

As for techniques - we didn't have techniques for different belt ranks. You saw, were taught and tried everything as a white belt. But as a yellow you had to have a rudimentary understanding, and application, of stance and footwork, a jab, a cross or straight right, a left hook, uppercut, reverse punch, backfist, front kick, side kick, roundhouse kick, back kick, at least one foot sweep, all of which you used in sparring. Or at least tried to. And there is nothing in the world that teaches you how to get these techniques in than somebody trying to NOT let you get those techniques in - by hitting you, just as you are trying to hit them. I expect yellow belts to have an understanding of control in striking, and being able to exhibit that control at all times.

I expected yellow belts to know that there was no such thing as non contact sparring in our little world, and no such thing as a belt test you were automatically going to pass because you came to class every day. As I used to tell all students - good luck with that plan.

It may seem like a lot, but, as a non traditional art, there were no terms in another language to learn, no forms to practice, very little history to learn (American Karate is like a new born)...so you had some extra time you might not have had some place else.

Why such a big deal about a rank that's just a beginner? Because it's a belt, a promotion, not just an acknowledgement of your hard work and progress, but it's a representation of the Arts. And if you got it, it was going to mean something to you. And to me as well.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

When I passed my first grading (4 months into my training) I was expected to know the first form in our system, the core principles behind the system and be able to hold my structure when doing basic techniques like punches and standing kicks.