Hi all, My question is regarding gradings. Do we think they are important? Are they worthless? Are martial arts about showing someone how good you are in order to get a different belt? Surely martial arts are about self development and progressing at a personal speed? The flip side: Are they invaluable? Do they encourage perfect technique? If you find a specific technique difficult you can just put it to one-side and practice something easier. But if you need it for your grading, then you force yourself to practice it and thus perfect all that you know. Gradings: Good? Bad? Useful? Money making? Neccessary? Helpful? What do you think? -Mike.
Meh, gives me something to look forward to. Some people are just like that; they need a fire under their tushie to do anything. heck i can't even get out of bed without getting a rock dropped on my head.
They are good for the western world where most people or society is "goal-orientated" i.e they value the belt/sash and certificate-it makes them feel that they are progressing/improving. I personally don't like gradings as they ar enot important as long as you keep training hard and striving to imrpove yourself.
I get no grading I am fine, i enjoy learning cool techniques now and not getting grade promotions even thouhg it would be nice to say i am *this* out of ^that^ so gradings are usefull for little kids and big egos but not for people who like skill over boasted greatness.
Gradings re-enforce confidence among Western minds, it lets them know that there techniques are good. Their improved confidence usually results in them working harder because they're realising it's paying off (early on anyway). Gradings also move them up through the sashes, and another purpose they serve is to let the instructor know who know's what, so he can teach them things according to their level. The only reason people dislike gradings is because some people get cocky about their sash and things can start to get McDojoish. All you've really got to see is that in good schools, they are merely a way to remember who knows what and who should be learning what - an easier way to remember how far a person is so you don't have to keep going "What level are you? And you? And you? And you?" etc etc.
One of the best explanations regarding belts I ever heard was that the belts were necessary until the student realized it wasn't about the belts. In any case, belts should be considered a bookmark of our progress in martial education.
Not really sparring is not very good for testing skill as it creates bad habits that are not good for fighting. On the other hand it is a good way to see what students need to work on and what they can do in real speed.
if your sparring fails to create habits that are good for fighting then your sparring is essentially worthless. this is obvious to anyone who trains in perfoemanve based styles, i.e. mma, western boxing, thai boxing, and judo. kano developed randori because he beleived it was the best way to develop and measure functional skill. bruce lee mirrored kano's thoughts.
rank and sparring... Rank is good to an extent, but not good if you're in a school that has you test for a belt every month or two for a few years. All that is good for is to make more $ for the school owner. Someone previously stated something along the lines of is it necessary to perfect a technique in order to advance. I only think this is necessary if you someday want to be an instructor of that art, but that's just me. I think a lot of instructors agree with me that I know, because I know black belts taht can't do all of the basics perfect, this is pretty normal. A 1st degree black belt just has the basics down enough to advance to more advanced techniques..I remember when I was a kid hearing from my sensei not to emulate the black belts too much because a lot of them have bad habbits that work for them but wouldn't work for a lot of beginners. Hearing someone talk about Bruce Lee's philosophy on sparring is funny since his art is JKD but I've fought JKD people and wasn't too impressed. With exception of a few guys like Erik Paulson I haven't seen too many JKD people in the mma, thai boxing, etc. arena that are GOOD. Correct me if I'm wrong about JKD, but who fights in thaiboxing, mma, shootboxing, shooto, etc. that is representing it well? Sparring is necessary but isn't the best measure of rank/someone's fighting ability. Sparring can develop bad habbits if the person is trapped in the mentality to not think outside the box of what a real fight is and what sparring is. Many techniques that I do in the ring differ from what I do in sparring because I don't want to hurt my sparring partner..i.e. jump knees, spinning elbows, I have a couple of kicks that I won't throw in sparring too..these techniques require me to follow through all the way which makes it very hard to "pull back" and not hurt someone. A street fight is different from any ring fight too, most ring fights don't allow fish hooking, eye gouging, pulling of hair, scratching, etc..I've been fishhooked pretty bad in a dumb drunken fight at a party before and it's not fun.
maybe the question should be: are gradings necessary for ME? some people benefit from it, some people don't. I like knowing I'm progressing, but I don't need a belt to tell me that. A child on the other hand, may need it for encouragement....
Gradings are a way to acknowledge that you have learnt the required skills for that grade and are ready to move onto learning more advanced skills. While this doesnt follow the tradition of belts its how alot of schools use the grading system
i never said that lee's followers were any good or that they even genuinely followed his philosophy. i just said his philosophy was good. these are two completely different ideas. anyone, who can't undertand this has problems with reading comprehension.
