JaseP

Not every federation requires there to be a separate Sah Bum and 4th Dan test... Mine doesn't... In fact I'd say most TSD federations DON'T break it out that way... Usually the minimum time to earn a 4th Dan is about 13.5 years of uninterupted training. Most people take longer (education, illness, family obligations, etc.).

Jin Do is really a form for 1st to 2nd Dan... Bassai Dae is appropriate for 3rd Gups and up... I can't think of a Tang Soo Do federation that teaches those forms to Green Belts... (which is what 4th Gup is). There are various places on the web where you can download video clips of the forms being performed... but you really can't learn them that way. You're better off learning them in class.

Lots of personal stuff to deal with... Separation and pending divorce (amicable)... New job. New girlfriend problems. Fixing up apartment. Broadband internet and wireless router. Etc., Etc.

What style of Tang Soo Do doesn't strike to the head? Many schools train with no punches to the head due to the risk of injury during sparring,... it's not that there IS no punching to the head in the style,... it's just to prevent people from going home bloody...

Tang Soo Do borrowed the forms and incorporated them into the style... So the forms do not define the lineage of Tang Soo Do. Tang Soo Do/Soo Bahk Do also has Korean forms, not shared by any other style.

Uhmmm, not at the tournaments I've judged at for the last 13 years or so... Open just means that you don't have to be invited... The Forms competition can be Open, Traditional, etc... If the forms competition is Open, then the Xtreme MA gymnastics poodo is permitted. If it is traditional, you risk being torpedoed in your scores by doing a form with flips etc. (Many Judges, myself included, take very seriously the "Traditional" heading for Traditional Forms competition). When judging Open competition, I don't give backflips, etc. any higher score. I judge the form strictly on its martial content. If it has it despite the flips, then it gets a higher score,... if not then low score... Same for weapons forms,... I once saw a guy doing a Sai form, and holding them wrong like Jen Garner in Elektra (index and middle fingers straddling the shaft of the Sai)... I gave him a 6... You need to be congnizant that there are still "Old-timers" like me and others out there who don't care how acrobatic a form is... we want to see martial arts technique in the form, stances, proper alignment, kick control, snap, etc. If we don't see it, but see a gymnastics routine,... we'll shut you down, no matter how entertaining it is.

True,... but the color belt system is more on the order of 150 years old, borrowed from Judo... To me it doesn't make sense to use belts that are outside of convention. You get problems in open tournaments, when people change styles (due to relocation, etc), or when people are trying to investigate the system to join. It leads to confusion and doesn't change the fact that the more belts there are in a system, the more oppurtunity exists to charge additional money for tests... and hence be labeled a "McDojo." This is both real and perceived... Keep in mind that most systems traditionally use a gup or kyu system for advancement in the color belts and they typically work their way backward from 10... If you have a different color belt for each of these ranks... fine. But if you not only have those ranks but add stripes to the belts to further create testing oppurtunities, the school is most definitely a McDojo,... even if they offer good instruction. Overt commericalism needs to be balanced by the teaching of the art... The best scenario is when the commerical aspects of the school are transparent to the instruction.

I'll bite... There were a lot of ticked off Masters when KJN Hwang Kee turned operations over to HC Hwang due to the seniority issue. However, it was well known that this was going to occur for many years (hence the split early on creating the World Tang Soo Do, International Tang Soo Do, et al.). When it finally came to pass, many Masters who were on the fence finally jumped ship rather than stay with an organization who many felt was too concerned with propriety and economics (read - money for the people in power) than being concerned with the promotion of the art... This was not something that was foreign to the Moo Duk Kwan. There was a significant factor of economics and control involved in the whole refusal to participate in the TaeKwonDo unification of the 40s, 50s and 60s... Coincidentally, or fortuitously (depending how you look on it), keeping seperate from the TaeKwonDo unification was something that many were inclined to do anyway, since there was a notable decline in the standards associated with going with the standards the younger generation of TaeKwonDo Masters who were in charge of the administration of that movement were promoting at the time (1960s standards)... Ramifications of the TaeKwonDo unification continue to this day,... such as critizism that it promotes sport as opposed to art, quick promotion schdules to Dan ranks,... sliding scale as to who is considered Ko Dan Ja (senior Dan holder or Masters,... 5th Dan as opposed to the traditional 4th Dan)... etc. Tang Soo Do resisted these tendencies,... but at the same time, the motivations were also money and power related. If the money and power related motivations ceased, there wouldn't be any concerns as to the US Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan. However, Dan promotions continued to get more expensive,... restrictions on the activities of Masters got more pronounced, and seniority got less concerned with how seasoned the Masters were who were in charge... all the while, intellectual propertly issues were raised (a bad mistake, since they are still based on very tenuous grounds, legally speaking)... All of that contributed towards the current trend of USSBDMDK hierarchy leaving the organization and striking out on their own.

