Belt ranks in Kung Fu, are they needed?

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
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[QUOTE=thelegend731;1028773]Way to shut me down lol..[/QUOTE]

Way to come back…:smiley:

[QUOTE=thelegend731;1028773]I thought I was making a point, and I thought I was adding some insight. I wouldn’t have posted otherwise. You could have just messaged me instead of posting something irrelevant to the post.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry. Its just that you had the fence wedged so deeply in your backside, there wasn’t much else to say. You believe, or you don’t believe - or you are curious and want to know more. To say I disagree with people about belt policy, within a little creative licence, isn’t disrespect or denigration, only me putting my thoughts forward with some creative conviction.

[QUOTE=thelegend731;1028773]
But to add a relevant point which Yum Cha (with all due respect) has seemed to forgotten. Certain martial arts masters give belts with a deep sense of honor. There are those martial arts who have thorough belt ceremonies and each rank upward signifies a deeper meaning not unlike a ritual of manhood. Some places award belts for money, but some other places will never award you with a Black belt regardless of your level of physical skill. Of course quality control could be an adequate, yet superficial method of using belts. But I would like to view the giving of belts as a way to showcase the “art” in the martial arts and the depth that it could entail.

That’s another 2 cents.[/QUOTE]

Honour, yes, indeed. Ceremonies, rites of passage. They take many forms other than belts, you’ll agree. Bai See, inner circle, tournament champion - there are many ways to ‘get the nod’.

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fence wedged

Now I’m obligated to post back. Let’s be a little more courteous shall we?

Just a random thought: do the number of belts matter? I personally think the less the better to add more depth and meaning behind each belt

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Where I train, we have had at times, a good number of students. Different colored belts/sashes give an immediate indication to Sifu or the instructors as to what the student is working on. In short, it helps keep track of each student’s progress so they don’t so easily get lost in the shuffle or taught the same thing ad nauseum. However, rank in the school I train is not as clearly identified with whatever color sash one wears. I know someone who has been with the school for a fair number of years but only knows several sets, has always worn the same colored sash since the day he joined (red), but holds rank over most of the other classmates that have learned alot more sets. Fundamental skills, knowledge, and fighting skill, will ultimately always be recognized in our school.

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[QUOTE=YouKnowWho;1028601]Ranking system can control the quality. If your ranking system require your 1st degree black belt to have at least 5 times Sanshou/Sanda tournament experience, and he has to get either 1st, 2nd or 3rd place in those tournament, You will never have any student who is not willing/capable to fight.[/QUOTE]

this is a good point, especially if you are teaching a larger number of students. the issue i think is that there are consistancy problems. a black belt at one school can be worth so much more than a black belt at another.

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Belts control Quality when there are too many students for the teacher to keep track of them?

“It leads to consistency amongst the students.”

Oh my, where do you start with that one?

  • Why is consistency important. If you teach individually, why do you want to make them all the same?
    Are you training an army, efficiently, or are you training individuals? I can see that if you are training an army, you could introduce the efficiency argument, but I think the lease on Han’s Island is a little steep for everybody here, except maybe Gene, 'cause he’s rich and powerful…

I think there are some asian cultural issues with conformity in there as well, Chinese are a lot more Chaotic than the Japanese and Koreans, or just about any other culture I’ve come across, just between us…

To my mind:
The master is the standard, all that there is, then the students grow and approach that standard, some may exceed, some may not. Its just the natural way of things.

And as Brother#9 just pointed out in the previous post, they use belts, but then he points out the brother with a red sash, who’s ‘rank’ is well beyond his belt. I still contend, everybody in the club knows who’s who, Alpha, beta, etc. Belts are artificial.

No, I continue with the contention that they are simply superficial rites of passage, used to motivate students and generate revenue. Naturally, you want to steep with with meaning imagery to reinforce the drama of it all. If I was counting on students to feed my family, I’d probably make the business decision to use them, but just realise, nobody can put anything in your hand better than what you can grab yourself.

One man motivated beyond any public recognition to train and achieve.
One man motivated by belts and ceremonies to pursue his training.

Who would you rather train?

66

Just a suggestion for the CMA ranking:

1st degree - tournament record.
2nd degree - CMA ability.
3rd degree - teaching ability.
4th degree and above - contrbutation to CMA.

This way you can encourage your students to build up their tournament experience in the early stage. The reason is simple, you don’t want your students to wait until they are over 30 years old to compete their 1st tournament.