No its the art i train in, it also the art that i have been doing for 15 years and hold a second degree in now lets see .....4 four a 1st ....3 for a second ....4 for a third ....yep by my calculations if i had followed the study pattern of the system next year i should have my fourth.I wont have it. I went and learnt something totally different to learn how to defend myself on the streets. I went and asked peple who were current, i went and studied wth them. I train in Kuk Sool cos it keeps me fit it incorporates a lot of kicking and joint locks so keeps my eye in with body mechanics. i train totally different for life. Its a good martial arts system, i just find it funny when people say its rubbish because it wasn't actually used on a battlefield somewhere. Am sure somewhere someone got kicked, someone got punched, someone got eye gouged etc etc etc bet the person doing it wasn't worried whether they were doing an art that was taught to them by someone directly descended from god knows who or whether it was something they picked up in the playground all they cared was that they were alive. All i care about now is that its my hobby and keeps me fit and mobile. What changes to these facts whether its a million years old or 5 mins ?????
Monk, et al. I'm with you on this one. Any art that stagnates is doomed to lose its effectiveness. I started learning KSW many moons ago. I also had a few opportunities to learn some things from some other specialized people as part of my role in training certain members of the U.S. military. I will tell you that adaptation of what you learn in KSW or other arts helps. I have seen several arts claim that they were the precursor to KSW. Considering how many masters learn MA, it wouldn't honestly surprise me. Mooye Dobo Tongji, one of the manuals used in the founding of much of traditional Korean MA, is based on Chinese documents. Honestly, I will tell you that I have and will continue to incorporate some techniques I have learned in my other studies that I have found to be effective. Many of them are practical applications of things a student learns in KSW and already have a foundation in once I begin to instruct the student in application of these other things. However, I am very selective about the students I chose to teach those things to. As far as martial arts is concerned, there are many overlaps. What does it really matter, except out of ego or curiousity, who first thought of ki bon soo #11, or goh geup sohn mok soo #4, etc? If you feel your MA is better, more power to you.
If KSW doesn't evolve it will also be doomed to a fate of slow decay. It seems rather strong at the moment in that its growing. But is it getting stronger or only bigger? which can bring us back to this thread, .... is it too easy to gain belts....? Do we stick with old standards that tend to limit growth but also tend to ensure higher quality, or do we apply the modern industry standards that allow for growth but tend to have little checks and balances on quality, is there a happy medium, or another alternative? It seems that WKSA clearly wants the growth, and has never denied rank to folks with the barest of minimum skills, but the system still puts out some quality masters as well. and the same is generally true for most of the Dan ranks. So ....is it too easy???? What is the concensus of the forum??? I think a balance of growth and Quality must be the answer. Any Ideas??
But Judo is really quite different from Kuk Sool. A lot of the techniques are very similar to aikijujutsu, though. Choi probably studied Daito Ryu, but probably not from Takeda, like he claimed. I don't see any way all of the techniques in Hapkido could have come from Judo. Although a few throws have been added and subtracted from Judo over the years, there are only 67 (I think. It's 60-something, anyway) in the whole system. And it doesn't have any of the joint locks of Hapkido.
I do agree with you Choi. My opinion is that the responsibility lies with individual school instructors to be honest. I think everybody needs to maintain the standards at their own club and not promote just anybody who takes the test. I understand that it's not easy to fail people but it is necessary at times. At the end of the day, it reflects badly on you as a school owner if you have people at a high rank who are worse than some of the white belts. I don't think people should be put forward for a testing unless the instructor thinks that they are good enough to be the next belt. Maybe give them a heads up a month before or something giving them time to shape up etc.
on a slightly different note. i believe that club gradings should be performed in front of instuctors fom other clubs. when i was a coloured belt i tested in front of all sorts of different instructors, with my own instructor basically just observing. this made me more determined to do well and try and impress. now i find that students from my club are only being tested by the instuctors from within the club. personally i think they should go to other clubs with different instructors to give them a bit more imputous (sp) to do well as they will be under pressure to perform in front of people they don't know. pretty much like taking your driving test with an examiner rather than the person who taught you to drive. at least that way i passed my gradings because someone other than my instuctor, who doesn't know me, thought i was good enough to promote to the next rank. which gave me a lot of satifaction. what do you think? discuss.
