Your most memorable rank test

[Dirty Dog]

Truly just curious here, what would be a disciplinary infraction that could get your stripes ripped off?

Dunno. The closest I ever came was telling a student he couldn't promote till his grades came back up.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Dunno. The closest I ever came was telling a student he couldn't promote till his grades came back up.

Oh ok I get it. I was just curious. That makes sense, like school sports programs.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Oh ok I get it. I was just curious. That makes sense, like school sports programs.

Sure. Or like a bunch of people who were generally pretty well behaved.

 

[dvcochran]

The point is that your progress in wrestling is marked by actual performance rather than subjective, figure-skating style 'judging' of kata or practiced, staged 'sparring.'

You will have to better define 'progress in wrestling'.
In my experience (high school & college) your progress was directly related to your practice and your competition. Your competitive opportunity was a direct result of your performance in practice.

 

[skribs]

Imagine if every grading, or even class, you could possibly be downgraded with your rank? Would certainly push the level of everyone potentially haha, or a negative effect of people being on edge constantly

Reminds me of the Malcolm-in-the-Middle episode where the Krelboynes were ranked by how many 9s came on their 99.999% scores on their tests.

Also reminds me of MMR. In video games, you typically get a MatchMaker Rating (MMR) which helps you find players appropriate to your skill level. In the early days of MMR, everyone would start at 0 and work their way up. This had a couple of undesirable results:

1. Experienced players could make a new account to destroy beginners, and it wasn't fun for the beginners.
2. Experienced players who made a new account or character for legitimate reasons (i.e. a practice account) would waste a lot of time on matches that weren't worth their time.

Nowadays, you typically start in the middle. For example, in Starcraft, you will get matched against players in the middle tiers of leagues (Gold and Platinum), and quickly shuffled up or down. Most players in Starcraft fall between 1000 and 5000 MMR. You start off against players around 2500, and then within a few placement matches you may find yourself down around 1800 or all the way up in the 3000s. Or somewhere in the middle. After your first couple dozen games or so, your MMR becomes much less volatile. That way it figures out where you belong, and then it takes a lot of work to move up or down.

As a thought exercise, I've thought of applying this concept in class. Everyone starts at green belt.

• If you can follow along fine (able to keep up with the forms and intermediate kicks), stay at green. Congrats! You just skipped a year of white and yellow belt training.
• If you're struggling, then go down to yellow. We'll re-assess. If you found your footing, stay at yellow, and you're 6 months ahead. If you're still struggling, then go down to white and start fresh.
• If you pick up everything right away, and it seems all we're doing is teaching you the names of stuff, then bump you up to blue belt. Probably wouldn't happen to people off the street, but would if they have prior experience in martial arts or other similarly-technical activities (such as dance). Re-assess if Blue is the right spot, or if you need another bump. Another 6-12 months saved.

I wouldn't do this. On the lower end, it would just be confusing and degrading to get bounced around and demoted right off the bat. On the higher end, there are other mechanisms to boost someone if they have prior experience (test them in at a higher level, allow double tests, waive time-in-grade requirements for colored belts). But it is something that crossed my mind.

 

[bill miller]

This question is sort of rank test related. To day, I ran in to a person on line that claimed to have trained with my instructor, but now has his own style and has given himself the rank if 10th dan. He says he trained with him for thirty years, but when I asked about which location he attended, I never got a reply. This threw up a red flag, as I trained with Master Rhee for almost thirty years in both locations, but I don't recognize his name, plus, in our style no one has reached that level. I don't want to cause a stink, but something just is not right, or maybe I have become paranoid in my old age. Any suggestions?

 

[_Simon_]

Truly just curious here, what would be a disciplinary infraction that could get your stripes ripped off?

Deciding to not sweep the leg, when your instructor has CLEARLY requested you to... "sweep the leg".

 

[_Simon_]

Reminds me of the Malcolm-in-the-Middle episode where the Krelboynes were ranked by how many 9s came on their 99.999% scores on their tests.

