Licensing Martial Artists

[Johnlogic121]

In North Carolina about ten years ago, one state legislator was approached by some Tae Kwon Do schools that wanted state licensing for their students and instructors. They felt it would help police officers to have a comprehensive database of the names of martial artists, including such information as what style they were in and how long they studied and under whom. However, for their purposes they wanted the law to be written in such a way that you needed just a minimum of 196 hours of training in order to be an instructor, and certain other styles balked at this, insisting that this was hardly enough time. In the end, the legislator found out that there were so many disagreements among martial artists as to how the laws should be written that drafting a single unfied bill would be almost impossible. Thus, after the issue appearred in the papers, the initiative to license martial artists as students or instructors died in the state of North Carolina. What does the fourm think about this? If your own style or styles were drafting a proposal for instructor licensing guidelines, what would have to be included? Many law enforcement officers would benefit from knowing in advance if a suspect they were approaching was trained in some style. Granted, not everyone might be registered properly if martial arts required a license, but most would be licensed normally. Should martial arts require a license, seeing as how you can kill somebody with them? Many contemporary schools are starting to offer lethal instruction. What should a license to practice martial arts require (no criminal convictions, for example)?

[bushido_man96]

I don't think that MA should require a license. I think it is fine just the way it is right now. The politics behind the MAs would not allow such a thing to happen, I believe.

[NightOwl]

That's what orgs are for, so that you can tell or not if an instructor has met certain standards. That's the theory at least.

[bushido_man96]

And different organizations have different standards. It all just depends on the standards of each; that is why it would be difficult to standardize every style into one.

[NightOwl]

And even then you get all sorts of varying quality in an org. However it does help somewhat.