1 year to black belt

I disagree with that. Its like saying why send kids to school five days a week, when one evening would teach them as much?

I used to train like Ragnarok, and I got to say thats when I was at my best.

 

No.

Even if you trained for 15 hours a day you need time for your body to really learn the techniques and be able to perform them properly. A BB for me needs to have some experience too, so 1 year is not enough

 

no way, that would never happen in my dojo, even if someone was amazing.

 

Neither is 3 years. So hey, may as well!
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No seriously though. 15 hours a day is obviously an incredible dedication. Most hours I'll train a day is 7. Because even that sucks the life outta ya. But you see it all the time if you're in a big Do-Jang. Dedicated students will get to a high level in a year or two and be running rings around people who've been in it a decade. And I'm not just talking about sparring.

I'm always thirsting for knowledge. I know plenty of people who've blindly cruised their way through the belts, got their black... That's fine. I've took the time to study all the moves and their applications and train them with weights to get decent control and speed and tried them in hundreds of sparring rounds to see what works for me.

I've got friends and relatives who've been in Karate and TKD for years and I'm showing them the mistakes their making with their kicks. [It's honestly astounding how many people make so little seperation between side and round kicks.]

Not to re-start a war here, but a woman on this forum going for her blackbelt soon had an argument with me over applications that she didn't understand. She had never asked her instructor and her instructor implied it was rude for her to ask.

She's been doing it years longer than I have. But she didn't know a lot of things and actually said that moves in her pattern were "useless"

She might have more "experience" than me, but that doesn't automatically mean "knowledge."

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In summary. You put the time and effort in and you will be educated and skilled in a short space of time. You do something casually for years and you'll learn the minimum amount.

 

i don't understand why people don't think that practicing more will make you better. that's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. "you can put 100 hrs a week into training for three years, but it will still be just three years." what exactly does that mean? does that mean that if you put 100 hours a week into training for 3 years, you won't be any better than someone who put 6 hours a week into training for 3 years? come on people, practicing martial arts is not so different from practicing other things...the best musicians i know have practiced 8 hours a day, 7 days a week for several years to get where they are.

 

how do you make the time??
and how many hours do you train a week on average??

 

Practicing for long periods is of course important but there ARE other factors. How well you've been taught, what sort of training you do, how intensely you train etc.

There are some teachers whos students could train for a couple of lifetimes 100 hours a week and they still wouldn't be able to fight!

 

quikest reasonable time would be 2 1/2-3 years

 

I happened to be unemployed over the Easter holidays? - So I have my friends round. We even turned my house party into an all-night boxing tournament in the garden!

 

Couldn't agree with you more Skrom. I often think there is a lot of snobbery when it come to Black Belts in the martial arts. Why do people think that everyone should fit into the same formula when it comes to progressing through the ranks.

Different poeple will progress at different speeds. Skill and understanding levels will be different, therefore some may progress quicker than other people. The amount of hours you put in makes a big difference.

When grading systems are very rigid, then that can go against the more commiteed student who trains every day, be that in class or on their own. I don't see why a MA that slows your progress can't be a McDolo aswell. The longer they take to give you your mythical Black Belt the more money they can extract from you.

One of the great things about Muay Thai and Boxing is that there are no belts and you are judged purely on ability!

 

In a year if someone was training every day they could probably develop the physical skills required to be a black belt. But would they have the maturity, experience and knowledge that comes with it? I don't think so. You just can't get that in a year. It's all about the journey to black belt that makes it so valuable. The ups and downs, the struggles and challenges. The highs you feel when you're progressing and the doubts and frustrations when you're not. Skipping those out just cheapens the whole thing.

One of the things that all MA teach is patience, this is especially important when we live in an instantaneous society. People want everything yesterday.

Nowadays it's all about the quickest method, the fastest route, the speediest results, not just in MA, but in life in general.
But do we ever stop to think about what effect this might have? Just look at the food industry? We all know that fast food, although prepared and served faster, simpler and easier, is nowhere near as good in quality as a meal served up in a nice restaurant. Sure the restaurant meal might take longer to arrive, and it might be more expensive but how much more enjoyable is it? I'm guessing lots! When was the last time you said to someone,

"I had the most incredible meal at burger king last night, you should go, the service is great and the food is just wow!.........etc"

Probably never? Good. Think of the last time you said the same thing but about your favourite restaurant. Did a cost a bit more? Of course. Was the service better? Absolutely. I could keep going on but I'm sure you see my point by now.

