When do you get promoted?

[JT_the_Ninja]

I still defend making students wait before they know, not only for the purely logistical reasons of needing to total up scores for four or fivescore people, usually of different ranks (add sending notice to all their respective schools for C.S. Kim black belt tests), but also because of something I may or may have not said earlier: you don't want the students to start taking it easy. If I'm told right there and then that I passed, my next class is going to be me taking it easy because I know that's one hurdle gone, and my rank is secure, even if I haven't been promoted yet. If I'm told I failed, then I begin to lose hope in myself and also start taking it easy. But if I don't know, I'll work just as hard as always, or maybe even extra hard, in the hopes that all I did at the test was good enough. There's nothing like uncertainty to make you work harder preventively.

 

[DArnold]

I'd like to know how you made some of the leaps from my posts on this topic. I've stated several times that I rarely formally test students; there is a formal black belt testing within my system. I don't see a formal test as an essential thing. Nor did I ever say anything amounting to the simple fact that someone tested entitles them to promotion; any test should be subject to the possibility of failure, or it's not a test. Nor is it a matter of rushing; to me it's a matter of fairness. Once someone's been tested, they deserve to know one way or the other. And once it's done -- it should be, in my opinion, done. Not stretched out over time. You can do a formal recognition later. You can induct people into associations later. But once the test is over, and the person is judged -- I think they simply deserve to know that they passed, and to receive their ranking very soon thereafter, like the next formal class. Show me what's gained by testing someone, but not telling them whether they've passed for several weeks after the results are known.

And, if a person has passed, and been promoted, stretching out the process of awarding them their certificates or badges or signs of rank over a year just seems to me to be playing games. You get them to stick around for a year; if they're not going to stay, they'll be gone at the end of that year anyway. If they are, they'll stay anyway. What's the benefit of getting someone to stay a little longer who's going to leave anyway? At best, you might keep a few who would have left, but more will put that begrudged year in, and walk away pissed off.

When I got my first level black belt, we were testing for black belt twice a year. I knew at the end of the day I tested that I'd passed. I received my black belt at the next class, from my teacher. I had to wait 6 months to the next formal induction for that, and that's when I received my certificate, because that's when they were signed and presented. Had I tested 6 months later -- I would have been promoted that same weekend.

I don't teach from a students point of view.

 

[DArnold]

That's interesting, DArnold, that you do not have to test someone in order to promote them or vice-versa.

In our school, gups are tested and promoted the same day. Master ties our new belt around us.

Orange belt (8th gup) up, they have spotlights and midterms that they must pass in order to test though, aka, if a student fails a spotlight, they are delayed testing a month.

Also, we belong to the American Tang Soo Do Association and I believe there are testing guidelines, at least to some degree.

Well, I was almost sick when I went into my 9th gup test. I knew my material but had no idea how I did (hard to be objective). I was thrilled that I'd passed. And I was happy to be promoted. I don't think of this as some sort of right, but I know what you mean.

Mostly students belive it is so because of the way you are raised.
But from my pont of view you could also say it is interesting that you would belive the other way.

Why? Because from a student point of view they think it is their right?
Because in some peoples mind they have this concept of "fair" These are all just things in your mind and not necessaraly the way it is, or needs to be.

Do some instructors abuse the system, sure, just as everything else can be abused. Do some organizations have guidelines, sure. But there are no god given rights to studetns that they must get their rank on the day of testing.

Just as I said before, testing and promotions are two seperate things and just because young instructors wish to teach from a students point of view does not make it the only way.

Once your finally realize that belt systems are only for junior gratification, that testing timelines are really random, that the only person that should matter to you is what your instructor thinks...

Then still I must ask why?