McDojos and TKD

[Nick_UKWC]

We have 5 grading levels, no belts and no fees for testing. Our annual fee is £40 and our monthly fee is £30. We have a class of 10 and a Sifu with 10+ years of experience learning directly from Master Sinclair.

 

Pretty lucky I think

[tufrthanu]

Well ottman 25 seems pretty reasonable...especially if thats near to what the belts cost. Nick that seems like a pretty good deal to me.

[mattyj]

A year is possible an alot of tkd schools...especially if the person is there every day for 4 hours. That's to first dan. If by stripe you mean like 2nd 3rd dan and what not theres no way you should get those in a year. If you are very diligent 2nd dan in a year...3rd in 2 years. And so on. Generally it takes about 2-3 years in most tkd schools to get to first dan and then whatever dan your going to figure that number of years from first. So from first to second is 2 years. From second to third is three years. And so on. Unfortunately alot of commercial schools pass the bad students with the good students so its really hard to say whether its a bad school or not. The best thing is just to look at the individual. It personally took me 3 years...but I was a 2 times a week person I just managed to pick stuff up pretty quick.

 

imo that is just not right... you cannot reach the skill/understanding level required to be deemed a 'black belt' in one year... especially not 2nd dan... thats just ridiculous! 3rd dan in 2 years? what the hell? ive been training two and a half, almost 3 years (i missed two gradings) and im a blue belt (ie i still have red stripe, red belt and black stripe to go before black belt). My instructor (granted he had a couple years break for injury reasons is a 4th dan and hes been training for 16 years!) You cannot tell me its reasonable for someone to be a 3rd dan in 2 years.

 

As for the initial question. I think 4-5 years is reasonable for 1st dan, in itf taekwon in new zealand, you can get there in 3 1/2 if you dont miss any gradings.

[mattyj]

We have 5 grading levels, no belts and no fees for testing. Our annual fee is £40 and our monthly fee is £30. We have a class of 10 and a Sifu with 10+ years of experience learning directly from Master Sinclair.

 

Pretty lucky I think

 

ouch that sounds pretty expensive still! ours are $160NZD which is 60UK pounds per year for a full year's training (minus holidays) and $40NZD (15UK pounds) per coloured belt grading of which you can do 3 per year max at a coloured belt levels (they have to transport one of only two masters (7th dans) in the country or one 6th dan.) ie it costs 105 pounds per year max. and i thought that was expensive!

[tufrthanu]

I think you misunderstood me matty. 2nd dan 1 year after reaching 1st. 2 years to get to 3rd from 2nd. So in other words if you were there every day at most of the classes you could be to 3rd dan in 4 years total.

[Kicks]

We pretty much follow WTF standards. It takes about 2.5 - 3 years to get 1st Dan. Then, 2 more years before testing for 2nd dan, then another 3 years for 3rd dan, then another 4 years for 4th dan, then another 5 years for 5th dan. After that it's anybody's guess.

[mattyj]

I think you misunderstood me matty. 2nd dan 1 year after reaching 1st. 2 years to get to 3rd from 2nd. So in other words if you were there every day at most of the classes you could be to 3rd dan in 4 years total.

 

ahhhhhhh sorry. but you get your first dan blackbelt in one year? yea itf follows 3.5-4 years from white to 1st black. 1st-->2nd = 1 year, 2nd-->3rd= 2years, 3rd==>4th = 3 years so on so forth.

[TomBolton]

"It depends on many factors. IMO you should have some years under your belt to be ready for shodan. We are allowed to teach after that, I wouldn't like to be taught by a person who's spent 2 years in my style and got BB."

 

Different subject, but I'm not sure how obtaining a black belt qualifies you to teach at all. I've never understood this. Just because you can perform techniques doesn't mean you are good at teaching them. I think every organization should have a seperate intensive Instructor program. Does anyone know of another organization beside ATA that has Instructor training in teaching skills?

 

-Tom

[TomBolton]

Also, I've been training for 12 years and I'll be testing for my 4th degree this year. That's actually pretty long for my organization. I would have been elligible for 4th earlier, but you have to be 21 years of age. The standard time would be 8 years to 4th degree. 2 - 2.5 years to 1st degree. 3 years to 2nd. 5 years to 3rd. (that is from white belt)

 

-Tom