Worlds Youngest Black Belt

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2671421/Worlds-youngest-black-belt.html

In the above link you will read about a five year old child who has a black belt. She is a cute kid, and is obviously being promoted by the instructor, but it is another case of black belt nonsense.

Earlier I mentioned that being a black belt used to mean something. There was a time when if you told someone that you were a black belt; that was impressive. Later, you needed more. The public at large knew a little about martial arts ranking. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to know that there were degrees to black belt. But if you told a person you were a 2nd or 3rd degree black belt – that was still pretty impressive.

Now, if you tell someone you are a 2nd or 3rd degree black belt you will get a polite but disappointed response. The public at large knows that the ranks go up to 10th degree. I have a person in the small town where I live who claims a 10th degree black belt, is the founder of his own style which combines arts as un-alloy-able as Muay Thai and Taijiquan! And, he has been training in martial arts fewer years than me, he is younger than me, but that is okay – he started his training at the age of three!

In the modern world, a black belt is just a piece of cloth given to a person who has kept paying their monthly dues for the prescribed length of time. Most of the public knows this, and therefore, no one cares if you are a black belt.

In the past, the black belt was the item we treasured. It was a goal that not everyone could reach. You had to earn it! Earning it meant sacrifice. You had to sacrifice time with your family. You had to sacrifice gallons and gallons of sweat. You had to sacrifice blood! Yes, we bled in training. Noses, knuckles, ears, if it had blood in it, the blood was probably gonna get knocked out of it. You had to sacrifice social time.

But it was worth it!

Those sacrifices are part of what made the goal so amazing and impressive. Not everyone could do it, not everyone would do it. Let’s be honest, it wasn’t even something everyone should do. But it was worth every second, every bump and bruise, every pulled and strained muscle, every stubbed or broken toes and finger, and noses. I would not trade those experiences for much.

And as if the training weren’t enough of a deterrent, there was the Black Belt Test!

Hours of time spent demonstrating everything you have been taught, proving your worth by utilizing the techniques in the controlled combat of sparring.

Most people would not willingly undergo the type of training the real Old School martial artists went through.

In the modern time, you see four and five year old black belts. You see people who don’t know a front kick from a hole in the ground who are black belts. A black belt now is just something you buy.

What is left once black belt has no meaning? Is it possible to restore the integrity once it is gone?

Once it is gone, for the most part, it is gone forever. It would take more than a generation to bring it back to the level of awe that it once had.

There are a few instructors left who still believe.

I still believe that martial arts are warrior arts. Many seem to have forgotten this point, but some still remember.

Most of the high profit martial arts schools watered down their systems for the sake of money. But in truth, a martial art encompasses all aspects of hand to hand interpersonal aggression. This includes being physically fit enough to fight, to handle the emotional pressures of combat, the techniques of combat, and emotionally dealing with the aftermath of the confrontation.

Black Belts train every day to become a better fighter.

I am in the minority, but I still hold that everyone who tests for a black belt from me will have to meet the same standard. I will not give you a black belt for trying. I will give you a black belt for succeeding.

In an effort to make up for the fact that the profit first martial arts schools were simply giving away black belts, they had to increase the number of under-belt ranks. So, more colors were added. Then all color belts had a second rank attached shown as a black stripe running the length of the belt. Eventually, we had situations where every martial arts school in your town was teaching a “new” style which had been founded by the 20 year old instructor. Since there were so many Soke out there, they had to come up with more titles to be higher than Soke (founder of a style/system). I stopped keeping track of this one-upmanship when we had great “masters” claiming that they were PhD’s in martial arts. The universities which gave these Doctorate’s were unaccredited.

And then there are the child black belts. Martial Arts are fighting arts.

As much as people like to say it is a sport, it is an art. The focus of the martial arts, properly taught, will be to stop an attacker as quickly as possible, with as little damage to you as possible.