i agree, ihave tested in front of a wide varity of instructors all through my belts, and as a school owner i regulaly try and get guest instructors down for my school testings, and send my brown belts out to other (master) testings for exactly that reason. and a bad student at any belt only represents a bad instructor
I remember once when AirNick had one of his friends come over from america to stay. he had done no kuk sool but was asleep on the benches by the side of the testing area. All the students came in and were asking everyone who's that. So Darren made an announcement that we were really lucky because SBN (can't remember the guys name) had flown over to see Nick and was going to observe our testing that day everyone immediately was 10 times more worried it was hilarious. I think we've done that a couple of times now when people have sat at the table, we lend them one of our uniforms, who haven't actually ever even taken a class, They don't call any of the test they don't mark, they just sit there and shake their heads a few times.It works a treat for focusing a students mind. Guess that trick will never work again
Thats exactly what is forced at BB testing @wksa HQ and it is a total clusterF*#K, there is 1 "judge" for every 15-20 people, the judges rarely know who they are grading, there are no grades, the test forms are never returned to the students, there is no feed back, there is no failure, or passing , or promotion @ the exam. ....... ok ,,,,I'm the devils advocate here So you let other instructors determine if your students will pass or fail? And all of the students that are "bad" have no responsibility for thier own training. Its all up to you ,,,,,so no matter how bad they are its not their fault?? I think thats too easy on the student.
I am in agreement with choi on the point that there does tend to be too few on a testing panel to see if everyone is performing well at testings.I think it is assumed that the student is good enough to perform everything really well and that is the only reason they have been put forward for testing. This i find a dangerous assumption too, and it all goes back to a comment on another thread of "quality and quantity". I honestly don't believe that some instructors should run their own schools so therefore the quality of the student that has been put forward isn't really that that should be put forward and it can snowball from there. I remember in my first national testing for blackbelt (1995) when we were asked to do forms and someone couldn't remember Ki Cho Hyung, now this wasn't nerves he just could not remember it. He was given lots of chances he didn't know it. Now i don't blame him for being at the test though he was not being honest with himself. That person should never have got to the position of testing for his belt until he was ready. I also know of several people that have actually failed their Blackbelt tests only for them to walk up and receive their belt. I have been told by the people conducting the tests so that is fact. I think it is hard to fail people for a test when you have already listed their names on your arts web sites as promotions for the year when they haven't even taken their final test. Hows that work??? On his second note i can see what he is saying there to some degree too. I know what everybody in our class does well and does badly. Now i know if that person has improved, is trying their best, I know if they have an injury and how badly that realy affects their ability to perform something. It can be hard to actually know how hard someone who you don't know is actually trying. You can only assume they are trying as hard as you would in a testing if you don't know them, and that they are giving their best. I actually find that i try harder to impress people that have had a direct influence on my path than i do others who do not know me. I know my instructors can do everything that they ask me to do. I have seen many people at national testings ask people to do stuff that they can not even do themselves. I think you get a truer reflection of someones actual ability and effort if you know the person. Also something else that we have started to implement is feed back we do try to tell everyone where they need to improve and all of my last testings that i took for my last belt involved me being sat down and told what i did well and what i needed to improve on. Though four of those were where there were only 3 of us testing and 1 or 2 people judging now that means very little gets missed. I realise at the moment that this can be very hard to achieve but it is up to ourselfs to make this so. More people must be willing to go to gradings and take part on testing panels. At my last testing I specifically asked one of the forum members if he could come sit on my testing panel because he was one of the people that had been a direct influence on my journey, When we got there he ended up having to take the junior blackbelt test, Now this was due to a lack of instructors at a national testing. True a lot of people were testing themselves, however this was a weekend and several people had just returned having received their new masters belts from korea. Only one of these new masters was there. And all but one of them live a similar distance from the testing as him. See if the support doesn't come from above and we don't take an interest in the standard of the people coming through the ranks it is no one elses fault but our own as to the standard that the art produces. Sorry this post went on a lot.
