Age requirements to reach Black Belt?

[KarateKen]

Do you believe that there should be an age requirement for a student to reach black belt, and if so, what age would it be? 

 

[sensei8]

I was a JBB for 5 years; those students that were not 18 years old for earning a Shodan but were very capable of passing the Testing Cycle for Shodan were awarded a JBB.

I’m not bitter…now…but I was for several years because I wasn’t mature enough to deal with my feelings.

Rank is not about one’s feelings, rank is about being effective on and off the floor!! 

It’s the way of Shindokan and the SKKA to NOT permit any student to apply for the Shodan Testing Cycle because minors aren’t mature enough to deal with the awesome responsibilities that come with Shodan.

At one time, as the Kaicho of the SKKA, I could’ve campaigned and partitioned the SKKA’s Higher Hierarchy to adopt the change in the SKKA’s By-Laws but that would’ve taken an unanimous vote. Seeing that we of the Higher Hierarchy were deeply dedicated/loyal to Soke and Dai-Soke, and those two wrote the SKKA By-Laws, we weren’t going to go against their wishes even if we wanted to, and we did want to, in this particular instance, no matter how close minded we were towards this issue, change wasn’t inevitable…not going to happen because as their students, we eventually learned that in this regard that their mindset was the correct decision. 

One could say we became brainwashed in this situation by obeying a By-Law that seemed to be stuck in the past…they could. BUT we didn’t see it that way.

You see, while one can bring a horse to water, but one cannot make the horse drink the water.