you old codger…it was a joke. That guy is completly moronic. He’s fat and using a contact-less knock out punch. Honestly, I think most american run karate schools are frauds. When a 10yo kid is a black belt, I lose faith in the system.[/quote]
there is nothing wrong with a ten-yr old black belt. The belt is merely showing that he has potential and has gone through the program, not that he can dust off five adults. What is wrong is a ten-yr old black belt who stops at that level/time and doesn’t continue training. Then his belt is worthless. I do agree that alot of schools are inadequate though.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
The problem with giving children black belts is it it too much, too fast, too soon.
Several years ago there was a school fair that I drove by on my way to the dojo I was training at. At this fair a group of teenagers ganged up on a kid beat him down and stomped him into the ground. This kid died from this assault.
When I read about it in the news paper I learned that out of the 5 or6 kids that participated in the assault, the one did more than all the others was a 16 year old black belt.
I have no doubt that what motivated that child was to show off and impress his boys what a badass he was. Why? Because he was a black belt.
That black belt made that child think he was a man and he was going to prove it to his freinds by showing that he could fuck this kid up worse than the rest of them.
This case is a clear example of why you don’t give children black belts. They do not have the maturity to deal with it. I’ve seen adults that didn’t have the maturity to deal with it.
High school is an immature volatile environment. It’s not just the kid you are giving the black belt to, it’s all the kids around him and how they are going to deal with it as well.
Children do not need to be black belts. If it weren’t for commercial pressures and overzealous parents there wouldn’t be any.
Sorry if this is off topic, but it was something I felt very strongly about, even before a kid died over it. [/quote]
I’d look at his parents before I’d look at the black belt. Nevermind, maybe it is the Martial Arts. The flying side stomp is the most elegant of moves.
you old codger…it was a joke. That guy is completly moronic. He’s fat and using a contact-less knock out punch. Honestly, I think most american run karate schools are frauds. When a 10yo kid is a black belt, I lose faith in the system.
I used to think that too. But shit, ive seen a 10 year old BB destroy a non BB 10 year old in a sparring match.
I guess age and weight class are always concidered, even up to adulthood.
[/quote]
I’ve grappled against a person who was taught pressure point techniques. They did not have any takedown defense or ground fighting ability. I was able to mount and submit them at will. The only thing their pressure point techniques did was tickle and made it difficult not too start laughing.
[quote]Matgic wrote:
Haha, what a crock! Take a look at www.russianmartialart.com, its a bunch of the same deluded martial artists who think they are superheroes. The training clips are quite hilarious.
-MAtt[/quote]
If one is going to build an organised system of martial arts then some type of ranking is a necessary evil.
Unfortuneately it’s gotten out of control. There are children running around with multiple dgress of black belt.
I remember a national tournament that I competed in several years ago where this phenonema was completely out of control. There were children running around wearing the red and white striped belt of a master.
I was looking at children who hadn’t been alive as long as I had been training and I was expected to bow to them and call them master.
This whole situation is hardest for those teachers who have standards. I have seen otherwise very good students leave the dojo because we weren’t promoting them like the kids from a nearby macdojo.
A black belt is like a finger pointing at the moon don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss the big picture.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
A black belt is like a finger pointing at the moon don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss the big picture.[/quote]
i believe Alan Watts has analogized Christianity/Islam/Judaism with this analogy by saying that instead of following the path of the finger to where it’s pointing for enlightening they suckle on the finger for sustenance.
as for the original point, if people are leaving martial arts because they aren’t getting promoted then they shouldn’t be a part of martial arts in the first place.
It’s not always the kids who are the driving force behind this.
Also it’s a matter of maturity which kids don’t always have. You tell them they will have to wait a few years to get something that some of their peers might already have and it doesn’t do down well.
The main issue is one of turning the dojo into a rat race.