Names? You people are getting names?
Let me give you an example of how a test would go at my school. This would be for a green belt to get blue.
Fighting stance. Show me Punching Number 1. (A combo that is punch, step, punch again). Ready, go. Two. Three. And turn! Number 1 again, go. Two. Three. And turn.
Show me Punching Number 2 (A combo that is jab-cross, step, punch again). Ready, go. (And keep going through Number 8).
Show me Punching Number 6! Number 4! Number 3! Turn! Number 7! Number 2! Number 1! Turn! Number 8! Number 5!...(You get the idea).
Show me Kicking Number 1. (Repeat the above for kicks).
Show me Palgwe #1. Go........Baro ('Baro' means 'return').
Then Palgwe #2, Palgwe #3.
Line 1 and Line 3 turn face your partner. Touch knuckle to knuckle. Chooni (ready position). Lines 1 and 3 take your right leg back, down block. Lines 2 and 4, punch defense #1. Ready, go! #2, go!. #3, go!. #4, go!. #5, go!. Lines 2 and 4, take your right leg back, down block. Lines 1 and 2, punch defense...
Line 1 and Line 3, right leg back, kicking stance. Lines 2 and 4, kick dense #1. (Then up to 5, then other side).
This is how the entire test goes. Tons and tons of techniques, all by number. Once you pass green belt at that school, I don't think you get told to do any techniques in testing by name. It's all numbers.
We've spoken around this topic before and I've always thought that this much rote memorization is the enemy of real skill building. Too much of the TKD world seems content to substitute needless complexity in place of true understanding of principles.
Whether you're practicing TKD, Karate, BJJ, or anything else, the saying I read somewhere recently holds true. 'There are no black belt techniques, only techniques done at a black belt level.'
Of course this doesn't mean that I teach jumping spinning kicks to white belts, but illustrates the point that everything comes back to basic fundamentals of movement. The hip alignment and method of power generation for a side kick are the same whether it is done from the front or back leg, jumping, and/or spinning.
As to the memorization, I'm a big proponent of how I was trained. While all sorts of areas are taught and practiced, our belt grading is focused primarily on measurable areas (fundamental movements/combos, patterns, and sparring).
Our White Belt test contains our basic 4 direction punch pattern and 11 fundamental movements done forward and back down the floor:
- 6 hand techniques (punch, down, up, inner forearm, knife hand blocks, and knife hand strike)
- 5 Kicking techniques (Front straight and snap, side straight and snap, & back kicks).
The only things the student need to memorize is the names of each move (generally built into what it's called... an up block is called an up block), and the single, simple pattern.
Sparring gets added to the test on subsequent belts, but the other sections remain essentially the same. Each belt level must perform the material for their belt, as well as the belt level before their current rank. This ends up looking like the following:
Red Belt going for Black Stripe (our last rank before testing for 1st dan black belt)
Floorwork (up and down the floor)
- All blue belt combinations
- Side snap with the back leg, then spinning heel kick
- Side snap (back leg), then jumping turn around side snap kick
- Double Kick
- Step back, turn around side snap kick.
- All Red Belt combinations
- Sliding Punch, Jumping Turning Kick (back leg)
- Double Kick (continuous) 2nd kick hooking
- Step back, spinning heel kick
- Jumping back kick (continuous)
Patterns
- Toi-Gye (Red Stripe)
- Hwa-Rang (Red Belt)
Free Sparring
The student is not expected to have the order of which floorwork combo is coming up next... only how to do the combo when it is called (not that hard when the name almost always exactly describes the move to be done).
I believe this frees the mind to focus on perfecting 'how' the move works, and when to use it... rather than just trying to remember 'what' blocking combo #6 was.