Testing for the sake of Testing?

[hailstone]

So, I'm relatively new to martial arts and in what may be a rather unusual situation. I am practicing taekwondo at college in a student-led club and have been since the beginning of freshman year. It takes about 3.5 years to earn a black belt in our system and so the students normally teach during their senior year and earn a black belt halfway through. For testing, we drive to a dojang 5 hours away where we test under an 8th degree black belt. I have great respect for our Idaho instructor, he works as a public school English teacher, charges less for testing fees than most of the other schools in our association and, based on the stories he has told of his training, is most certainly deserving of the rank.

My freshman year, I trained under a graduate who decided to stay in town, so I was just starting and learning from someone who had been training for 4.5 years--a pretty wide experience gap. The summer after that year, I continued to train with some friends of mine who had also taken up martial arts while at college. I have tried to learn a little bit about a new martial art every summer while I cannot train with my regular taekwondo class. I am now a Junior and my current instructors have only 6 months of experience beyond me (or 3 months less since they do not train over the summers). At this point, I feel that though I continue to train, I am not improving at the same rate that I would under an instructor who had been training for much longer than I have (or even twice as long). Thus, I have stopped going to tests.

My current instructors have been putting pressure on me to resume testing so that I can earn my black belt, but I see no reason to. Certainly, I could pass the tests, but I don't think I would feel the sense of accomplishment I had for my previous tests. Perhaps having a black belt would give me more authority to lead classes, but I will have the same amount of training experience as any of the other instructors have had even if I don't continue to test so that claim is superficial at best. More realistically, I may undermine my students' desire to test and compete because I appear to put so little stock in the rank system.

So, have I made the right decision, or am I being self-important, conceited and should go back to testing?

On top of these concerns, I am not sure how to explain this to Grand Master Knife. Our school has a very good relationship with him (we traditionally go out to eat together after every rank test) and I do not wish to undermine that. Since I will be driving the lower belts to their tests, I will be interacting with him and it is certain to come up.

On a somewhat related note, as I will be the head instructor of our club next year and was wondering if anyone could recommend books or other resources that I may be able to draw inspiration from for my lesson plans (our class structure has been pretty lax and I'd like to improve the quality if I can).

Thanks for any advice,

 

[jks9199]

Why don't you want to test for black belt?

It's great if you don't need outside validation -- but sometimes, that validation can also open doors. Or simply honor the time and effort of those you train with.

 

[threethirty]

Go ahead and get that black belt. It may not mean anything now, but not getting it could mean a lot (in a negitive way) to you in the future.

 

[OKenpo942]

Go ahead and get that black belt. It may not mean anything now, but not getting it could mean a lot (in a negitive way) to you in the future.

I agree with threethirty. I studied Ed Parker's Kenpo for a long time. Belts became unimportant to me and I stopped even testing. I was well respected by those I was regularly around. Those holding higher ranks even held me in high regards and came to me for the occassional tip. Now, many years later, I regret not getting my black belt back then. I am now working on that as I have recently begun training again. It is like a college degree... You may not use it in whatever career you end up, but nobody can ever take it away from you. Once you have it, it symbolizes an achievement, an accomplished goal. Mr. Parker (RIP) said that earning your black belt is not the end, but the beginning of the journey.

Respectfully,

James

 

[Aiki Lee]

I say test for BB. It's great rank doesn't matter to you, but anyone you are coaching or teaching wants to know you are qualified and the only way to present that image to a person who has no understanding of what a quality martial artist should look like is to wear a BB.

 

[girlbug2]

I say test for BB. It's great rank doesn't matter to you, but anyone you are coaching or teaching wants to know you are qualified and the only way to present that image to a person who has no understanding of what a quality martial artist should look like is to wear a BB.

+1

You will never regret having that black belt, but you may come to regret not having it.

 

[kungfu penguin]

personally i think if you are training under people who you feel are not that qualified then getting a black belt from them is next to worthless im a strong believer in lineage my kajukenbo instructor is awesome and very well respected i would much rather work twice as hard and long to learn a black belt from him rather than some shmoe you dont really respect all that that much
better a good whitebelt than a crappy black belt
my school says if you put on a black you better be able to back it up if necessary
my opinion would be look elsewhere and find a teacher that can really show you the ins and outs of an art this is usually done by someone very seasoned in their art my instructor has been in kaj 30+ years thats the difference between instructors i have had before and why i stick to my grandmaster now

peace---tom ps if i stepped on toes im sorry

 

[WC_lun]

Personally, if you don't feel the people that would be awarding you the black belt are that much higher than you, then truly what is that belt worth? The fee it cost to test? I understand the point of previous posters, but for me, that belt should mean a helluva lot. Not some symbol of your expertise or something you can hold over lesser ranks, but a symbol of the blood, sweat, tears, and yes the skill you picked up along the way. Now the dwn side to my perspective is that black slip of cloth can sometimes get your foot in the door at places, regardless if it is a hard earned black belt or not.

