Actually...
Competition... the only competition you need a KKW for is if you are on the team (international meets). If you are good enough to make the team they will get you a certificate PDQ... like next day (and that requirement may be going by the wayside soon).
And such competition is the only area where a KKW rank is a requirement. Yes, they'll get you the cert, but if it weren't a requirement, they wouldn't bother. So if you're on the team, then practically, you need the cert. Whether you show up with it in hand or the team furnishes it for you, the end result is still the same.
Portable Rank.... since the KKW has no relevant standards their certification has become to mean nothing. If a student walks into my gym regardless of his/her certification they must prove to me that they are that rank. I think thats becoming more true all the time for most organizations.
Yes, and if a student comes to your school with a KKW blackbelt but performs at a blue belt level, it is perfectly reasonable to say, 'you can't wear that belt until you've gotten yourself up to speed; bring in your old blue belt.'
But would you demand of a student who holds dan rank in the same org as your school to pay testing fees from white belt through black belt again. Is that something that you'd do to an incoming student? I'd hope not.
Now, if you're not a KKW instructor, then his or her rank would hold no real meaning at your school.
Regarding the KKW standards, they actually have relevant standards, but it is up to the individual schools to determine if the students meet those standards. Admitedly, they are minimal standards; just enough to maintain a thread of continuity between all KKW schools. Both a sport oriented TKD school and a traditional school that has no sport participation at all are very different schools and each can meet the minimum requirements for a KKW dan cert equally well.
If this certification provides them with so much protection when was the last time the KKW stepped in to correct some instructor who took the money and ran? Have you EVER known them to pull someones certification? How about even send out a warning letter to someone? Anything? For an organization to have meaning they have to have some form of control over standards. Do they?
The only protection that it provides is exactly what I stated: you have a rank that is recognized by a body over and above the issuing school's say so. Go to a non KKW school and any and all benefits from the KKW are gone.
So much protection? I never said that it was so much proteciton. Don't get the idea that I think that the KKW provides anything resembling labor union style protections for its members; it doesn't.
And no, the KKW doesn't exercise nearly enough of the regulatory authority that it could over its member schools. The very scenario of a school owner taking the money and running (I know people whom this has happened to) is the
only reason that I am
not against this special testing. There should be no need for any sort of special testing. But if they can redress wrongs of the past, then it can be a good thing. It would be a much better thing if the redressing of wrongs were accompanied by a mechanism to prevent such wrongs in the future, a mechanism that, as you point out, either doesn't exist or isn't exercised.
The KKW is essentially a body of administrators of curriculum and an issuance body for certificates. Nothing more. Essentially, it is just enough to be not-a-papermill. This is sad, because it could be so, so much more. And it wouldn't be all that hard for the KKW to be so.
Daniel