Yes, another 'Belt' thread...

[KarateK]

This is similar to a lot of threads I have read recently - are there that many people who do not believe that their Sensei knows when they should grade and knows what they are capable of? I would trust that the seniors/black belts in our club know when I am ready to progress, or when to hold me back - thats why they are a black belt and I am still a student.

[RichardHangHong]

My sentiments exactly KarateK

[bushido_man96]

I have seen 4 month testing cycles, 3 month, and 2 month cycles. It just depends on the style and instructor. Most instructors will be observing you more closely than you realize, and will know if you are ready to be at the next level or not. Usually, if an instructor sees that one does not meet the reqirements by the time the cycle is over, he will hold the student out until the next cycle.

Now, you may feel that you are not ready, but that is mainly due to inexperience. Your instructor can tell if you are ready to move on or not. Trust is his/her judgement, he/she knows what they are doing.

[Ottman]

Ditto on trusting your instructor. Especially because the belt ranks are more for the instructor's organizational aid than than as a measure of the student's skill as compared to other schools and styles. As ps1 mentioned: "the belts are meaningless", which I almost totally agree with.

Again, you shouldn't look at your belt in context of the belt systems of other schools or styles.

Since instructors have multiple (usually many) students, the belt ranks help them to more easily determine what the student has been taught, and what he has become proficient in so less time is wasted during class trying to figure what needs to be taught to which student. Each instructor has their own system for teaching, and for what should be learned at each rank, so natuarally you can't say that a yellow belt from one school is the same as a yellow belt from every other school. My school not only employs belts, but also tags to go on the belt to better help us determine how far that student has progressed at each belt rank, and what they have left to learn for their next test. This way, every instructor at the school knows what each student is working on just by looking at their belt. Sure the students get pride and motivation from acheiving ranks, but this is not the main point of the belt system. Again it is more primarily used as an organizational tool for instructors.

[bushido_man96]

One of my previous instructors also incorportated a belt stripe system in which you had to earn so many stripes before you could test. Each stripe stood for different things, like the basics for that rank, knowing the form, knowing the one-steps, etc. It is a good system to use.

[jaymac]

I know for one that over the many years that I have trained under my instructor, I have learned to not judge his decisions. Ever.

[patusai]

Sometimes people think that karate is more difficult than it actually is. "I can't be a green belt because I'm not at that high a level yet!" Relax, trust your sensei. it's Karate and not astrophysics that you are studying. enjoy the path!!

[Protagonist]

Well, now I feel foolish for doubting my Sensei. If he didn't know what he was doing, he wouldn't be there teaching karate in the first place. Thank you for the advice. I understand now that belts are not there to grade the student purely by skill, but by how much they know. I hope I got that right...

I really do like the belt system at your (previous)dojo bushido_man96. (When you say previous instructor, do you mean you're now taking martial arts at another dojo?) I think that way is even more organized than just giving out the standard belt.

-Protagonist

[bushido_man96]

Protagonist wrote:

I really do like the belt system at your (previous)dojo bushido_man96. (When you say previous instructor, do you mean you're now taking martial arts at another dojo?) I think that way is even more organized than just giving out the standard belt.

Yes, I am at a different dojo now, because I moved to go to college. I used that system grading myself for a time because you can just look at each student's belt, and then know what they need to work on, and what they have got down.

[Angel05GT]

my sensei said that the first 3 belts people tend to go through a bit faster. in our belt system it goes

white

yellow

orange

purple

blue (me!, yay!)

blue stripe

green

green stripe

brown

brown stripe

2nd stripe

3rd stripe

black

He sais that usually you kinda fly through the first 2-3 belts (about 2 month span between each rank) and after that we have manditory time limits on testing unless he sais we are ready before hand. and he will approach us if he feels we are ready or if we need to work on something a lot more. my test i just took for blue belt about 3 weeks ago was absolutly killer, my best friend and I were going for blue, then we had 2 green stripes going for brown and one 2nd stripe brown going for his 3rd stripe, so we had a lot more work cut out for us than we had thought. our test was only supposed to be 2 hours long but because of the higher ranks it turned into about 3 1/2 hours. he said it was one of the most physical tests he had done in a long time.

trust him! you probably earned it and then some!. the people that say they dont think they earned it, (in my eyes) tend to have done almost better, because they realize they have stuff to work on, and know they are not perfect.