Everyone passes until red belt? Serious question.

[darksoul]

Hmmm... 3 years old is VERY young. I teach my student's 4 year old because he likes it and it's given him some good self-esteem, but I won't even consider grading him until he's 6... maybe even 7.

As for the topic at hand, a pass is earned, not given. You need to know and perform at the level required before you are allowed to pass.

[kensei]

one of our clubs runs a tiny tigers program for 7 and under and they dont worry about testing at all, if they are working on testing then they move ot the normal class....and we have a long time between ranks for them...six month minimum.

at that age Karate should be about FUN and FUN alone not ranking anyways.

[darksoul]

at that age Karate should be about FUN and FUN alone not ranking anyways.

I completely agree with this!

[bushido_man96]

People talk. It doesn't mean they know what they are talking about. Listen, but don't take everything terribly seriously.

As far as guaranteed passing; I'd be leery of this. They are only called tests, in my opinion, if there is a possibility of failure.

[Nidan Melbourne]

People should earn every single belt that they grade for. So they should know their curriculum and be quite proficient at it as well. There is more leniency on a couple of the lower ranks as they are generally less experienced, but orange/red belts should be able to do the basics well.

Not because they paid their tuition fees but because they earned those belts.

[Luther unleashed]

It is not who/where you get your belt from, it is the abilities of the person that holds the belt that earns the rank! I absolutely think children as young as three SHOULD earn rank, but a "kiddie" rank if you will. Little dragons, tigers, whatever. My son is in tigers, apon black belt he will have to start from scratch to even get a jr black belt (he's only 7) but I think it's how it should be. My school has an age limit of thirteen to enroll in the adult program. I think that's a fair assessment of a kid being able to START learning, but why hold back from the valuable lessons and culture that can be attained from training, givem kids level belts!

[jaypo]

My son is 5, and he started training when he was 4. He does not have the attention span/understanding to learn 26 movements in a kata. So he will not be testing to achieve another belt until I believe he can. He is training on learning the techniques, and when we fell he is ready to start learning more, we'll work on that.

I do think young kids can benefit from MA. I just don't think they need to be trained the same way as adults, because true MAs have a mental and spiritual aspect that younger people probably can't grasp.

[Canadian77]

I doubt very many students at our dojo fail a grading - - but that is purely because they won't be put up for grading until they are ready. We are always assessed, including attendance and effort. So in that respect, people doing lower belts are unlikely to fail. I agree that you have to watch out for rumours. In a situation like I have described, someone could say similarly that everyone passes in the lower belts - - but that would give the wrong impression, obviously.

As far as the young ones go, our dojo also has the six month minimum. The belts are also a lot more split up with a regular and advanced belt than they are for older student and adults. If a little one just isn't ready to move out of white belt, they may be able to grade for a white advanced belt. It helps them see a goal realized without rushing them.

[jaypo]

We do the same thing. We do an advanced white belt rank which is a white belt with a white stripe down the middle. I think it keeps the motivation going for the young ones.

[Lupin1]

We pass kids along fairly quickly in the first few belts. We actually have two belts between white and yellow that aren't "real" Isshinryu ranks (they don't learn their first Isshinryu kata until yellow)-- they're just to get the kids excited and motivated from the start because too many kids were dropping out due to the time it took to get that first belt (look up the first Isshinryu kata [seisan] when you get a chance. It's not a beginner kata). At those ranks we tend to keep the kids together. We start them in groups and the groups rank together until around yellow. Even if one's really lagging behind the others, we'll give them the belts to keep them motivated and keep their confidence up. Everyone learns at a different pace. My instructor views the kyu ranks as extremely flexible and more of a sign of individual achievement than steps in a set curriculum (although we do have a general guideline for each rank). What he expects of one kid at blue belt isn't necessarily what he expects of another (they have to know the entire kata, but their level of mastery varies). According to his way of thinking and the way we rank within our school, everything is mostly arbitrary up until shodan, which the vast, vast majority never reach anyway, and so the kyu ranking system is just a tool to help each individual student grow and progress to their best of their ability in the time they're with us.

So I guess I'm ok with an "everybody passes until red belt" system. Red belt (what would be our brown belt) is the time they're preparing for their shodan test-- the point where set standards and expectations manifest in our our program-- and so is the point they'd be required to start meeting more universal goals rather than individual goals.