How long does it take to earn a Black Belt?

[infinitehand]

Boxing,Kungfu,Muay thai and various wrestling styles dont use a belt system and the practioners dont concern themselves with the ranks but only skills and fighting ability.

I dont see why its such a big deal with be a black belt?

For me, boxing, Thai boxing and wrestlings are sports, they have goals like trophies, money and ranking. So, dont fool yourself into thinking that a "Black Belt" is not something that they look for...its just in the form of a strop made of Tin and leather that says "Champ".

As for Kung fu...dude...they have rankings. Ever hear of a white and gold sash or a black and red sash. They have ranks as well.

No physical endevour that I know of that man has created is with out a "goal" such as a Dan ranking or a title of some sort. sorry to me its all the same!

Your comment on the bold is flawed.

As a guy who boxes, I can tell you that there are TONS and TONS of none-competive recreational boxers that have INSANE boxing skills that puts pro boxers in to shame.

You wanna know why?

Because there love for boxing is PURE and SINCERE, these guys train boxin for the LOVE of boxing. They are not concerned with ranking,reputation,money,traveling to fights,dealing with managers etc...

Overtime pro boxers might lose there passion and there style might suffer and they end up becoming point fighters to protect there boxing record and ego, thus quality goes down because they are afraid to fail because there self-worth is shifted from the quality of there art to there boxing record

These guys have one task to do, just train boxing and some of them make decent money being sparring partners for pros. But in the end they keep there art pure and they avoid politics of boxing that pro boxers have to deal with which lots of pros fall out of love with there boxing because there are so many greedy blood thristy managers in the "sport" of boxing.

In short, I can write a book on how there are AMAZING unknown boxers who are the backbone of training camps.

Can I assume that there are people in world of martial arts like that as well? People who dont concern themselves with ranks and only focus on performing 5000 repitions?

When I train, I train. No thoughts of rank, promotions or titles. I know we've gotten a bit off topic but this is important to me.

[Himokiri Karate]

Boxing,Kungfu,Muay thai and various wrestling styles dont use a belt system and the practioners dont concern themselves with the ranks but only skills and fighting ability.

I dont see why its such a big deal with be a black belt?

For me, boxing, Thai boxing and wrestlings are sports, they have goals like trophies, money and ranking. So, dont fool yourself into thinking that a "Black Belt" is not something that they look for...its just in the form of a strop made of Tin and leather that says "Champ".

As for Kung fu...dude...they have rankings. Ever hear of a white and gold sash or a black and red sash. They have ranks as well.

No physical endevour that I know of that man has created is with out a "goal" such as a Dan ranking or a title of some sort. sorry to me its all the same!

Your comment on the bold is flawed.

As a guy who boxes, I can tell you that there are TONS and TONS of none-competive recreational boxers that have INSANE boxing skills that puts pro boxers in to shame.

You wanna know why?

Because there love for boxing is PURE and SINCERE, these guys train boxin for the LOVE of boxing. They are not concerned with ranking,reputation,money,traveling to fights,dealing with managers etc...

Overtime pro boxers might lose there passion and there style might suffer and they end up becoming point fighters to protect there boxing record and ego, thus quality goes down because they are afraid to fail because there self-worth is shifted from the quality of there art to there boxing record

These guys have one task to do, just train boxing and some of them make decent money being sparring partners for pros. But in the end they keep there art pure and they avoid politics of boxing that pro boxers have to deal with which lots of pros fall out of love with there boxing because there are so many greedy blood thristy managers in the "sport" of boxing.

In short, I can write a book on how there are AMAZING unknown boxers who are the backbone of training camps.

Can I assume that there are people in world of martial arts like that as well? People who dont concern themselves with ranks and only focus on performing 5000 repitions?

When I train, I train. No thoughts of rank, promotions or titles. I know we've gotten a bit off topic but this is important to me.

But thats the thing though we are not off-topic.

This is a very very important topic at the heart of it, when you enter a world of culinary arts,doctors,mafia,law enforcements,martial artist,bodybuilding or sports, we tend to become cultured in its customs.

Sometimes you need to take a stepback and ask yourself

has my priorties change? Am I in this for the right reasons like in the beginning or have a strayed from the path?

In the world of boxing, there was so many many many amazing talented boxers that got some local fame on the amature circut and they started to value themselves in terms of ranking>skills.

This evantualy destroyed many boxers passions because they associated there self-worth with there ranking as oppose to skills and there skills took a nose dive because they got obbessed with winning that they lost sight of there boxing style.

What I mean by that is, sometimes you need to place yourself in places that your getting scored on (but not hurt) to learn a new skill like counter-punching. When these guys didnt wanna risk losing, there boxing skills no longer progessed because they didnt try learning new techniques like a new defensive skills or counterpunching.

[cheesefrysamurai]

you make sense. Rank is all relative . . .

in a sense the belt is meaningless - its the journey that's everything

1 could "buy" a blackbelt tomorrow. Experience and wisdom that comes along with the training is priceless

True.

But you can also practice every event with your inner goals. Rank like a belt is a status or something that is awarded by your peers - your social group or martial arts family. It's a nice thing, but it's a poor goal. If we aim for belts, we don't concentrate on right issues.

Right issue is what you've made your goal. (OK - you can have gradings as a goal, but that is not martial arts - it's kind of collecting stamps of achievement.)

Very true, but that was not my point. Someone stated that Boxing has no "belt system" and I stated that was not really true, they have a "Different" kind of "belt" system...its called rankings.

You can take up ANY endevour and NOT partake in the ranking system. I know of a few people that run for themselves and dont enter foot races, I know of a lot of body buiders that do it just to keep "big" and not compete and I know of a few people that do boxing and Muay thai and never compete.

Personally I dont really put much weight in ranking anymore. I have met 8th dans in TKD who were horrible and I have seen Shodans in Karate that were amazing, I have met Rokudans in Karate who were morons and had horrible form and could not teach their way out of a wet sack...and Judo brown belts that were "master teachers" in my mind. Ranking has become rather relevent to the individual and organization.

I have kept plugging away at Karate for darn near 40+ years and really dont care what the paper on my wall says I am...if you come to one of my classes you get a mental and physical work out, you have fun and at the end of the day I love training for trainings sake. The fact that I have a black peice of cloth holding my jacket shut...well that just keeps me from having to explain the tattoos!

[ps1]

In Shotokan, the "average" person reached black belt in 3 years. It took me 1. But I also had alot of other experience.

Took 3.5 years in Kung Fu

 

Took 3 years in Aiki Jujitsu

Took 9 years in BJJ

Nice, what form of Kung Fu uses black belt as ranking?

Technically they are sashes. It's just easier to use the language everyone else uses. The art is Indonesian Poekoelan Tjimindie Teii Chuan Fa. It is actually the combination of two arts.

The story goes that a Southern Kung Fu stylist and an Indonesiasn Tjimindie master met up and began training together...Our art was born.

Animals practiced in the system are: Crane, Cobra, Mantis, Tiger, Monkey, Bear, Dragon, Bat, Scorpion.

White Sash- Crane

Green Sash- Cobra and Mantis

Brown Sash- Tiger, Monkey, Bear

1st Degree Black Sash- Dragon

2nd Degree -Bat

3rd Degree- Scorpion

[Dmitriy]