Black Belt Children

I've been to schools that have separate age groupings for rank. i.e. youth trail adults by 2 ranks. IOW, a junior or "little dragon" black belt would be equivalent to much lower ranks in the adult equivalent. Also, the different age brackets have age-appropriate cirricula. This seems reasonable to me. If a school/dojo/etc considers a 10 year old black belt equivalent to a 25 year old BB, I would not take the place seriously.

 

Exactly.

For me, I became comfortable with the knowledge that another persons rank does not mean anything to me and my training, the journey is my own, the goal is refinement.

Standardized categories across arts due to a belt system are ludicrous as a concept, the blackbelt itself is nothing but a mark on the journey and, a blackbelt in your art means nothing to me and my art.

For those of you outraged by someone elses rank, be it their age, skill or anything you need to take a chill pill, do 10,000 knuckle push ups and flagellate yourself for 15 minutes.

 

Even amongst adults, there are weight categories in most combat sports because it's acknowledged that size and strength are often as much of an advantage as martial arts training. Surely the same is true comparing a child to an adult. We shouldn't expect a child to win a fight against an adult any more than we should expect a 10 stone adult to win against a 20 stone muscle-beast. It doesn't mean that anyone involved has a bad level of martial arts ability - just that there are other factors at play.

 

I think black belt should be an adult grade because I think it is difficult to appropriately pressure test a child for an advanced grade. Quite often black belt gradings in karate involve a grueling amount of heavier than normal contact sparring that I don't think you could reasonably subject a 14 year old too. I think in those cases you can assign a youth black belt (I've heard them called cadet black belts) where they have to re-test when they turn 18.

I see no good reason not to hold kids at a brown belt level until they come of age.

 

much like holyheadjch said dont hold them at brown belt as that would discourage them IMO i think that they should be given Provisional black belts and retested when they are of age which i think should be somewhere between 14-18 depending on maturity and Skill

 

I would like to provide you with a good reason:

You are projecting the expectations of your own limited exposure to your art or arts onto a wider range of arts. Not all blackbelts require pressure testing (right or wrong is another easy to answer discussion).

An additional reason:

You also are short changing kids based on your view of what a child can handle, they are a lot more resilient than you might think or have seen. Take a look at this kid at 14, tell me he hasn't been pressure testing his stuff for several years:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vA_mJIF46I"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vA_mJIF46I[/ame]

 

Younger,but tighter guard,more compact style,plus his opponent kept dropping his lead
hand.
Difference with boxing is to win a belt you usually have to win a title !!

 

I got mine at age 17 and I feel that was young... Youth is wasted on the young.....

Again as mentioned reaching black belt should equate to understanding the technical mechanics/syllabus of that system and some fluency/flow between techniques at a fighting level, but I also don't see how a 12 - 14 year old will have the maturity to fully comprehend this plus the fact that they are not physically fully matured.

Also what about techniques in that system that might be taught after a certain age i.e. strangles/chokes in Judo or Weaponary in some systems due to their dangerous nature

Personally don't believe they should be awarded until early adulthood i.e. 17-18 at a minimum IMO where the student is just at the right level of physical and mental maturity. Then the real learning starts.....

Cheers

Dan93

 

Depends on what you understand the black belt to represent. If you think that to get a BB you need to be some kind of master ninja super fighter then yes kids shouldn't get BB's. But then if you think that the BB represents a person has knowledge of the basics of a specific system/style/art then yes why wouldn't kids get a BB?
If baffles me that most westerners see the black belt as a high achievement, when in the east it can take as little as a year to get a BB in judo for example.

 

I think you've basically got the gist of the difference between different opinions on the thread.

To the bit I've underlined though, a lot of people do hold to the general principle that if you wear a BB, then you should have been training long and hard enough to be able to use the techniques you've been training, rather than necessarily being an awesome fighter which is a different thing altogether.

In regards to the bit I've highlighted with bold though, define "knowledge"? If it's just the ability to mimic what you have seen others do, then sure. But if you also take into account actual applications of said techniques, targeting, ability to perform them under a reasonable level of pressure (even against their own age group), understanding not only of the sequence of a pattern but some understanding of its' purpose too...then I have never seen any kid here in the UK that can honestly be described as deserving of a BB.

Personally though I hate the word "basics" with training. A lot of people I know refer to the basics as something "the lower grades/new guys do", but at what point do you stop practising the things you learn on the first day?

That's just my personal gripe though

Is it really that simple? Can we cross examine training time, the quality of the training, societal standards (etc)?

