Length of Time Training=Not an Accurate Gauge of Skill

[wingchun100]

I remember when I was young, hearing someone had a black belt was a real "WOW' type of moment. It meant dedication, hard work, sacrifice...and that the person could wipe the floor with you. With the rise of McDojos, it doesn't seem to mean as much anymore (from what I have seen).

But there is another indicator of skill that can mean just as little: the length of time spent training.

To show you my lack of ego, I will say that I am a prime example of this LOL. I have been a student at my wing chun school since 1995. I was really super dedicate for the first two years. Then life got in the way: my work load at school got too heavy to go...when I got out of college, it was time to search for a job...even when I had one, I fell into some unexplained funk where, when I was driving to class, I felt like I was driving to work, so my passion was gone...I moved away from the area and couldn't find a new school...so on and so forth.

Anyway, when a new student asks me how long I have been training, they are blown away when I say 1995. "wow man, almost 20 years!" And I say, "Yes, but here I am...still a student like you instead of running my own school."

Then again, even if I had been consistently going, that would be no guarantee I had any skill anyway. I mean, I have seen people come to class and then stand around talking most of the time. (I don't understand paying all that money toward tuition and then doing that, but hey...to each their own.)

At any rate, this was just a random topic that crossed my mind this morning.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Yeah, probably a better (but certainly not perfect) measure of your training is to look at the total number of hours trained rather than the number of years. It's hard to track that accurately, but I estimate I've spent about 7000 hours training over the last 32 years. For comparison purposes, a high-level professional MMA fighter might reach that number of training hours within 4 years.

Of course, even an accurate tabulation of hours trained doesn't reveal everything. Using myself as an example, I started out below average in coordination, athleticism, and fighting spirit. It probably took me several hundred hours to get up to the point where some students start out. Also, not all those hours were equal in terms of quality of instruction or usefulness of training. Still, it gives a starting point for some perspective on one's training time.

 

[donald1]

personally i never seen any Mcdojos ,but I'm fairly certain know of one . there this school i noticed at a seminar a child black belt and a green belt were doing a throw(I'm fairly certain they were either in tae kwon doe or kenpo) i don't know whether the throw was good or not I'm in karate. but what i do know the seminar was about only weapon training and they were doing it while the instructor was demonstrating a weapon technique
(luckily that is not my school i regularly train at)

is the outrageous prices how you tell a mcdojo (besides student skill level)

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Time in practice is not a measure of skill in anything. If it were, then elderly drivers would be considered superior to Jeff Gordon. Anyone my age playing football since elementary school would be considered better than Peyton Manning.

There are middle aged people who have been singing in choir since they were young who will never be as good a singer as Josh Groban.

A lot is how you train and what you train for. Also, after a certain point, your proficiency levels off. If you're doing the same thing for twenty years, unless you have been striving for constant improvement and have been taking careful steps to achieve it, you probably are not much 'better' than you were when you were at the five to ten year mark. People who train for fitness and enjoyment probably don't have the incentive to make everything perfect. Some people perfect their practice up to a certain level and then go out and try another art.

The fact is that you can do something for many years without making any real improvement to how you do it. Not to mention that after a certain point, your gains become much more incremental and harder to attain. A person who trains for lifestyle/fitness purposes will hit a point where they simply won't have gains unless they substantially ramp up the level of their training.

 

[DennisBreene]

personally i never seen any Mcdojos ,but I'm fairly certain know of one . there this school i noticed at a seminar a child black belt and a green belt were doing a throw(I'm fairly certain they were either in tae kwon doe or kenpo) i don't know whether the throw was good or not I'm in karate. but what i do know the seminar was about only weapon training and they were doing it while the instructor was demonstrating a weapon technique
(luckily that is not my school i regularly train at)

is the outrageous prices how you tell a mcdojo (besides student skill level)

Personal bias here, but I'd be suspicious I was seeing a McDojo if there was regular frequent testing and a high pass rate regardless of skill. My impression is that revenue is more important than the quality.

