Thanks for the insights, everyone. Much appreciated.
Although Sam T mentions 7 years, I think most schools take around 4 years and, still, that is no easy journey I'm sure. Mine is an American Tang Soo Do Association (Grandmaster Byrne) school/international UTC. I suspect a lot of people drop out because they don't expect to have to work so hard as mentioned above. It's not worth it to them and I imagine the mental work send some people out the door. Forms, wrist grips, and hand-foot combinations can be overwhelming (especially when you are an ol' fart like me - it's like having a learning disability but worse, lol). I imagine the forms only become more difficult. I have known several to sign up for exercise only. I see they are orange belts now. That's really good. That's six month of a lot of torture just for exercise, lol.
A young lady told me she didn't understand why we did forms, that she only wanted to spar. I told her those who are good at forms are usually the best at sparring. That went in one ear and out the other of course. I wonder if she will persevere.
I have seen someone show up in white belt uniform and never come back. Sometimes, they get sick during class and maybe that discourages them. I would have imagined they would have taken a trial class though. Gosh, if not, that should be a requirement - I don't know if it is. Our instructors try to make the trial classes pretty hard for someone taking a trial class so they'll know what they're getting into. (Trial classes are the regular classes and people trying out/white belts run and do squat thrusts just like the rest of the class but, again, the instructors make it more rough than usual.)
My first trial class (buddy week with my daughter) was hundreds of crunches, lots of wallkicks, squat thrusts, punching drills, kicking drills, jumping sidekicks (regardless that I didn't know how to do a sidekick, I ran like everyone else and jumped and tried to kick at the focus pad). It is hard to pace yourself, because you want to keep up with everyone else. I could barely walk for four days after that but I loved the challenge. I didn't get sick during class so I was encouraged. Lucky me. (It kind of scares me that someone my age would take these classes without being conditioned.)
We have hell week several times a year as well as extra hard conditioning classes. There are times I still can barely walk for three-four days after a class (i.e., lots of plyometric jumping, 300 leg raises, 400 pushups, that sort of thing - this is no exaggeration. I think people think I'm exaggerating. I'm not saying I can do 400 pushups. And they aren't all at once of course. 200 crunches, 10 squat thrusts, 40 pushups - sets like that. Although we have alternated crunches, pushups, crunches for over a half hour.) The idea is Master R wants us to be well-conditioned. If we aren't working on conditioning at home, it's going to become harder to do the dojang work. Our training will suffer.
I am sure your dojang is just like this except you may have introductory classes for newbies and perhaps the training is lighter for them?
Right now, I'm working on my endurance. I've started to do intervals (sprinting) and am jumping rope. I will have to run five miles at red belt level. Endurance, in our school, is a big deal at red belt level. And the Dans have to run 7 miles. This is a good thing for me. It gives me the motivation to work at conditioning formartial arts while not in class; it helps to make MA more of a lifestyle. Honestly, I can't imagine doing this work if I didn't love Tang Soo Do.
I noticed my feet and joints haven't bothered me as much as they did three years ago when I wasn't taking MA. MA has really strengthened my supporting muscles and ligaments. Still, I'm being careful. Because I can't kick as high as a 16 year-old male (as MonteCarlo said), no one is going to hold that against me. But I am expected to do my best of course.