A red belt should never turn pink,... belts aren't suppoed to be washed. If they appear tattered, it should be because of training, and not the spin and fluff cycle of the dryer... That's what I meant... a red belt that turned pink with ware... hence it's not a McDojo school and he can hand you your rear.... I don't know where the washed comment came from... I made no comment about the washing of the belt. Red belts NEVER turn pink through wear alone. They only get that way if they are washed... I have two red belts,... one from when I made Black Belt under my old instructor, and another from when I re-tested for Black again with my current instructor. They are both bright red. They are also both well over a decade old... (the DARKER of the two is actually over 20 years old)... There haven't been red belts made that fade through wear for over 25 years.

Belt meanings should always be there,... otherwise there was no rationale for choosing the color to represent the rank in the first place. So each color of a belt in a system should be representative of that level in some way, concrete or abstract. Traditionally, they represented seasons, and there were 4 colors... Other colors were added to ease the anxiety of the beginning students. The problem has come from systems that incorporate MANY colors,... especially when there are more than 10 (10 representing the traditional gup/kyu systems that were first developed, backwards from 10 to 1, then the Dan ranks from 1 to 10,... 10 being reserved for the single head-honcho Master [Grandmaster, Kwan Jang, whatever] of the system, or for dead 9th Dans). Then came along systems which increased Dan rankings beyond 10, made relativley youthful people high level Dans to appease egos, and added all sorts of extra levels within the color belts, to appease the color belts (or their parents) fragile egos and make money. So multiple belt colors (7+) aren't proof of a McDojo/McDojang,... but they are an indicator... as are the implementation of some other dubious marketing schemes (karate birthday parties, karate day care, one fee to make it to a certain level, Black Belt Clubs where the members aren't Black Belts, teams and programs where there are additionals fees paid, etc.). Students need to understand that a martial arts school or program is a business, and must be run that way, on the other hand, the teacher is teaching an art,... and so there needs to be some seperation between the business aspect and the art aspect... Adding all sorts of belt colors into the system smacks of business intruding into art... That is why I am against the practice.

As for forms,... Stances, stances, stances, and, oh yeah,... stances... As far as overall, just go and have fun,... Put forth your best effort and don't expect to win. If you do,... Great! If you don't, then you have learned where you need to improve.

If you are a Fourth Dan in TSD or higher, and are permitted to wear the Ko Dan Di (Master's Belt), then you are a Master, and should not feel any inclination one way or another about putting "Master" before your name... It is not a breach of ettiquete to do so... The protocol and etiquette are very important, but should not be taken to extreme. For instance, when I first made my 4th Dan (Ko Dan Ja ranking), and students would not bow to me at my instructor's school (if I wasn't in uniform, for instance),... I would get offended. I don't anymore. My wife will get offended for me if she sees it happen, and I just tell her, "It doesn't matter to me,... I'm humble." I predict she will be the same way that I am a couple of years into her Master's ranking... The protocol and etiquette are there to make teaching of the arts orderly. You can't have martial arts instruction in chaos and disorder,... things will not get taught and injury will happen. Additionally, it is there to help spill over into a person's everyday life, to make them more polite and disciplined in society. However, the discipline and etiquette should not be there to be an end in and of itself, for vanity's sake. If it gets to that point, then it is too much.

Hmm well, my favorite is between Kong Sang Koon, Hwa Sun, or Chil Song Oh Lo.

Our Dojangs (those in my instructor's federation) very explicitly teach values to our students. We end the class each time with a short lecture. Often we address values like hard work or using the martial arts for self-defense, or acting with honor and respect... sometimes the lectures are just upcoming events updates.

All this talk of time requirements is fine and dandy, but it doesn't change the fact that people learn at different rates. One person spending 5000 hours learning something might take another only 500. My wife learns very slowly. I learn very quickly. It took her 3.5 years to make Black Belt with our instructor, who is a very reputable instructor in Tang Soo Do. It took me 2.5 years under my old instructor. I was a better Black Belt in 2.5 years than she was in 3.5... I don't think she'd dispute either that or the fact that when I earned my 4th Dan, I was more of a Master than she is now that she is earning hers... What matters is dedication and learning. You can put the breaks on someone who isn't maturing well enough to be a Black Belt, but you can't really deny that they have got the material. Not everyone can learn that way. And YES there are some things that require time to learn... But NONE of them are learned at 1st Dan. I made my 1st Dan 21 years ago... So I know... The things that take time to learn get learned AFTER 1st Dan. I don't think that Black Belt means anything different today than it did 20 years ago, or 30 years ago.