Touchy topic....

[bushido_man96]

I think you are right about the wrestling and boxing, not having rank, and not producing the sizing up by other students. You just get in there and drill, and spar, and get experience.

[srv]

This debate always seems to come up every now and then. For what it's worth you can get Junior black belts in our dojo but they are not recognised in the same way as an adult rank. If they do get a Juniour dan rank they have to retest for the adult dan rank when they are old enough. In our dojo you have to be at least 16 to do an adult shodan grading and at least 18 to do an adult nidan grading. There are occasionally exceptions - I have only seen this once. We have a 17 year old in our dojo who is an adult nidan. He has the size, physique and maturity of an adult male. He can EASILY match it with adult dan ranks and he is an outstanding assistant instructor. And no adult in our dojo feels uncomfartable or weird taking "orders" from him because he proves it on the floor with his maturity and his abilities. I can't see any good reason depriving him of a rank he definitely deserves. He is as good as / if not better than many other nidans who have reached the sacred age of maturity so to speak, myself included.

I agree with the issue re 10 year old nidans etc but surely it is up to the Instructor to determine the truly deserving "kids" like the guy I mentioned and the 10 year olds playing at karate.

Personally I think all that should bother you is what goes on in your own dojo as that's the only place where your rank, whatever it is, is comparable. If there are 10 yr old full nidans walking around trying to teach adults, then have a think about if that's where you want to train. If it happens elsewhere - then it doesn't really affect the quality of your own training.

[srv]

By the way, can't understand the concept of wanting to "beat up" a black belt as a kyu rank. Just seems like the wrong way to go about training. Sure, test yourself against a higher rank, but sizing up higher ranks to prove how good you are is just stupid IMO. Especially since most blcak belts sparring lower ranks are not going as hard as they can do.

[Andrew_Patton]

Well, I don't understand that concept 100% myself, but having been there, and gone through everything firsthand, the ego battles, the phsyical pushing and shoving, the in-your face attitudes, holier than though feelings, and outright disrespect (and even if the people in class 'respect' the higher ranked kid, junior black belts are still 'kids' in their opinion) being that I lived it, and have first-hand experience... but hey, I don't know, I got my Shodan just before the turn of the millenium, times may be different for us, but I'd love to hear from someone else who received there rank sometime ago and was a 'junior' when they got the rank. Keep in mind I was a big sixteen and still think it was to young.

And FYI I seem to recall that the most disrespect I received was from the Adult black belts, one in particular, who was a Nidan, decided to go toe to toe w/ me during routine/partner work, and ended up yelling at me and asking me to hit him... and referred to me as 'hey you get your brother off of me' all because I used our schools 'black belt' level of contact with him. and made contact, with his arm of all things, after he drilled me 'accidentally' in the neck... He may have been a bad black belt, but considering I was the only person he outright disrespected, it was an ego issue, an older gentleman apparently jealous at a younger, lower ranked person.

I have other stories, but those are just personal experience, and go along these lines over and over again. Looking back it's one heck of an infuriating thing really.