Why Are There So Many Kid Blackbelts?

This is a controversial question in the martial arts. In our world today, we see many schools opening up, claiming to have children be blackbelts and make parents pay a large amount of money for it too. We see these kids perform memorized long forms, break boards, and often times show confidence in themselves. While this is not necessarily a bad thing (the forms, confidence, and board breaking) it does become bad because that means the standards for a blackbelt are now very low.

I was a victim of this thinking myself.

When I turned 10 years old, I became one of the youngest blackbelts at my Taekwondo school to test for "junior" blackbelt. Mind you, a junior blackbelt is essentially the same as a normal blackbelt, just a way to not make people freak out that a kid is a blackbelt. This is ironic because when I turned 12 I earned a full 2nd degree blackbelt. Further on, when I turned 14 a 3rd Degree blackbelt, and finally my "mastery"4th Degree was attained when I was 18 years old. 

All these years, there was something....something I knew was wrong about this. Still, for 15 years I trained TKD to the point where I was teaching, giving belt promotions, and even signing up students to this system in which I gave my whole life into. I wouldn't count out that TKD was an absolute waste of time; I learned confidence, I kept myself in shape, and it allowed me to pursue other sports relatively easier because I could control my body. However, I always knew that being a kid blackbelt was a weird concept. 

In one of my old schools that my instructor had me teach at, the population for kid blackbelts (and blackbelts in general) was super high, and the school consisted mostly of them. My instructor would boast and be proud saying we have the most blackbelts in the area. Alot of these kids took only as little as 2 years to become a blackbelt, and often times had their belts taken away for misbehavior in school or even at the dojang. This disgusted me. I knew at that moment, this was all about the money. Which really, running a school with a system like TKD that has become so impractical compared to modern fighting systems such as Muay thai (which is also very old however), boxing, BJJ and more. 

So why are there so many kid blackbelts? Simple. The owner wants to make more money. Giving a kid a blackbelt will yes, make him VERY confident. But ask yourself this question (assuming you are a parent) which is better in the real world today; real confidence, or forged confidence? I would take your children to BJJ. No kid blackbelts there; just real confidence from the start.

Have a Great Day,

-Martial Arts Tutor