Also reminds me of MMR. In video games, you typically get a MatchMaker Rating (MMR) which helps you find players appropriate to your skill level. In the early days of MMR, everyone would start at 0 and work their way up. This had a couple of undesirable results:

1. Experienced players could make a new account to destroy beginners, and it wasn't fun for the beginners.
2. Experienced players who made a new account or character for legitimate reasons (i.e. a practice account) would waste a lot of time on matches that weren't worth their time.

Nowadays, you typically start in the middle. For example, in Starcraft, you will get matched against players in the middle tiers of leagues (Gold and Platinum), and quickly shuffled up or down. Most players in Starcraft fall between 1000 and 5000 MMR. You start off against players around 2500, and then within a few placement matches you may find yourself down around 1800 or all the way up in the 3000s. Or somewhere in the middle. After your first couple dozen games or so, your MMR becomes much less volatile. That way it figures out where you belong, and then it takes a lot of work to move up or down.

As a thought exercise, I've thought of applying this concept in class. Everyone starts at green belt.

• If you can follow along fine (able to keep up with the forms and intermediate kicks), stay at green. Congrats! You just skipped a year of white and yellow belt training.
• If you're struggling, then go down to yellow. We'll re-assess. If you found your footing, stay at yellow, and you're 6 months ahead. If you're still struggling, then go down to white and start fresh.
• If you pick up everything right away, and it seems all we're doing is teaching you the names of stuff, then bump you up to blue belt. Probably wouldn't happen to people off the street, but would if they have prior experience in martial arts or other similarly-technical activities (such as dance). Re-assess if Blue is the right spot, or if you need another bump. Another 6-12 months saved.

I wouldn't do this. On the lower end, it would just be confusing and degrading to get bounced around and demoted right off the bat. On the higher end, there are other mechanisms to boost someone if they have prior experience (test them in at a higher level, allow double tests, waive time-in-grade requirements for colored belts). But it is something that crossed my mind.

Yeah it is an interesting thought... but yeah downgrading someone may be too often seen as punishment rather than an opportunity to learn hehe.

Reminds me of some of the Tekken games in the Arcade mode though; when you have ranking matches there is the possibility of your rank being knocked down because you lose too many matches. But different to dojo environment of course

 

[dvcochran]

This question is sort of rank test related. To day, I ran in to a person on line that claimed to have trained with my instructor, but now has his own style and has given himself the rank if 10th dan. He says he trained with him for thirty years, but when I asked about which location he attended, I never got a reply. This threw up a red flag, as I trained with Master Rhee for almost thirty years in both locations, but I don't recognize his name, plus, in our style no one has reached that level. I don't want to cause a stink, but something just is not right, or maybe I have become paranoid in my old age. Any suggestions?

I suggest reaching out to your organization and making an inquiry. Hopefully they can interject if something is not right. Are you in the Arlington area?

Sadly, there are too many 'instructors' out there of self-elevate. Not a good thing.

 

[bill miller]

I suggest reaching out to your organization and making an inquiry. Hopefully they can interject if something is not right. Are you in the Arlington area?

Sadly, there are too many 'instructors' out there of self-elevate. Not a good thing.

I'm in Memphis. I'm not sure where this gentleman has his dojang. I have talked to a couple of our long time practitioners and they don't remember him.I think that he may have trained occasionally with Master Rhee. I'm going to look a little deeper.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

Deciding to not sweep the leg, when your instructor has CLEARLY requested you to... "sweep the leg".

Ahhhhh.

 

[Dirty Dog]

This question is sort of rank test related. To day, I ran in to a person on line that claimed to have trained with my instructor, but now has his own style and has given himself the rank if 10th dan.

Happens. There's a user here with an earned rank of Brown belt in Kenpo who has self-promoted to 10th Dan.

He says he trained with him for thirty years, but when I asked about which location he attended, I never got a reply. This threw up a red flag, as I trained with Master Rhee for almost thirty years in both locations, but I don't recognize his name, plus, in our style no one has reached that level. I don't want to cause a stink, but something just is not right, or maybe I have become paranoid in my old age. Any suggestions?

Not your problem, and there's nothing you can do about it. Doesn't matter that nobody in your style has earned 10th Dan, because it was a self-promotion. Your org isn't going to know anything about it, because they didn't issue it.