oldsoldier2006
White Belt
I see both sides. If I know how to tie my shoe and you don't, am I only allowed to teach you up to two steps away from completely tying your shoe? No. I can teach you how to tie your shoe to completion and neither of us should have to worry about the legitimacy of your knowledge or my teaching. Does that make sense? In theory only, I could easily apply this logic to almost any MA. This isn't to say that I would feel comfortable in doing so.
But then there is the understanding of hierarchy. In BJJ, one of my two my current arts, a black belt can promote a student up to one rank below his/her own. He/she may not promote a student to black belt until they are awarded their own second degree black belt (which will not happen any sooner than 6 years after attaining the rank of black belt). They could, however, vouch for the student to a second degree or higher as to the promotability of a student at which point it is up to the second degree whether or not they will endorse the promotion. This rule makes sense and I support it. In Kenpo, it would be like a second degree brown teaching other students. Following this practice, they wouldn't be able to promote anyone beyond green belt. I feel that a black belt has put forth the necessary amount of time to know properly how to teach and recognize a student's level of progress bette than any of the lower belts.
For a while, I was attending a BJJ academy that allowed purple belts to hand out everything up to stripes on a blue belt. This resulted in a lower quality promotee than I suspect a black belt would have yielded. As a no-stripe BJJ white belt with three years of training experience (I hopped gyms, thereby repeatedly resetting the clock to promotion for myself), I was routinely able to defeat upper belts that were promoted by the purple belt instructors. I feel that a black belt (which averages 8-10 years to get in BJJ) has enough experience that leads to a better ability to discern whether or not a student is worthy of promotion. I would sooner apply this logic than I would the first one I mentioned.