Martial arts, properly approached are pretty heavy subject matter for children. While a child can perform the actions required on paper for a black belt, emotionally there is no 5 year old on earth qualified for black belt. One school owner I know set up his children’s ranking system so that there was an equivalent rank in the adult classes. So if a child trained to brown belt in his classes, upon becoming old enough to cross over into the adult classes, their rank would be green belt (or some such).

To award a black belt to a child is in as much as saying that the child is capable of making decisions that they are in no way mature enough to make – emotionally, physically, mentally, and even legally! This is fraud!

One step in recovering the lost honor of the rank is to only award the rank to adults. There are arguments against this, and most fall upon the line that if a person can do the material, they are a black belt. As stated above, this is clearly not so. Reserving the rank for adults would be a very positive step in the right direction. I would strongly advocate a separate ranking system for children, with a cap rank under black belt. Once the child reaches the cap rank, they would then wait until they turn eighteen years old to test for Black Belt as an adult.

Another point which could help would be if you set only one standard for the rank of Black Belt. This would mean that the same skills were required of every person testing for the rank, and this would elevate the value of the rank.

Sadly, however, there will never be any return to the former honor and dignity which went along with the Black Belt. There are some instructors who still stick to the old ways, but they are few, and poor.

The slick organizations have an undeniable edge in their massive numbers and huge bank accounts. And since they have the most schools, they can continue to lower the standards as they wish in order to get more and more students through the door.

In our overly litigious society, I expect to hear of some instructor getting sued because he won’t “give” someone’s kid a black belt.

As sad as this all may sound, it may do you good to be able to understand what rank means, especially high rank.

Within your school, rank is going to be worth a lot. With rank in the martial arts come a lot of privileges. You may be allowed to teach, other students have to call you sir or ma’am. In some schools, every time you enter the room the entire class has to stop and face you, and bow. It feels a little weird at first, but you learn quickly not to run in and out of the room making them do it over and over.

If your school is part of a larger organization, your rank will have a lot of meaning. As it get higher, you are looked to more and more within your organization as a leader.

To people outside of your school and/or organization, your rank will mean nothing, unless they happen to practice the same style you have trained in. But even then, your rank will not mean as much as you might like it to mean.

In the public at large, it is known that your rank is supposed to be a sign of your skill. Your rank will always mean more to you than it ever will to anyone else. My wife could not care less about my rank.

Basically, what rank means is, at best, subjective. But remember, how rank is earned is also very subjective as well.

In your school, as stated earlier, you should take the time to write out your rank requirements. Some things to consider are;

• Techniques
• Forms
• Fighting
• Self defense
• Time in current rank
• Number of classes attended at current rank

Take several points from this list and create your requirements if you do not already have a list. Once you have a written rank requirement, give a copy to each student. Many instructors are afraid to do this as they fear they might not teach every student every technique on the list, but it will serve as a motivation for your students to attend classes regularly, and a motivation for you to actually write lesson plans. (Believe me, writing lesson plans is one thing that you can do that is worth every second of time spent doing it. You will not believe the results!). After every student has a copy (Give them to students as they sign up, and the new rank requirements after they pass each test) you must strictly enforce the requirements. If you do not enforce them, they are just a list.

There is a trend in the professional martial arts industry that I find disturbing. The idea is that if you give a student a rank they do not deserve, they will try to live up to your opinion of them. I have never seen this philosophy work. I put it in the category of all of the other “feel good karate” garbage out there. Set standards, and stick to them. Do not be one of the people promote anyone who tests.

I have fewer students than these people. So, they are fulfilling a financial goal for themselves. However, the students I produce are more skilled, better trained, and will better serve society. My black belts are all real black belts. The choice is an individual one.

Speaking in terms of how long martial arts have existed, the use of a belt system is still new, relatively speaking. The belt ranking system has really been in widespread use for little more than one hundred years. It has degraded into the mess we now have within the last five decades, and especially so within the last three decades.