I cringe when I hear people getting a black belt in 1 or 2 years. The only exception I think is acceptable is if someone who is already an experienced black belt who starts training in a similar art (i.e. a karate practitioner taking up taekwondo or a judoka taking up jujitsu). A friend of mine who had about 10 years kung fu experience got his black belt in karate in 2 years, he still trains to this day and runs his own club. Personally, I feel that a black belt in any MA should be able to hold their own and know how to handle/avoid/diffuse situations.

But for 95% of the people out there who are getting the quick fix, I feel really disappointed. The only thing worse than people getting black belts too soon are kids getting black belts but that's a topic for another time.

I remember a phrase one of my instructors told me when we were having a similar discussion about grades.

"It's not about getting the belt that matters it's how you feel inside that counts"

There's my 2 cents worth.

 

I'm going to have to say that I don't care how often you train, you ain't gonna reach blackbelt in one year - unless you're training at a McDojo. To be honest, if you did that much training, yeah you could learn all the theory, yeah you could be able to reel back out every single move, yeah you might be tough enough, fast enough, agile enough... blah blah blah... If you put the time in, it is possible to get that good. I'm not disputing that. What I am disputing is that you can have the right character to earn the blackbelt in that year. For me, to earn the blackbelt, you have to show maturity and perseverence, as other people have said. And I don't believe you can develop these qualities in one year.

Doing a crazy amount of training in one year to get a blackbelt doesn't show perseverence to me, it shows impatience and foolhardiness. A blackbelt should be able to demonstrate the ability to persevere over years and the pateince to go with that, not just go on a frantic training spree in an impatient and frankly stupid bid to gain the highest rank in the shortest possible time. If I were an instructor, I wouldn't give them their blackbelt at the end of the year and see what happens, as a test of their character, because I could just see someone like that getting very, very angry, and that's not the character a blackbelt should have.

 

Well to be honest, having fights with your mates and ****ing about isn't really training. You can become a perfectly capable bb in a year of intensive training from experianced practitioners, it happens all the time.

 

Do you honestly believe that three or four more years attending a dojo a couple of evenings a week (apart from holidays and sickness and "couldn't be bothered") is going to have that kind of impact on a person's personality?

I have seen no evidence whatsoever to support the idea that having a Blackbelt is in any way an indication of a person having a better personality.

I believe that "developing your personality" is another one of the woolly excuses that McDojos use to not teach their students how to fight.

 

Attending for three or four years on and off and not being really that bothered is just as bad, Bil, but for me it's not enough to train seriously over a short period of time. I think you've got to show the commitment over a longer stretch.

Ha ha ha. No. You're absolutely right. A blackbelt isn't an indication of a better personality. It should be, but I've met plenty of blackbelts with the wrong attitude. But if it were up to me, I wouldn't hand out blackbelts to people like that.

"Developing your persoanlity" isn't a part of the set syllabus at our dojang... but I have really learnt a lot since I've been going (as much as one can learn in a pitiful two years ) about myself as a person and I feel like I've grown... and I have seen joining the club and training work a significant change in many of my colleagues. But don't you worry - I do get the opportunity to pitch my two-years worth of practical fighting skills against people training before I was born on a regular basis.

 

Being one who trains in a system that really doesn't do belts, I find it amusing that this has become a long ordeal. As far as I can tell, a belt is a symbol stating you have achieved a goal(s) your instructor has laid out. So shouldn't it be more about what you've accomplished than about what you recieved for doing it?

I could instruct myself to a martial arts store with the reward to be buying a black belt. But is that much of an accomplishment?

Note, I'm not bashing belt systems, I like them personally, I'm just stating my mind.

 

in regards to personal development in martial arts - the way i see it, what a person gets out of it is security. a person who is secure doesn't feel the need to prove himself to anyone, and so he avoids conflict much more easily. easier to drop out of silly arguments, easy to let grudges go, easier to walk (or run) away from a fight etc, because you don't need to prove your dominance to anyone.

the point of that is, it's kind of stupid to say that you have to be involved with martial arts for a certain amount of time to get to that point. some people will be satisfied before others, some people will never train hard enough to get there, and some people will bust their ass over the course of a year and make it. it's about the quality of your training, the time you spend each week, and the intensity you put into it.