Yeh there is always the problem that people aren't feeling up to it or have recently come back from an injury, if the instructor doesn't know them then i doubt they will know this, it might just be that the student is having a bad day, should it be fair that a student is held back from what he/she SHOULD be learning just because they weren't up to thier best for a couple of hours? Even a bad nights sleep can seriously effect someones performance and a judge that doesn't know the student may think its the best they have to offer and so fail them, i don't like the idea of gradings they have nothing to offer, it should be judged on the students performance as a whole, the only thing a grading does is make those that dont usually put the effort in try harder whereas they should be trying thier hardest each and every lesson.
i think that ksn matt has the same view that i do. if we want kuk sool to be of a uniform standard then surely we should have students who are judged by instructors who can see them perform with no prejudice on who passes or fails. obviously we all have off days in our training due to injury or illness but that can be accounted for when we do gradings as long as it is made known at the start of the test. another point.. if instructors are putting poor students forward for promotion to blackbelt that simply aren't good enough or don't show the correct amount of ettiquet, effort and commitment during a grading, then surely they should be held accountable. not for the students performance or skill level but for recommending them in the first place. should there be some sort of instructors test? and as i understand it, anyone over the rank of DBN can open a club and doesn't have to take a formal exam or training course. isn't this too soon? after all they would have been training themselves for around 3 years.
Once the testing becomes subjective then there is always going to be a problem with people feeling that others are not good enough for their belt. This problem goes hand in hand with recognizing the individual. That we are different, different strengths and weakness's etc... We invite everyone, young, old, in shape, out of shape, male, female, etc to join Kuk Sool. If we have a uniform measurable testing standard then what would it be? I don't have a clue. I personally find this whole issue confusing, frustrating, and depressing. Basically because I don't know how to sovle the problems that I percieve. Part of me tells me that tests should be measurable. Then count up the score and decide pass or fail. Then another part says, maybe that person will never be able to do that skill, and why does it even matter? This is why I favor testing somone till they drop, at least if they drop then they tried their absolute best.
Measurable tests would be optimal but it would mean turning away people. Which WKSA will not do. Basically anyone that memorizes the syllabus and can reproduce a reasonable likeness of the skills will pass. That allows the effort to be the standard rather than the achievement of skill. Is that enough? Then it's all about pride. But what would you do if it was your mom or dad. would you fail them ? The standard must be relative. I think it's as good as it's going to get. Think of your students like extended family, know them well and pass them according to what they have accomplished, encourage more training if you think they will not do well, help them and be honest and sincere. only then are you worthy of being a teacher. Will you do it?
There is also the problem of people who are naturally gifted that cannot respect someone of higher rank. For the sake of arguement let's assume that skill doubles every rank that you pass and that person A started with a skill of 2, person B with a skill of 10. Person A is now a 6th degree, so his skill would be 64. He did his job, he got twice as good for every rank. But person B is a fourth degree who also did his job, his skill is 80. He is technically better than A. I think person A still needs to respect the rank of person B. I think that there are problems all around. Some people maybe shouldn't have their rank. Some should be pateint to learn even when they awesome, and some should respect others even if they are technically better. It is the multidimensioallity of this problem that makes it so difficult.
when i say uniform standard i don't mean that everyone should be able to kick high (over their own chest height), do double back flips or aerial cartwheels or anything that meant you would have had to start ma's when you were 5 years old. i'm talking about being able to every kick with the correct technique and a good amount of power, being able to perform any hyung with correct stance (not necessarily ultra low) allowing it to flow from one block/strike/kick to the next without stopping to think, being able to perform the majority of your techs without thought. although bearing in mind these are usually done at the end of the test when you are physically and mentally tired. obviously things like age and physical ability should be taken into account but everyone should be able to perform all aspects of ksw to a minimum standard.
Absolutely! I'm a firm believer that would be an excellent way to increase the quality of students learning Kuk Sool.
Student Restrictions in testing I don't meant to re-open the thread, but thought I should mention one important idea: When it comes to an injury or other restriction, you can have their instructor write a note on the testing form listing the restriction(s), and then test around it. I tested under some serious restrictions in November: had to substitute a step, slide, or skip kick for any jump kick, slightly modify the forms to avoid jumping, skip the nak bub portion that time, etc. It was sort of hard, but I had every intention of sticking to my limits so the recovery would be as short as possible. By February I was back to full.
I don't know anyone in KSW like that. Mostly, I've seen respect up and down the ranks. I've only seen a lack of respect at (nearly) the same level, or going down, and very little of that. (Well, there is a junior here or there....) I find if people of a high rank offer respect to those of lower rank, those of lower rank learn to respect those in the higher ranks easier and quicker. Also, the older a person is, the more respect they will give everyone, no matter the rank or age. Too, the ones with phenomenal skill seem to have the most respect to offer to others, no matter the rank or age.
