the thing is, person might get into TKD to do the sport side of it.
thats fine, not for me, but thats fine.
but the thing is, they shouldnt get rank, not in TKD.
If they are in it for sport and do nothing but compete, then I agree.
If they meet the full organizational requirements for whatever rank they hold (proficiency in forms, whatever SD curriculum is taught, etc.) then I have no problem with them holding the rank.
If the school is promoting people who do not meet the requirements for the rank just because of tournament participation, then I
do have a problem with
that.
As an aside, I recall hearing somewhere that some early on had wanted to call the sport side of it Tae Soo Do, but that was ultimately not done.
TKD is about self defense
it is not a sport
it is not so little johnny can feel good about himself
it is about the systematic and remorseless destruction of another human being.
everything else is a fringe benefit
the character building? the self control? fringe benefits
To be fair, the Kukkiwon structured and promoted taekwondo as a martial sport very strongly, so certainly there is room for that definition, though as long as one is calling what they do taekwondo, they should have self defense at the core.
I will disagree about the character building. Taekwondo is a 'do', as opposed to a jutsu or a bup (I believe that that is the Korean equivalent of 'jutsu'). As such, personal developement is a core part of the art.
and when someone claims their sport "black belt" is the equal to my TKD black belt, i get a little annoyed.
This comes down to people not understanding that rank only has substantive meaning within the school where it was issued. And equal can be a relative term as well. It may be "equal" in that the person may have worked just as hard to get his or her first dan and may be as superb in the ring as you are in SD. Thus they are quantitatively equal, but not qualitatively equal.
10 year olds? they aint black belts
I feel that it is a disservice to put a black belt on a 'tween or a child, and even some young teens. Yes, there are exceptions, but 99% the student is being shortchanged. Also, even with the broadening and undermining of what a black belt traditionally represents, in the back of everyone's mind, a black belt is supposed to be able to fight. That includes the wearers of kiddie belts. When a young kid who has a black belt advertises it at school and then finds that he still is getting pounded by the bullies, all of the self confidence that was built up in the dojo is gone and the kid is even less confident than before. Not to mention the outrageous amount of money that most commercial schools ask for a blackbelt testing.
Self confidence and character building are best done with colored belts and patches.
2 year black belts? they aint black belts
I tend to not want to generalize in that. I would rather see it broken down into study hours rather than years. If I go to class once a week and not practice outside of class for four years, I still go less than a guy who goes to class three times a week and practices between classes for two years.
Also, the curriculum at different schools varies enough that I am hesitant to make a judgement bases exclusively on years. If a school teaches only the base Kukkiwon curriculum, for example, two years is pretty ample if the student is practicing and going to class three times a week.
That would not make them equal in quality
or quantity to a school like your own or Miguksaram's; that would make them a black belt in their own school by virtue of having learned and become proficient in the curriculum
of that school.
Daniel