Some “mastards” (I prefer to spell it this way) give rank to each other for no reason other than they both want higher rank!

A real and often overlooked issue is in the doubts created by students and potential students, as well as the public at large. What do people see when they look at a black belt today? They will see slobby-looking out of shape old men who tell others to do what they themselves cannot. They will see young hot shot loud-mouths doing gymnastics. The real Black Belts, and there are many, usually go unnoticed. They are the people who teach the classes, and train hard. They study the art. Often they work in their schools without being paid! And they do this out of love for their art. But they are not noticed. But an important point is also kept hidden as much as possible – without these real Black Belts, the martial arts industry would collapse at a rate unimaginable. The only things the real Black Belts want if for rank to mean something, and the art to be preserved.

There are those who claim that rank in the martial arts is not important. Usually these people were unable to reach the rank they feel they deserve. But rank is important to us. For rank to truly mean what it once did, and could mean again, integrity has to be reestablished, and sadly, this is a long shot. Instructors will have to stand on principle and face the business consequences that will inevitably come.

My two cents…

New Book

Within the next week or so, my latest book will be available. This one, titled “Kick it to the Next Level, Improve your martial arts instruction without selling out” is not about Hung Gar specifically, but is a collection of articles on teaching martial arts. I will post the link once it is available!

Random thoughts on the arts

In a comment on a previous article, someone mentioned that there is still the “art” in martial arts which must be considered. Not furthering on the comment, but rather using it as a point of departure…

 

This comment really made me start to think. One of the first things which popped into my mind is the old line that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Different people enjoy different types of dance, music, poetry, painting, etc. And so, there is a differing appeal to different people in the various offerings of the vast world of martial arts.

 

Since I assume that we are all, or mostly all adults here, I think that we can keep this conversation at a mature enough level to state openly that there is no superior martial art. Every martial art has its strengths and weaknesses. For me, Hung Gar works best for my body type and philosophical outlook. It’s fighting theories, strategies and techniques all work best for me

 

This is not to say that Aikido (or insert your chosen style into the sentence) sucks. I trained Aikido for a very short period of time in the mid 90’s and didn’t like it. But that only means it wasn’t right for me. As long as you enjoy the art you choose, that is all that matters.

 

That is enough about the “art” part. What about the “martial” part?

 

Well, then we start walking on rotten ice when we try to discuss that in a public forum. I will try to not name names of styles and instead just give, what I feel, are the requirements for an art to be classified as “martial”.

 

For a start, any art which wishes to be classified as a martial art should be something which is effectively usable by anyone regardless of gender, size or physical conditioning.

 

While there may be some who disagree with my very first point, I would like to insert a few notes. The word martial means war type. Invoking as it does the Roman God of War, Mars. Of course, war is definitely not for everyone, but there were times when the military had to take everyone in conscription. These people had to learn to fight and kill in a relatively short period of time. Most were not professional military; they were farmers, smiths and other tradesman. What they were taught had to be effective and easily learned.

 

When you try to evaluate any martial art, you need to ask a few questions.

 

• What specifically are you looking for? IN the world of martial arts, different people have different goals. Some people want to get in shape, while others are looking for a hobby. Some wish to compete, and others want to be able to defend their family.
• Is it safe to train in this system? Safety is a big concern to most of us. Especially when our martial art is a hobby, we do not want to use up all of our sick time recuperating from martial induced injuries.
• Is it effective? When you get down to the nuts and bolts of any martial art, if it is not an effective form of self defense, you will not train in it for long.

 

For any martial art to truly be a martial art, it must make use of the natural weapons of the body. It should minimize wasted effort and “fluff”. It should offer you a range of choices to fit the necessities of the situation (i.e. it wont kill the opponent accidentally). It need to train your body at a level of reflexive skill, as opposed to thought based self defense selection.

 

Any martial art “works”. This is a very general statement, but what I am getting at is that any training is better than no training at all. Training will develop confidence, outlook and skills in self defense – no matter the chosen style.

