[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
Side note and possible derail but what has caused being a black belt to lose such a tremendous amount of the meaning that it once held? My little cousin is going for his black belt and he is like 12 or 13. I knew a guy in school that he was a black belt since 9 and would tell people as such before one guy decide to football tackle him and beat the crap out of him while he was running his mouth.
It just seems like belts now are given out just to keep parents happy because there kid is progressing. I always thought the pursuit of a black belt was supposed to take years and mean that you had spent a tremendous amount of time perfecting your self.
I also think that people underestimate the effect experience with fighting has on a fight. I think if you have one of these “participation” black belts that has never actually been in a fight against a bigger just strong mofo that regularly brawls just because, black belt guy is in trouble. At least that has been my personal experience. The phrase “Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth” really does hold true.[/quote]
The short answer to your question is that Martial Arts has become a business in the US (for the civilian population anyhow, and even the Military/LEO population to a lesser degree). As such some schools (and even entire systems/organizations) have realized that they can make more money and have more students if they hurry people through the ranks and never make any of their students uncomfortable (sparring, hard conditioning, exposure to the elements, etc…).
As a result you get a bunch of “black belts” with inflated senses of self worth, accomplishment, and fighting prowess walking around. It’s a sad state of affairs IMO, but as long as the general public remains ignorant about these business practices and these school owners/organizations continue to make money hand over fist, I don’t expect the situation to change any time soon.[/quote]
That’s kind of sad as it seems to cheapen the accomplishment that “black belt” should have associated with it. But undoubtedly a lot of people realize this if a 12 year old can accomplish it then it really isn’t that special anymore.[/quote]
Yes it is sad. What really sucks though is that this colors much of the general public’s perception of what a Black Belt is worth, so they think that because certain BB’s are jokes that none of them mean anything. It also is a little bit frustrating for those of us who have legitimate BB’s (and had to bust our butts for years and sweat, bleed, and suffer to get there) when someone finds out that you are a BB and says something like, “Oh, my 12 year old nephew is a Black Belt too” and you just have to nod and say, “oh, that’s nice” instead of what you really want to say which is that his black belt is a joke and that our Yellow Belt (1st belt in our system) is probably harder than his BB test was.