MY JOURNEY THRU THE BELTS - Didn't know where I was going but got there anyway.

[isshinryuronin]

I have never asked to be tested, content to just work to get better. Not that I didn't want to get promoted, but that was not the driving force. The belt would come sooner or later. I never set my sights more than a couple of grades ahead, putting my energy into the here and now. To be honest, I never even thought of becoming a black belt until I was brown.

As a junior grade belt, I spent summer vacation spending a few days a week practicing at the dojo (just to get out of the house, being an independent teen) aside from my 2/wk lessons. During one workout, Sensei appeared and watched for a few minutes before telling me to do seiuchin kata, which I did. Then he had me do naihanchi. Right then, I got promoted two grades. I didn't even know I was being "tested."

I failed brown belt on my first try (standards were high back then) but got it a few months later. My 2-day black belt test went well, and then it was time for 2nd degree. Ten kata were required and for a month prior to testing, my fellow student and I met at the dojo 4 days per week, practicing them all three times each day. We had done close to 500 kata during that month and after testing got our 2nd degree.

Then, off to college and ended up getting involved with kenpo and Ed Parker for a couple of years. Returning back to the Valley I resumed training and received 3rd degree. The dojo closed a year later.

I was "semi" retired from karate (at least I had no teacher or students for 25+ years) again content to just keep my skills up to par as a 3rd degree. There was no desire to get 4th degree until I met a sensei who rekindled my interest and excitement, introducing me to "real" Okinawan karate.

Well, as it turned out, after 2 years of intense private training with him I did not get a 4th degree, instead getting awarded 5th. I spent the next 2 years working to polish my technique to convince myself I was, indeed, worthy of the rank before any thoughts of 6th degree came to mind.

That's my journey thru the belts. A rather long tale as I've been around for a while. Your stories are likely much shorter, but there's lots of time for them to grow.

 

[_Simon_]

Thank you for sharing that, really enjoyed hearing your story and journey . Ours all seem to be so unique! And I love all the different variables, factors and drives that lead or guide us where we are to go

 

[skribs]

I think part of it depends on the system.

At my TKD school, you could get Fail, Pass or Outstanding on your test. I got Outstanding on every test except for one, where I got a Pass. It was frustrating because the reasons my Master gave me for why I didn't get an Outstanding (i.e. certain mistakes he says I made), I remember specifically paying attention to those details and that I didn't make those mistakes.

At the same school, in the HKD class, I tested for black belt. There was a 2nd degree black belt who was much bigger than me, who was specifically learning the counters to the techniques I was supposed to do, who was instructed to use those when I tried my techniques. I failed and had to re-test. I was upset about that.

In my BJJ school, we can get a stripe after 65 hours. I was a solid blue belt for 150 hours before I got my first stripe. In a way, it's like failing 85 times before I finally got it. But I didn't feel I was ready for it until around the 140 hour mark, and usually it's about 10 classes after I feel ready for a stripe when I get it. So in this case, I think it was applied well.

But TKD and HKD are very objective, especially at the school I was at. Your requirements are XYZ, you learn XYZ so you test, you do XYZ on the test so you pass. BJJ I've had the opposite - I got my blue belt and didn't feel I'd earned it yet. Complete opposite in what I get and how I feel about it.

 

[Buka]

I never once tested for a belt rank. Always wanted to. Spent years discussing belt testing with everyone I knew in Martial Arts, especially people who taught me.

But I’ll tell you my favorite promotion. There was a point fighting tournament in Massachusetts at a well known college in the eighties and nineties, it was the biggest tournament in New England at the time.

The guy that put on the tournament and I did not get along. I don’t know why, I never did anything to him. I supported his tournament and always brought at least thirty of my students to compete in his tournament.

I also judged and reffed all day for that tournament because they asked me to.
Any idea what it’s like to judge White Belt Kata for sixty white belts? You want to pull your eyes out, but you do it to the best of your ability to help each and every white belt. Then I would be head judge in Black Belt Kata, because again, I was asked to.

One year, after judging Black Belt Kata I went to use the rest room. The promoter quietly called black belt light weight fighting (not over the P.A system as was usual) but quietly on the floor and hurriedly started it before I came running back.

They wouldn’t let me compete. And THEN, a nationally ranked Heavyweight Competitor walked in halfway through the first round of heavyweight fighting and they let him fight.

I had to go outside to scream. Never been that angry in Martial Arts before.

My instructor at the time was Billy Blanks. He told me to forget about until next year, he had a plan. I didn’t ask what.

The next year he was scheduled to do a big demo at the tournament. I was going to do it with him. He was the number one point fighter in the country at that time.

They asked him to go to the offices of the largest Boston newspaper that next year for publicity photos for the upcoming tournament. He took me with him. The papers were filled with cool, set up photos for the upcoming big tourney of him and I.
I knew he was doing that to pay back the promoter for screwing me over. Or so I thought.

We put on a wild demo, the crowd was going nuts. We were breaking all kinds of things, demonstrating everything from jump spinning head scissors to an explanation of how points were scored.
Then Billy stopped, addressed the crowd and promoted me to fourth degree black belt. He had a team of photo guys taking pictures of the whole thing.

Then I won lightweight black belt twenty minutes later. The promoter looked like he was going to throw up fall down. Which made me very happy.

That was my favorite promotion.

 

[isshinryuronin]

That was my favorite promotion.

An unasked-for recognition/award is always the best. To obtain something you did not seek - sounds like a Taoist fable from Chuang Tzu about Nothingness coming up with the lost Night Colored Pearl he was not sent to find.

I can't imagine what you experienced in that Mass. tournament. Most directors/promoters are too busy to notice one guy going to the head. He must have really had it in for you. Was he a martial artist himself with some creds or a pretender trying to make a name for himself? There's an old Uchinaaguchi (native Okinawan language) term that might apply to him - bushi-gwa - literal translation is "small warrior."

 

[Buka]

An unasked-for recognition/award is always the best. To obtain something you did not seek - sounds like a Taoist fable from Chuang Tzu about Nothingness coming up with the lost Night Colored Pearl he was not sent to find.

I can't imagine what you experienced in that Mass. tournament. Most directors/promoters are too busy to notice one guy going to the head. He must have really had it in for you. Was he a martial artist himself with some creds or a pretender trying to make a name for himself? There's an old Uchinaaguchi (native Okinawan language) term that might apply to him - bushi-gwa - literal translation is "small warrior."

He was a lightweight black belt fighter that started competing a year or two before me. This was back in the day when there were only two weight divisions, 165 and under was lightweight, 166 and over was heavyweight.

We never fought each other, even though we were in about a dozen of the same tournaments and fought in the same division. We were always cordial, but not close.

Then he did a bunch of little things that were kind of bitchy, but I didn’t really notice.

I hate to admit this, but the following year he did the exact same thing to me, at the same tournament. I didn’t get upset, I just laughed.

I never went back again after that. Neither did my students even though I told them they should. It was all very odd.