 

[Bruno@MT]

Imo, I'd rather wait to get a black belt from someone I respect, rather than from a jumped up newbie. After all, who is he to give you a black belt if he has been training only a handful of months longer than you.

I agree with the others that having a black belt can open doors, even if you don't put much stock in it yourself. Getting one is not bad. But if you are not in a hurry, the BB will mean something if you can respect the person giving it.

Also to the outside world (doors opening etc) it matters who gave you the BB. I know that back when Steven Saegal was still actively teaching aikido, getting a BB from him put you way ahead of other BBs. He was at that point the highest graded person in the US, and if you got it form him it meant that you could handle yourself in tests that were pretty intense. He was known for failing people several times in their BB tests until they really proved themselves. So even though technically all 1st level BBs are equal, depending on who passed them, they were looked upon very differently.

 

[Josh Oakley]

It's a tough choice, for certain. I don't particularly care for belts, though, so I'm biased.

 

[shima]

It's a tough choice, for certain. I don't particularly care for belts, though, so I'm biased.

I received my first black belt in karate in 2004. I then joined a tae kwon do school in another state a few years later. I didn't test, didn't test, didn't test. I just didn't care about belts either, felt it was just knowledge at that point. Eventually (2 1/2 years later at the school) I knew everything I needed to know to go for black at that school. I only ended up actually testing because the instructor told me she wouldn't charge me and that she just wanted me on the same page as her black belts and to be one of the rest of them so I could advance and work on higher rank... so under a fair amount of pressure, and the fact that my test was free, I got my second first degree black belt in tae kwon do.

Now, I've moved several states away again to another location, and started studying kenpo. I decided this time I was going to go through all the ranks from the bottom up (though they let me wear my black belt, I stand in line according to what rank I am in kenpo) because it's nice to have all 10 belts along the way and know you've got milestone markers on your road to black like I did at my first school.

So as others have said, test, it's better to have the belts than regret missing your chance later and regret not having tested when you could have.

 

[C Denny Run*]

Take the test, have fun, and enjoy your black belt. There is nothing wrong with that.



-Denny

 

[PooterMan]

I'm not sure if I agree with your handling, but my perception via 1 posting could be way off base.
If all your testing occurs in front of an 8th degree who it appears you respect, whats the problem? If you have worked extra time on your own, you should be able to show much better technique, timing, targeting etc. all of which will just make you a better martial artist. And will show the 8th dan that you know what you are doing.
If your issue is that people leading your class have less time/experience than you....Then think how much higher you will be setting the bar for the next generation when you are the senior.

I'm also a bit concerned about thinking of a martial art as a "curriculum" on a set schedule. How many classes per week does this involve? Never heard of a school that planned it out that well that I could start on this date, be black belt during the 4th school year. I took Tang Soo Do for 7 years 2 nights a week and also worked out about every other weekend to get my 1st degree. There are nights when our class is led by a guy who got his 1st degree same time as me. Not an issue to me. When he's calling out combos or marching or whatever, I'm concentrating on technique, distance, timing, targeting, transition blocks, torque, stances etc etc. The only thing that will make me a bad Martial Artist is myself...thats the goal to overcome.

These comments worth every penny you paid for them!

 

[PooterMan]

The only thing that will make me a bad Martial Artist is myself...thats the goal to overcome.

er...I meant thats what you have to overcome to reach your goal.

 

[Kemposhot]

Go for the BB. If you have it, you can still train just as hard as you are now. The journey doesn't end there. Having it is a personal accomplishment and something that can help you down the line.

 

[tayl0124]

personally i think if you are training under people who you feel are not that qualified then getting a black belt from them is next to worthless im a strong believer in lineage my kajukenbo instructor is awesome and very well respected i would much rather work twice as hard and long to learn a black belt from him rather than some shmoe you dont really respect all that that much
better a good whitebelt than a crappy black belt
my school says if you put on a black you better be able to back it up if necessary
my opinion would be look elsewhere and find a teacher that can really show you the ins and outs of an art this is usually done by someone very seasoned in their art my instructor has been in kaj 30+ years thats the difference between instructors i have had before and why i stick to my grandmaster now

peace---tom ps if i stepped on toes im sorry

My thoughts exactly. My instructor was 5th degree when I started training him. He has had many people over the years want to promote him. Mostly because he made their higher ranks look bad. How does it look when they promoted some guy to 7th dan and this 5th dan comes in and puts the 7th dan to shame. We had talked about this many times, he had stated that there are only a few people he respects enough to accept a promotion from. Rank doesn't mean much in my opinion, just shows the dedication(time in) you have to the art. However he has just recently been promoted from his Sensei in Okinawa. It does really sound to me like you hold much stock in the black belts that teach you. Which is also probably why you are nervous about teaching next year.