 

Belts really aren't my thing, despite training in 3 systems that incorporate it. They're just a way of stroking egos, and it winds me up how much emphasis is placed on them.

You get a white belt when your learning.
You get a black belt when your "good" at the Art.
You're a master when you master it.
Your a Grandmaster when your the elite amongst the elite.

And yes, say what you want about all the meanings, and purposes. [Green! Your growing!] - They were designed so impatient people get a physical reward.

What belt am I in my arts? - Not a blackbelt. That's all that matters.

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And seriously... I honestly can't understand why everyones making a big deal out of the 1 year blackbelt thing. If someone trains well everyday, for a year. They're better than the people who turn up to class a few time a week for years.

And, no disrespect intended, but it's really laughable how TKDists are talking about how quick one year is to get your black belt.

Three and Four years is still a very short length of time to get your blackbelt. [Black of course representing maturity in the art] - 4 years is still a very small amount of time in your life.

And it's funny, because [other issues aside], I respect General Choi for the fact that he devoted almost his entire life to Taekwon-Do. At a guess, it was between around age 25 he started creating it and he died at 75 or something. So that's 50 years approximately.

I'm sure if you ask him when you join him above, that he'll tell you that he never reached martial maturity before the age of 30.

 

I guess if that's what a BB means to you, that's fine. However, to many it simply means a arbitary level of skill defined by the invidualls club or organisation. I think I understand what you believe it should demonstrate in terms of commitment to the art, but why is your view of the requirements better than others views?

Again why should it be? It's a hobby where you learn how to hit people more effectively, if you want to add other dimensions to that like "personality development" there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't see why people shouldn't be able to train in a martial art without any of these extras. What is wrong with this?

At your age two years is a long time, if your personality hadn't matured significantly over that period there would be a serious problem.

What do you specifically regard as the skills that a BB should have apart from fighting skills?

 

Technically, that's what it is, just an arbitrary level of skill defined by the club and/or organisation, and a coloured piece of cloth. I accept that. But in abstract terms there should be more to a blackbelt than just that. That is my belief. What do you believe?

Why is my view better than anyone else's view? Why is your view better than anyone else's view? Who's to say who's better than anyone else?

Why shouldn't it be? What's wrong with the more abstaract element? Frankly it's impossible to avoid some sort of personality growth aspect during your training. It's a serious commitment - you become a jeja and the art becomes a part of who you are - where you learn more about yourself and grow as a person, through the medium of "learning how to hit people more effectively". It's a great responsibility - you can kill or severely hurt people with these techniques, and you have a duty to consider carefully the consequences of employing these techniques in a real life situation. You might get to teach others in turn, people who will look up to you and look to you for guidance, and you'll get to pass on your knowledge and help them and that's a terrific burden as well as fantastically rewarding. You'll get to interact with other people, fellow students, who'll test you and question you and force you to reexamine your beliefs - you're doing it to me right now, Bil.

By the time one reaches blackbelt, you should have been through all these experiences and more as part of your martial art, and you should have learnt something positive from it, your character should have grown - and to get the blackbelt you should have developed the right attitude as a result.

If you haven't got the right attitude then you're not going to be a good blackbelt, and frankly I believe that if you're not a good blackbelt, you don't deserve to be a blackbelt at all. Now in regards to doing a crazy amount of training in order to get a blackbelt in one year, to me that smacks of foolhardiness, because doing that kind of extreme, intensive, constant trainign you could easily overstrain yourself, and also of impatience, and I don't know about anyone else but I seriously don't believe that an impatient, angry, foolhardy personality is the right personality to become a good blackbelt.

A blackbelt should have the following qualities, in my belief, though not necessarily all of them as none of us are perfect, but this is an ideal:

Level-headedness/Calm/Self-control/Patience
Humility
Dedication/Commitment/Perseverance
Compassion/Love/Friendship
Selflessness/Self-sacrifice
Honour/Integrity/Trustworthiness/Honesty
Understanding
Helpfulness/Courtesy

But mostly it's not the qualities that they should have, but the qualities they should not:

absence from the following:

malice
hate
impatience
anger
arrogance
foolishness
jealousy
ignorance
prejudice
selfishness