New Belt System????

[Aodhan]

...

Besides, TKD as such is 50 years old this year. It has older roots, but the current "systems" are only 50 years old, not a lot of time to have "traditions" rooted in stone.

Aodhan

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.

Correct, sir. However, martial arts in general are thousands of years old, and the belt system is 150 years old. Barely a generation and a half. What I was trying to say, is most schools out there do follow the 9th-1st gup/kyu system. What does it matter if all belts are different shades of blue, or pink, or whatever? It just points at where they are in their system.

I wouldn't mind seeing a standard belt system either, but doubt that will ever happen.

We use stripes on the belt to indicate knowledge of material within a testing cycle (Blocks/kicks = 1 stripe, form, 2nd stripe, etc) but we don't charge a testing for each one. We only charge for rank testings or midterms once you get to recommended black rank and above.

Heh... one of my friends was in a local school (Other than my own, he didn't want to take TKD again), and he had 15 different testings in a 12 month period, at $50+ each time. He hasn't been back.

Aodhan

[Aodhan]

nobody said anything about pink or christmas colored belts.

yea but dont u think camo is getting there?

When Grandmaster H.U. Lee (Creator of the Songahm system) created the belt/form structure for our style, he assigned a philosophy for each one. Songahm is "Pine Tree and Rock", and the belt structure reflects the growth of a pine tree.

Camo belt (6th kyu/gup) is the first level in our system where students start to free spar (As opposed to simple one step combinations with a partner). The philosophy behind the belt is "The sapling is hidden amongst the taller pines and must now begin to fight its way upwards". The hidden in the forest suggests the camo belt, and the fight its way upwards reflects the free sparring aspects.

Every belt has a meaning, it wasn't just picked arbitrarily at random to annoy people.

Aodhan

[Balrog]

Camo belt (6th kyu/gup) is the first level in our system where students start to free spar (As opposed to simple one step combinations with a partner). The philosophy behind the belt is "The sapling is hidden amongst the taller pines and must now begin to fight its way upwards". The hidden in the forest suggests the camo belt, and the fight its way upwards reflects the free sparring aspects.

Every belt has a meaning, it wasn't just picked arbitrarily at random to annoy people.

Correct. When I joined ATA, we only had 5 colored belts: white, yellow, green, blue and red. Each of the colors past white represented two grades. In 1989 (if memory serves), we adopted a unique color for each grade and tied the colors into the growth cycle of the pine tree. In addition, having a seperate color for each grade provide a more accurate visual indicator of the path to Black Belt, which fits right in with the SMART goals concept that ATA advocates.

[aefibird]

Well, there aren't camo belts in any of the styles I study/have studied, but I have learned not to underestimate anyone wearing a camo belt.

The first time I ever saw anyone wearing a camo belt was at an Open MA competition. There was a freestyle sport karate school there whose students all wore camo belts (except those of BB rank). The camo belts had little coloured tags on the end to differentiate between grades. The students of this particular club all had on 'flash' uniforms too - lots of satin in evidence and gold stripes down the legs and lots of embroidered sponsership on the back and plenty of patches - usually all warning flags for a typical "cash n flash" but no-substance school.

Plenty of people there sniggered a bit and I remember one person saying to me "McDojo alert!" as they entered the room.

However, those students were some of the most polite and respectful I have seen. Each competitor went up to the judges after their category and shooke their hands and thanked them. There were no tantrums - unlike other competitors from schools with so-called 'traditional' belt systems - and they were all friendly.

They were also some of the toughest martial artists and competitiors I had seen in a long while.

Even the students who were clearly novices were skilled and produced some outstanding form displays and excellent fighting as well.

Never judge a book by it's cover - maybe we should say never judge a martial artist by their camo belt?

I was humbled that day and learned a good lessons, as I suspect many people did who saw the camo belts and made an instant judgement. Yes, this school's uniforms might have been a bit brash and certainly OTT, but the people wearing them were not just products of a belt factory - they were true martial artists.

[IloveTKD]

at my school, which is wtf, the belt system is like this:

white

high white

yellow

high yellow

green

high green

blue

high blue

red

high red

Black

[ninjanurse]

I agree with aefibird here. We are all guilty of making quick judgements based on what we see. Flashy uniforms and a wide array of belt colors do not make a McDojo. McDojos are identified by the quality of students produced not their business practices.

[hapkiyoosool]

I like the white and black belt only. Unfortunately, in the good 'ol US of A we need to see progress. We only have

1. white (1,2)

2. yellow (1,2)

3. blue (1,2)

4. brown (1,2,3)

5. and of course black.

This ends our intrusion, now back to our regularly scheduled program.