Let's face it. Nobody really knows that the true belt ranking system is anymore. You may go to many many schools and see different students with different colored belts and are maybe confused as to what comes next. What's worse is that usually the owner of the school will be like "Yes, ours is the official traditional belt system" when you know the guy down the street says the same exact thing.
Who's to trust anymore?
Some parents have come up to me at my work, (I work at a Taekwondo school) and while I have no control over the belt system, asked me if the belt system at my work was legitimate. I simply smiled and said that everyone makes up their own stuff nowadays so I honestly don't know lol. Parent's appreciated my honest answer and it also gave them an opportunity to learn more about bullshido schools.
In my opinion, (now I may be baised, but who isn't?) the real belt system would go something like this: White, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, red, brown, black. I see alot of schools have "in between belts" like white-yellow, red-black, blue-green, ect, and all I can think of is one reason why: they want you to test MORE often to they can take MORE money.
It's that simple.
Now, I understand that making a child test will give him confidence, and of course you can't allow a child to be blackbelt right? ahemm....well, at least good instructors wouldn't let that happen. But giving a child a false sense of confidence in his rank won't do him good in the real world. This is why I use a stripe system, and I highly recommend every instructor does this. You give them a stripe at no cost whatsover sometimes during class if they meet a certain requirement or do exceptionally well at something. Then you let them know that if they get three stripes (or however many you want) they get to test for their next belt. I have some kids who have waited at least 5 months who are white belts before they test for yellow. This is great because that means that they are more willing to work hard to get there, and the belt feels like a really great goal achieved.
Have a nice day,
Martial Arts Tutor
At my dojang it was white, yellow, green, blue, red and black with half-stripes in between. If you wanted you could skip the half-stripes and take a harder exam for a full color. Cost about €10 euros; diploma and full color belt included. I dont think belt-factories are much of a thing here in the Netherlands. Then again most taekwondo schools here are non-profit.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty cool they are non-profit. And the half - stripe idea seems decent from a business standpoint.
ReplyDeleteTrue. More colors=more exams=more money. The only school I know that is a pure business and doesnt teach MMA/kickboxing is my old krav school. IIRC at the time the only krav school that owned itslocation. Most martial arts here are in rented high school gyms or are in fitness gyms.
ReplyDeleteThe only McDojo stuff I came across was a Wing Chun school. Most martial arts are pretty cheap here.