 

 

 

The 80/20 Rule

Vilfredo Pareto designed a mathematical formula to describe the grossly unequal distribution of wealth in his country. He discovered that 80% of the wealth was controlled by just 20% of the people. Later still, he observed that in his garden 20% of the peapods produced 80% of the peas.

After Pareto first made his observations and created this formula, others began to notice the same phenomena within their own fields of study. Dr. Joseph Juran, the creator of “Quality Management”, noted what he called the “vital few and the trivial many”. As a result of Juran’s writing, the observation that 20% of whatever is responsible for 80% of the results became known as “Pareto’s Principle”.

The 80/20 rule means that in anything you care to investigate, the few (20%) are vital, and the many (80%) are trivial. In Pareto’s original theory, 20% of the people owned 80% of the wealth. In Juran’s early work, he identified that 20% of the “defects” caused 80% of the problems. Any manager can tell you that 20% of whatever project you work on will consume 80% of the time spent on that project. It is possible to apply the 80/20 rule to almost anything.

Why should this matter to a martial arts instructor? Well, consider the following possibilities;

·        20% of your students will cause 80% of the problems

·        20% of your students will provide 80% of your successes

·        20% of your tournament competitors will bring home 80% of the trophies

·        80% of your instruction will be actualized by 20% of your students

There is more – 20% of what you work for in a day will bring you 80% of your results. The trick is to identify and focus on that 20%. When things start to feel like they are going out of control, remember this principle and focus on the important 20%!

References:

• Hartman, R. (2008). Taekwondo Tutor [Online]. Available: TKDTutor.com [2008].

Effective Teaching for the Martial Arts Instructor

This one is for the martial arts instructors who want to have students pass their tests because they deserve to move up in rank and not have the student move up in rank simply because they are still around.

 

Personally, I make my students earn their rank, and the test is simply the last stage of the earning process. I do not respect those instructors and “accrediting bodies” which simply promote those who are current on their tuition. It takes something more than payments, and in my school, payments do not matter at all. You pay, you get to train. If you have learned the rank requirements, then you may test at the next rank testing. If you pass the test, you move up to the next rank. None of this needs to be muddied by money or promoting for the sake of promoting. That is just fatuous.

 

The student has a degree of responsibility. The student must pay attention, work in class, and practice on their own. Modern martial arts students should also realize that they are training under a martial arts instructor. The martial arts instructors who have received training in teaching, training and/or coaching are few and far between. As such, the instructor is unlikely to have taken steps to bring the student into a position where they will stand a better chance of passing a real martial arts rank test.

 

But I would like to propose the question to any martial arts instructors out there – are you doing all you can to effectively prepare your students to face the test? Would you be willing to allow another person or a testing board to conduct the test of your students to gain an impartial evaluation of your own effectiveness?

 

Anyone can bark orders.

 

The typical action which is identified by most martial arts instructors as “teaching” consists of little more than demonstrating a technique once or twice, counting loudly while the students mimic said technique, and then telling the students that they performed it wrong.

 

This is not teaching.

 

The above outlined formula for so called “teaching” is really doing as little as possible while telling yourself that you are a martial arts instructor. If you spent some time looking around, then you would see that many martial arts instructors actually do very little. This has very little to do with teaching. And teaching is exactly what you will have to do to effectively prepare your students for rank testing. And when I use the term teaching, I am using in the term it is meant to be used.

 

As I stated in an earlier post, if you want to be an effective teacher, find out what makes great teachers great and do what they do. There are so many books on how to be an effective teacher that you almost can’t go wrong. Do not waste your time on the “How to be a great martial arts instructor” type of books. They are nearly all the same, and have little to do with really effective teaching.

 

If I may be so bold as to add to what you will find from the professional educators, I would sum most of it up into one word – communication. Without a real and ongoing communication between you and each individual student you have, you will never be as effective as you could be. It drives me batty that this one point is so simple, yet overlooked by a percentage of martial arts professionals which have to number in the 90% range!