TD makes a good point about hours trained. But as with the OP there are many of us who have a spotty history of training over the years (and I am a prime example). There are so many factors that affect the process that I doubt any single index is going to be of much help. Things like innate ability, time in training, effort in training and the quality of the instruction are all going to have a major impact on skill level. And inevitably, if you take time off there will be a tendency for the skills to degrade. Maybe a factor such as hours trained divided by the years since starting training (or months), counting both the years trained and the years idol, would be of help. So 5000hrs over 25 years of continuous training yields 200. 2000 hrs over 20 yrs continuous or interrupted training yields 100. 3700 hours over 7 yrs continuous; approximately 500 but over 40 years with breaks; approximately 92. I used an estimate of my numbers for the last example to make the point that time off has its toll and should be avoided.

 

[Karate Padawan]

Sorry, but i disagree with you.
In the long run - long, intense, hard training and practice - pays off.
It's actually scientifically proved - in average, all the real professional trained about 10,000 to reach their level:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...-10-000-hours-success-according-academic.html
* Of course, not everyone who trains so much would reach it...

 

[DennisBreene]

Sorry, but i disagree with you.
In the long run - long, intense, hard training and practice - pays off.
It's actually scientifically proved - in average, all the real professional trained about 10,000 to reach their level:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1078842/Practice-makes-perfect-Why-takes-10-000-hours-success-according-academic.html
* Of course, not everyone who trains so much would reach it...

I don't think anyone disagrees with that point. My impression is that that time is one important measure, but even you qualified time with "intense, hard training". So while probably the most important factor, time in training is clearly not the sole factor.

 

[TKDTony2179]

I remember when I was young, hearing someone had a black belt was a real "WOW' type of moment. It meant dedication, hard work, sacrifice...and that the person could wipe the floor with you. With the rise of McDojos, it doesn't seem to mean as much anymore (from what I have seen).

But there is another indicator of skill that can mean just as little: the length of time spent training.

To show you my lack of ego, I will say that I am a prime example of this LOL. I have been a student at my wing chun school since 1995. I was really super dedicate for the first two years. Then life got in the way: my work load at school got too heavy to go...when I got out of college, it was time to search for a job...even when I had one, I fell into some unexplained funk where, when I was driving to class, I felt like I was driving to work, so my passion was gone...I moved away from the area and couldn't find a new school...so on and so forth.

Anyway, when a new student asks me how long I have been training, they are blown away when I say 1995. "wow man, almost 20 years!" And I say, "Yes, but here I am...still a student like you instead of running my own school."

Then again, even if I had been consistently going, that would be no guarantee I had any skill anyway. I mean, I have seen people come to class and then stand around talking most of the time. (I don't understand paying all that money toward tuition and then doing that, but hey...to each their own.)

At any rate, this was just a random topic that crossed my mind this morning.

The time in days or hours don’t really matter at all. The person skill is what matters. We don’t really track hours but we track the days or tell people to come to class a certain amount of days. Most people stick to those days and most are average when obtain a belt. One reason my instructor tell his students that yea you go buy one online and it means nothing or the fact that there are billions of people that have a black belt but most are ok, some are good, and then some few are great.

If you look at only a time frame then yea, that kid that started at age 5 should be a whole lot better when he is 21 because he has been doing it for the majority of his whole life. But the one that start at age 15 or 30 and gets a black belt within a certain time frame may not look the part and of course if an adult have to take time off because of work or family then sure enough won’t look the part regardless of how many hrs. they put in. People use analogies of universities to explain things like this and I think that if you look at the hrs. in a university compared to the on hand hrs. of someone in the job field I am sure we know that the one with on hand experience is better.

Hmmmm…..I think the best way to say this is that action speaks louder than words. If you are familiar with a style then you should recognize good basics. If the person have good basics, then that person is probably pretty good. If basics are bad, then they are bad.

