Have You Actually Seen a 10 Year Old Full Black Belt?

[Spartacus Maximus]

The youngest full shodan level kids I have seen were around 12 or 13....except these kids were "credible" because they trained almost daily AND were from families heavily involved in karate. It was also in Okinawa were practically everyone have done karate for sometime in their lives, usually at school. I have heard of even younger blackbelts elsewhere but they were either not credible or some kind of gimmick to keep children in the dojo

[The Pred]

If a school wants to do a junior black belt that's fine. However, if they are forced to retest for their shodan, it should be free.

[Lupin1]

If a school wants to do a junior black belt that's fine. However, if they are forced to retest for their shodan, it should be free.

Depends on if it's the same test for junior black belt as for adult black belt. My school doesn't charge for any testing, but junior black belts still have to test for their shodan because there are higher requirements for shodan than for junior black belt. For us junior black belt is the equivalent of adult brown belt, only with more of a leadership role in the kids' class.

[JR 137]

I've seen them at demos. When I lived in Westchester County, NY, there was a huge mall right across the bridge. A TKD school would do an elaborate demo there every spring or summer (can't remember which). There would be kids running around everywhere with a ton of patches on their dobaks (Korean for gi?) and black belts. Some had the white stripe through them, most didn't. They looked pretty good, but there's more to MA than flashy jumping spinning kicks added to what looks like traditional kata with music playing and breaking boards.

I the rest of what little respect I had when I saw a kid in the food court wearing her uniform and black belt. She had a patch that said "Senior Instructor" and another one that said "Expert." 4th dan. She looked really young, and she was pretty small, so I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and thought she just looked really young for her age. The person at the counter asked her how old she was - "I'll be 15 next week."

[chiliphil1]

I've seen them at demos. When I lived in Westchester County, NY, there was a huge mall right across the bridge. A TKD school would do an elaborate demo there every spring or summer (can't remember which). There would be kids running around everywhere with a ton of patches on their dobaks (Korean for gi?) and black belts. Some had the white stripe through them, most didn't. They looked pretty good, but there's more to MA than flashy jumping spinning kicks added to what looks like traditional kata with music playing and breaking boards.

I the rest of what little respect I had when I saw a kid in the food court wearing her uniform and black belt. She had a patch that said "Senior Instructor" and another one that said "Expert." 4th dan. She looked really young, and she was pretty small, so I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt and thought she just looked really young for her age. The person at the counter asked her how old she was - "I'll be 15 next week."

Yep, I really don't agree with these types of things. Personally I see it as more of a "sport" to these kids, something like gymnastics, not MA. I don't think they look at it like MA and the instructors do not teach it like MA. To them it is just flashy moves and board breaking. I don't even know if these kids are capable of understanding the true deeper meaning of the arts, they just do it for fun. With that said, I don't like calling out a particular style but I notice that TKD seems to have these kid black belts all covered in patches in about a 10 to 1 ratio or more than other styles.

[IcemanSK]

In Kukki-Taekwondo (Kukkiwon, sometimes wrongly called WTF TKD) there is a junior BB called a Poom rank (as opposed to Dan rank) that is traditionally (especially in Korea) half red & half black. This is for students under 15 years old. In the US, many schools give these Poom students a physically black belt.

When these students become 15 years old, they can become Dan rank by just applying for it: not test required. A Poom student can become up to 4th Poom. The way this happens is one stays a Poom rank up until the age of 18. With time in grade, one stays Poom rank at 3rd Dan at, say 14 and is eligible (with proper Time in Grade) until they test at 17. That student can become a 4th Dan at age 18 without a test. 4th Poom rank is very rare in Kukki-TKD (in the US or Korea. In the US, there are 348 Kukki-TKD 4th Poom. I've met very few people who became 4th Poom. The one's I've met were all children of school owners who spent their whole lives training.

[JR 137]

Ranking kids in martial arts has some issues IMO. Let's say that it takes 4 years to achieve junior black belt. Let's say they start at 6 years old, and a full black belt has a 16 year old minimum age requirement.

So a kid starts at 6 and achieves junior black belt at 10. What do they do for the next 6 years? 6 years to a 10 year old is like 60 years for an adult. How do they stay motivated to keep studying and doing their best? Perhaps that why there's all the patches, breaking, gymnastics stuff, demo stuff, etc.?