 

I like that attitude

First off - lol

Secondly though, this kind of attitude for me is just lazy and somewhat careless. I care about people claiming to be a particular grade level in the same way I care about people claiming to be GP's who haven't spent the time getting their qualifications honestly, a politician who doesn't run a "clean" re-election campaign, a teacher that doesn't have the qualifications to teach a certain type of student and so forth. Arguments about "bad examples because of legal stuff" aside, it is immensely dishonest and unfair to those who actually put the time and effort into trying to make sure they do their training honestly. They're being dishonest (deliberately or otherwise) to themselves, they're being dishonest to anyone else they spend time with and if given the opportunity to claim they're a sensei and to start "teaching" (I use that term loosely), dishonest to the people following their example who simply may not know better.

Don't get me wrong, I stand by my instructor's motto that the belt you wear is only worth as much as the effort you put into your training and his instructor's attitude that "every drop of sweat you shed is worth more than the belt you wear". But that doesn't mean I have to accept that just because some kid calls himself a "BB" that he is one either. In most cases they simply don't have the life experience to understand the training or to push as hard with the training as an adult should/could.

 

Are you secretly training under my sensei?

 

Nope. I just hide in the changing rooms and spy on you with my mad ninja skills

 

OK let me show you the flip side to see if you can agree with me.

The reason I don't care when you get your blackbelt is that your blackbelt isn't worth as much as mine.

My blackbelt specifically is the hardest one that anyone could ever achieve, it is in BJJ in a class where the professor is world class, and he promotes slower than anyone I have met. In BJJ there are 5 belt ranks:

White-Blue-Purple-Brown-Black

Last week a guy moved from Blue-Purple under this guy after 8 years of training in Gi and No-Gi and being a Pro MMA fighter. That is average for this class.

I have been training there for about 5 years, and my regular training schedule is 2-3hrs a day 5 days a week and I am Blue belt, I would be surprised to see a Purple inside 2 years from now, probably 3 or so. Black would take me another 8-10 from now at this pace.

And on top of that we train as a hub where other people visit, something like a hombu for our org and for other orgs to visit and test their skills, so the best of the best come through our doors and we pressure test against these every day.

So, my martial art is harder to get a blackbelt in than your is across the board, when you factor in my school within my art.

Does that then make your claim that your blackbelt if and when you receive it is worthless? Does it mean that any person in the world who puts in say 8 years of solid training is worth half as much as someone who needed to put the 15 in my school?

I don't think so. I think it means diddly what I do, it is all about what you do and your journey, and I respect your achievements within your own art. I think if I go around lauding my arts difficulty like in this post I become a jerk, and therefore it is not careless nor lazy to have this attitude, it is respectful.

 

True.

To add to Mattt's valid points, the time something takes to achieve is not necessarily an indication of either the quality of the art, or of the student, or of the teacher.

It can take a long time to reach a standard in something that meets a teachers expectations that is of little use, it can also take a short time to reach a standard in something that meets a teacher's expectations that is of great use. Whether the people taking long or short amounts of time to reach those standards are professional full contact fighters, or ex or current LEO or military or special forces is irrelevant. You can't put an art on a pedestal because someone who has a great success record fighting in one of those arenas takes a certain amount of time to get good at it - it just means that the art is looking for different things, which aren't necessarily better or more appropriate things for the arenas from whence those trainees came.

You can't compare styles, you can't compare timescales, you can't compare belts.

 

In my school it ismuch harder to get a black belt.
Because we dont have belts!...hehehehehe

 

At the end of the second sentence I was beginning to mentally compose a scathing reply that would have left you, your children and your children's children emotionally crippled, but by the end I was like 'hmm, yeah the guy has a point.'

 

At my dojo we have junior black belts, at first I didn't care for the idea but I like it now.

These kids work just as hard as an adult would to get their belt, I see no problem with rewarding their work.

 

Just my opinion but there are medals, patches, citations, and trophies to reward kids with. To keep a person at brown belt until they are 16 is not a bad thing.

 

You've got a point there, dude. I can't really argue with that

EDIT:

Having trouble trying to articulate this, so please bear with me.

Just going back to this quickly, as I mentioned before, a BB (to me) shouldn't just be about fighting talent, but about a certain level of understanding of what your training represents as well as a more philosophical aspect of a certain level of maturity with the training.

If someone spent 8 years training hard, then credit to them. Hell if someone had a good level of depth, understanding and even practical application of their training after just five years, then I'm not that fussed.

But I don't see any child doing that kind of honest training at all. Which is why I do feel that kids (especially the 12 and youngers) shouldn't really wear a "full" BB, especially given the generally huge chances that a kid will drop out of training.