My school imposes a lot of belts, ranks and titles on its students. This is something I greatly dislike, but I have no choice but to live with it because other than that, I like the school and the material being taught. But I do feel that it is time to make my own personal statement at the kwoon.
Basically, I feel that belts, ranks and titles are not needed at all. Not only do they make for a very stratified environment, but I also feel that they are pretentious and elitist.
This is why I’ve decided to ask the main instructor if I could temporarily train without my belt. I feel that I do not need to have external approval or an external symbol to communicate my own skill, because quite frankly, I’m well aware of where I am and quite confident in my current skill level. I am not making any claims to greatness. Nor do I need to have some special title which allows me to demonstrate techniques to other people to make me confident in doing that.
So my question is, if you were my instructor how would you react to these statements, and would you fulfill my request?
I would do the same as my teacher does, there are gradings but you don’t have to do them, i haven’t done any.
some people like gradings because they can see how much they think theyre improving and you can tell all your friends that you got a new sash or belt.
If i was you i’d speak to my teacher in private and ask him what he thinks.
Yeah man if you’re training at a school you have to go by their rules. My instructor offers grades but you don’t have to do them.
Its encouraged, but he knows that I’m just there to train for 6 months before I go away, so he recognises the pointlessness of starting a system for me.
Yeah, I agree with everyone, if it’s the school’s policy you should go along with it and wear a belt, but surely not taking gradings, etc will not hold back your training in anyway or what you learn? If not it may be better just to not mention it to your Sifu and continue wearing the belt for arguments sake though don’t intentionally tell him you disagree with it?
It’s your teacher’s school and it’s his curriculum and it’s his structure.
You want to go and change what he has built? Better consider taking it on the road. Whatever you may feel about belts and ranking is irrelevant in context to the school. It’s not your school and the structure of the school is not by your design.
Go elsewhere if you don’t like it. It’s really that simple.
believe it or not, i’m in complete agreement with everyone else. while i can respect and even share your viewpoint on not needing belts and rank, the fact is that you’re a part of someone else’s school.
i used to teach a very informal class at a friend’s dojang. he taught taekwondo. his students would bow to me as if i were one of their instructors, even if they’d never set foot in my class, because they knew i had a black belt. it didn’t matter that i didn’t wear it or that i didn’t talk about it. i was always tempted to say to them, ‘nah, no need to bow.’
then i started to think about how that would undermine my friend’s wishes.
you’re part of something bigger than you. and while your thoughts and feelings are important, think about what that would do to the larger picture.
Okay, I guess it looks like I won’t be able to train without a belt from the looks of things. I thought it was reasonable, but then again I’m not an instructor nor do I have my own school, so I don’t know everything. I probably have no choice in the matter.
What about just sharing my opinion with him? Would you get infuriated if a student gave you an opinion like that?
Frankly, it is not really an important issue in the context of the training. What it does reflect is your desire to stand out or be different from the rest of the class. Just ignore this desire and train. If you find your teachers methods too onerous to tolerate, go to another school.
Asking a teacher questions is fine if the goal is to understand the material better. But this sort of thing, no matter how well you’ve reasoned it out, is just your ego monkeying around with you.
I mean really, does it REALLY matter? Will it make you a better martial artist? A better person? What does it acheive?
The more appropriate question should be, or have been when you signed up for the school, “can I not be awarded any belt?”
this way you have no belt to wear, but keep in mind that the instructor will most likely want to know what you are working on, and when, with a large class this can be a greater task, especially if he/she is used to just glancing at the belt color.