 

To speak specifically on communication which will best prepare your student for what is in front of them at testing, I would break it down like this;

• Talk to your students regularly on what they hope to gain from their training in the martial arts. This has to be an ongoing process. It cannot be the simple “Why do you want to learn martial arts” question which they nervously answer when they first visit your school. We all know that when we are asking that to someone on their first visit that we are only making conversation. The answers on the first day are only rarely insightful. You will need to continually talk to your students to assess and reassess where they hope to be next month, next year and so on.
• Help the student to place their goals within their physical potential. No one likes to be told that there is no way they can reach their goals. But when a forty-five year old brick layer with a wrecked back and a heart condition thinks he will be competing in the next UFC event, you need to guide his thinking back into the realm of reality.
• Give positive, but still honest feedback to the student. This would be done on an ongoing basis as well.
• Listen to your students. It is always easy to assume that you know what someone wants or is about to say, but you need to have the more important skill of listening to the student. Hear them out! If you learn to listen to them you will become a unique person – a martial arts instructor who listens to his students!

 

Eventually, there is going to be a test. You must honestly watch your student’s performance. Try to remember that the entire idea of testing is for the student to show you your skill as an instructor. We all love to think that we know what we are doing, but it is the student performance which is the one true indicator of our effectiveness as an instructor.

 

There are organizations which promote everyone regardless of whether or not they have learned anything. These are of the “feel good” group. They maintain low “standards” and have poorly performing student, but wow do they have a lot of them.

 

There are also groups which have almost no black belts at all. These are the tough guy schools which have an unreachable standard. It is funny that most of the black belts that you find on the testing boards of these groups couldn’t pass the test that they themselves routinely fail so many potential black belts on.

 

If you are going to have a standard, as the instructor, should, at the very least meet that standard!

 

So, if you have sat down with each and every student, and discussed their goals, and were hopefully taking notes, and you have created a level playing field where even your least favorite student has the same chance of passing their rank test as does your most favored, you must conduct your test.

 

I will not tell you how to do your test. It would be a huge waste of my time, as many organizations tell you how to do your test their way, so we jump to the next stage of the process.

 

Sit down with each student again.

 

Unlike the last time you sat down with them, instead of discussing their goals, you are going to give them your assessment of how close they are to those goals. I cannot stress enough what a powerful tool this is for the martial arts instructor. As stated in a previous article, there you have to develop a personal relationship with all of your students. This is the ideal of the student/teacher relationship. Once you know their goals, you watch them in class, and on testing, and then sit down – now it is your moment to shine in their eyes. You do this by giving an authentic assessment of how they are doing and what the next step will be for them. This shows in an instant that you were paying attention to them. Of course the catch is that you really do have to pay attention to them, but that is part of your job! And you will suddenly be miles ahead of your competition if you keep things positive. Anyone can buy a book and a video and tell other people that they are doing it wrong. What you can do, with nothing more than a few changes in your vocabulary, is tell the student the same information but in a way which builds them up instead of tearing them down. On top of this, positive communication is effective communication. How many times in your life have you had another person unfairly ripping you to shreds to the point where you are no longer hearing a word they are saying? If you stay positive, the student will listen, and more importantly – remember!

 

If you make these small but significant adjustments, you are going to draw and keep many students. It is no sign of great teaching to say that your “standards” are so high that one out of one hundred students passes their black belt test (I have heard one organization proudly boast to this distinction). For this to be a fact for any martial arts organization shows, not high standards, but poor teaching. You are the one responsible for making the students ready for the test. If they fail the test, the largest share of the blame rests squarely on your shoulders. If you have a “standard” which allows you to give authentic tests (a test which students actually can fail, but can equally pass), the you should be proud of preparing them and helping them to succeed. If you are proud that you fail a large percentage of students, you are proud of your own shortcomings.