I have a few students (I teach middle school science, not MA) who achieved junior black belt at 10-12, then left. Their feeling was they learned everything until they're 16, so why stay? Being adults, we know better, but being pre-teen or even a teen-ager?

I'm not a fan of junior black belt. I think they should have an entirely different belt. Either camouflage (a mix of all the colors) or a belt made of the all different colors, kind of like the red and white paneled belt worn by high ranking black belts, only each panel being a color they've achieved.

With this belt, have dan levels, so to speak. 1st degree camo, 2nd degree, etc. if you've run out of kyu level material, start dan level stuff, like say the opening sequence of a shodan kata like Seienchin. 2nd dan camo could do the next sequence, and so forth.

I don't teach MA nor do I have my own system, so what do I know? I don't like the junior black belt concept, but I get it. I think a junior black belt takes something away from full black belt. I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I do.

[Lupin1]

Ranking kids in martial arts has some issues IMO. Let's say that it takes 4 years to achieve junior black belt. Let's say they start at 6 years old, and a full black belt has a 16 year old minimum age requirement.

So a kid starts at 6 and achieves junior black belt at 10. What do they do for the next 6 years? 6 years to a 10 year old is like 60 years for an adult. How do they stay motivated to keep studying and doing their best? Perhaps that why there's all the patches, breaking, gymnastics stuff, demo stuff, etc.?

I have a few students (I teach middle school science, not MA) who achieved junior black belt at 10-12, then left. Their feeling was they learned everything until they're 16, so why stay? Being adults, we know better, but being pre-teen or even a teen-ager?

I'm not a fan of junior black belt. I think they should have an entirely different belt. Either camouflage (a mix of all the colors) or a belt made of the all different colors, kind of like the red and white paneled belt worn by high ranking black belts, only each panel being a color they've achieved.

With this belt, have dan levels, so to speak. 1st degree camo, 2nd degree, etc. if you've run out of kyu level material, start dan level stuff, like say the opening sequence of a shodan kata like Seienchin. 2nd dan camo could do the next sequence, and so forth.

I don't teach MA nor do I have my own system, so what do I know? I don't like the junior black belt concept, but I get it. I think a junior black belt takes something away from full black belt. I know I shouldn't feel that way, but I do.

You can still do that with junior black belt. That's what we did with it. We call it junior black belt and use an "oreo" belt, but it has three degrees and has its own curriculum (equivalent to the three degrees of adult brown belt), so the kids are still working on stuff.

It takes them about four years to get JBB and another 3-4 to get full adult black belt, so if they get their JBB in 7th or 8th grade (we don't start them until they're in 3rd or 4th) they'll get their full adult black belt around 17 or 18. If they don't get full black belt by the time they graduate high school, they enter into the adult grading system as brown belts and continue to work on the Shodan requirements from there.

The key is to set legitimate goals beyond JBB to keep the kids working rather than just sticking them in a holding pattern until they reach a certain age. I also don't believe in having the same requirements for JBB as for adult black belt. If a kid meets all your requirements for full black belt at 10 they should get a full black belt. Otherwise, JBB should be about working towards the meeting the requirements for full BB.

[sensei8]

I earned my JBB when I was 13 years old; I was a JBB for 5 years!! What did I do?? Trained!! Our Sensei/Dai-Soke continued to teach us as though we were adults, but, we weren't allowed to rank until we turned 18 years old; Soke wouldn't allow it!!

By the time I reached 18 years old, I had trained for 5 years:

1975...I turned 18 years old...Earned Shodan

1976...Earned Nidan

1977...Earned Sandan

That's what can happen when one's stuck at JBB for 5 years. Dai-Soke, when I petitioned for my Sandan Testing Cycle, told me that I was more than ready. Why? Because Dai-Soke trained us in the curriculum/syllabus of those 3 Dan's without any ambiguity for 5 years.

[Spartacus Maximus]

Is the practise of requiring a number of years equal to the next Dan applicable? Such as 2 full years of training between shodan and Nidan?

In many dojos teaching children, there is a minimum number of lessons or hours for each level. It seems to be more common in the Western world because I have never seen or heard of it in Okinawa or Japan.

This brings the question of exactly how long these children and youths have been training. Obviously there is a great difference between 5 years for less than an hour 2 or 3 times in a week and 5 years of training one hour or more daily.