 

[wingchun100]

Sorry, but i disagree with you.
In the long run - long, intense, hard training and practice - pays off.
It's actually scientifically proved - in average, all the real professional trained about 10,000 to reach their level:
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1078842/Practice-makes-perfect-Why-takes-10-000-hours-success-according-academic.html
* Of course, not everyone who trains so much would reach it...

But as I said, if you practice REALLY HARD AND INTENSE for one year, then have five years where you can't go, your intensity for that one year doesn't matter.

 

[wingchun100]

personally i never seen any Mcdojos ,but I'm fairly certain know of one . there this school i noticed at a seminar a child black belt and a green belt were doing a throw(I'm fairly certain they were either in tae kwon doe or kenpo) i don't know whether the throw was good or not I'm in karate. but what i do know the seminar was about only weapon training and they were doing it while the instructor was demonstrating a weapon technique
(luckily that is not my school i regularly train at)

is the outrageous prices how you tell a mcdojo (besides student skill level)

It'd be hard to "spot" from the outside or even if you went to a class. But if you saw the students go the test for the next belt and they got it even if they performed poorly, then THAT is a McDojo. They hand out belts even for bad performance because they know it feeds that student's ego which, of course, will keep them coming back because they feel like they are "good" at their martial art. Then they go out in the street and get their *** handed to them.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Skill in the end is all that matters. Some people have it, some do not regardless of how long they may have trained. One thing though I absolutely respect someone who trains hard and over a long time. Even if they may not have the skill of someone else.

 

[wingchun100]

Skill in the end is all that matters. Some people have it, some do not regardless of how long they may have trained. One thing though I absolutely respect someone who trains hard and over a long time. Even if they may not have the skill of someone else.

Well of course, and I wasn't saying anyone SHOULDN'T be respected for that. I was just saying I'm not as good as one might think I am even though I say, "I've been training since 1995."

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

But as I said, if you practice REALLY HARD AND INTENSE for one year, then have five years where you can't go, your intensity for that one year doesn't matter.

Agreed. And that opens up the question of what defines training for a long time. There is a difference between training for many years and having started training many years ago. I started training in kendo roughly ten years ago and have trained consistently since then.

Had I stopped training after only a year, I would not by default have been training for a long time.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

There's also the cliché about whether someone has 10 years of experience or 1 year of experience - 10 times. If you aren't using your training in a focused, effective way that enables you to continually improve, deepen your understanding and sharpen your skills, then all that training time isn't going to take you very far.

 

[jks9199]

Skill in the end is all that matters. Some people have it, some do not regardless of how long they may have trained. One thing though I absolutely respect someone who trains hard and over a long time. Even if they may not have the skill of someone else.

There are people with one year of experience or training, many times over. And people with many years of experience. Time is not the sole measure of knowledge, dedication, or skill level. In the end, some things do simply take time to learn and develop. Other things can be absorbed quickly and efficiently in a short time. Like Brian said... in the end, the only way to assess skill is to look at a person's skill.

 

[Danny T]

I have been a student at my wing chun school since 1995. I was really super dedicate for the first two years. Then life got in the way: my work load at school got too heavy to go...when I got out of college, it was time to search for a job...even when I had one, I fell into some unexplained funk where, when I was driving to class, I felt like I was driving to work, so my passion was gone...I moved away from the area and couldn't find a new school...so on and so forth.

Anyway, when a new student asks me how long I have been training, they are blown away when I say 1995. "wow man, almost 20 years!" And I say, "Yes, but here I am...still a student like you instead of running my own school."

Then again, even if I had been consistently going...

The reality is you have not been training since 1995.
You started in 1995 and was super dedicated for 2 years.
Just what does that mean? I have a couple of students who because of jobs only train twice a month. They also are super dedicated to those 2 training sessions monthly. No matter how dedicated they only train with me 24 hours a year. They have not trained with me for a year; only 24 hours.
You also said life got into the way to go to train, you moved away and couldn't find a new school. You were not training so you have not been training since 1995. Yes you are there..., again but not for 20 years. And because you haven't been training of course you will not be as good. As Tony stated look at actually training hours and even better would be count on effective training hours.