A large number of belts doesn't mean poor quality instruction...not by any means. It usually means that the instructor is charging more money than what they should.
well, not really. It could just mean that that's the way the syllabus is structured. The number of belts has never been consistent from one system to another, even one school to another within the same or related systems.
Maybe the system is simply extensive, and it is parcelled out in manageable chunks, and it needs that many chunks to reach dan level. Just a suggestion.
Not every teacher charges testing fees, or outrageous monthly fees. Another belt is often not just an excuse to bleed money out of a student. My teacher charges very very little for monthly fees, especially considering the average rate in our area. He charges zero testing fees, and even provides the new belt when a student passes. He is definitely not getting rich off of this, regardles of the number of belts. As a Tracy kenpo school, we have 9 steps to and including shodan: yellow, orange, purple, green, three levels of brown, then shodan. It's just an extensive system. And my teacher is one of the senior-most instructors in the Tracy system, which some people might use as an excuse to charge more, but he doesn't. So while what you say MAY have some truth in some cases, here's just an example of where it just isn't true.
This really raises another question: how much money SHOULD a teacher charge? It's really hard to define this. Personally, I believe that the arts generally should not be one's primary source of income, because it's easy for money to get in the way of quality instruction. But some people are able to run a successful and profitable business in the martial arts, and still give high quality instruction. So it's tough to define how much is appropriate. But that's really another discussion altogether.
Have you ever stopped to think about how many ranks someone would really need? Wouldn't it be more important that the student spends an appropriate amount of time training before being told that he/she is ready to use the knowledge that they now have?
well, it's not about NEEDING ranks, but rather that the curriculum is divided into manageable chunks that make sense. I guess I've never thought about it in terms of how many colored belt rankings are needed. I just saw it as the road to learning a complete system, which Dan ranks are also part of.
Also, I don't know that you can ever tell a student that they are "ready" to use their knowledge. It's not like a student steps over a line, and now it all works, while yesterday it didn't. Being ready to use their knowledge depends on what's inside the individual. A white belt may have "what it takes", and be ready to use his stuff after a month. A highly trained black belt who has never been tested in a real self defense situation may find that he isn't "ready" to use it, because he doesn't have what it takes on the inside. He just didn't have an opportunity to find out, for real.
And that's another key point right there...if someone is able to make the journey from white to blackbelt in a short amount of time...say around a year...then something's not right. Either the student was given rank too quickly and passed through the art, or the student was truly worthy of passing in that amount of time.
99.99999% of the time, it's the former and not the latter.
Well, I will point out that back in the 1950s-1960s, it was fairly common that someone would earn their shodan in under two years. I'm just pointing this out, not because I'm advocating quick ranking, but rather noting the contrast between now and then. Who decided that shodan should take 4 or 5 or 8 years, instead of two? When did that happen, and what brought it about?
Of course fewer people back then were training at all, and those that did were probably more willing to train hard than people do today, because I think more schools back then had a tougher mentality.
Just food for thought.
