Why do kids have black belts?

[john55]

Why is it that every school I have ever been to allows kids to get black belts? Sure they know the forms and steps, but can they effectively use them? I am a low ranking belt and yet when I spar with a lot of black belts, mostly the women and children, they are pretty helpless against me. I am not trying to be arrogant, but its true. Now I take bjj as well as tkd. In my bjj class, I am a white belt and could never beat any belt above me (even the women) in a sparring match. I guess I am just confused and am starting to feel that while tkd has many good points, a lot of it is manufactured and not based on actual merit. Anyone have any thoughts?

I think I am just venting...but, while I think tkd is very useful, the ranking system has nothing to do with actual ability and that is not right and I think is what is the reason we get bashed so much.

[Joemoplata]

Originally Posted by john55

Why is it that every school I have ever been to allows kids to get black belts? Sure they know the forms and steps, but can they effectively use them? I am a low ranking belt and yet when I spar with a lot of black belts, mostly the women and children, they are pretty helpless against me. I am not trying to be arrogant, but its true. Now I take bjj as well as tkd. In my bjj class, I am a white belt and could never beat any belt above me (even the women) in a sparring match. I guess I am just confused and am starting to feel that while tkd has many good points, a lot of it is manufactured and not based on actual merit. Anyone have any thoughts?

I think I am just venting...but, while I think tkd is very useful, the ranking system has nothing to do with actual ability and that is not right and I think is what is the reason we get bashed so much.

One cannot get get to a blue belt in BJJ until the age of 16 just for these reasons.

[Militis]

In many martial arts schools you can't get a black belt until you are 18, with talented individuals being the exception.

At our school, you can't test for black belt until the master believes we can take on a full grown man.

My sparring buddy got his black belt a few months ago, and I am so mad because I have been away for 8 months and I can still beat him in a sparring match.

[Jalek Moye]

in many schools that people i know of go to, you cant get a black belt till atleast age 16

[WC_Lun]

I understand the frustration. The last two schools I have gone too did not promote children to black sashes. I follow that and would also not do so.

[complete]

In the "old" days, they did not give out TKD black belts to people under certain age (can't remember the exact age) and the Black/Red belt was meant to be the Junior Blackbelt for that age group.

But I also understand your frustration about belt not being a true measure and I don't think it was really meant to be. I was a "blackbelt" in TKD and when I hate to start another martial arts, I had to start over as a white belt and obviously I was a lot more advanced than some other people who's already been there a while and I paid no attention to the color of the belts but concentrated on the training itself.

[john55]

Originally Posted by Joemoplata

One cannot get get to a blue belt in BJJ until the age of 16 just for these reasons.

Exactly. I guess since I am taking bjj now I am seeing another art and seeing how their promotion system works much better (on some levels). Not only that, but you cannot be a black belt in 4 years unless you have the athletic ability of an olympic athlete. It takes more like 8-15 years depending on your dedication and ability. I wish TKD would start to transition to that. I am sure there are schools out there that do.

But come on, a 16 year old black belt that gets his butt kicked by adult white belts in sparring. You would never see that in bjj. Maybe a white belt could beat a blue belt after they have had a year of training. Something just isnt right in the tkd promotion system.

I think there just needs to be some drastic changes in TKD in the US as a whole in order to get respect back from the MMA community. I guess its tough being the most popular MA, and whatever is will always get bashed, but a lot of the claims are valid, so lets change them so they are not.

[Joemoplata]

Originally Posted by john55

Exactly. I guess since I am taking bjj now I am seeing another art and seeing how their promotion system works much better (on some levels). Not only that, but you cannot be a black belt in 4 years unless you have the athletic ability of an olympic athlete. It takes more like 8-15 years depending on your dedication and ability. I wish TKD would start to transition to that. I am sure there are schools out there that do.

But come on, a 16 year old black belt that gets his butt kicked by adult white belts in sparring. You would never see that in bjj. Maybe a white belt could beat a blue belt after they have had a year of training. Something just isnt right in the tkd promotion system.

I think there just needs to be some drastic changes in TKD in the US as a whole in order to get respect back from the MMA community. I guess its tough being the most popular MA, and whatever is will always get bashed, but a lot of the claims are valid, so lets change them so they are not.

I hear what you're saying, but I'm not sure increasing the time to achieve the belt is the problem for TKD. Let me explain as best as I can why BJJ takes so long to get a BB.

Let's look at the "positions" for BJJ:

Mount
Back Mount
Side Mount
Knee in the stomach
Guard
Half Guard
Standing (throws and takedowns)

For each position, you need to learn:

1. How to get there.
2. How to stay there.
3. How to advance to another position.
4. How to escape.
5. Submissions/attacks from there.

When you start to add this up, it equals an incredible amount of knowledge. In addition to the raw knowledge, you are also expected to be able to perform these moves in a sparring situation against a resisting opponent. This adds a level of complexity.

In TKD, like most pure striking arts, the total number of techniques is not that much. It's the application of those techniques that's critical. But pure athelticism can overcome a lot of bad technique so when you don't have that many to begin with it's harder to judge how "good" someone is or how well they understand the application of the technique. So that's where Kata comes in which makes it easier to judge the technique but takes away from the application of the technique. And that's how a lot of TKD judge knowledge, purely on the Kata.

[TRIANGLEFROMGAURD]

Excatly, I remember starting bjj and because of my wrestling being able to handle the other white belts and some blue belts but, the upper level blue belts just dominated me. I think since sparring isn't a primary part of most TKD schools, well except for point sparring (I know some of you will be up in arms about that statement but, I did say most and I think if you look at it you'll find that I'm right) it becomes extremely hard to make things work if you don't train them for real. I don't think it's a matter of respect perse but, people who train in a combat art or train for a combat sport always say show us something that works. If you don't train your techniques for real life they just won't work. So yes I agree with you TKD should drastically revamp it's belt ranking system and maybe incorporate some form of full contact sparring.

[Chapel]

The major problem is with the term 'works.' In terms of judging pure fighting skill, yes, the ranking system in Tae Kwon Do is about as broken as a plate glass window dropped from a 5 story building. However, the belt system in TKD is based off of more than just sparring (point or otherwise). A major thing in determining when someone can get promoted is dedication to the art. However, one must also keep in mind that many of the schools out there use belts as a major source of income and/or as an incentive for people to train more.

A problem that is secondary to this the lack of standardization between Tae Kwon Do schools. The Kukkiwon laid down strict guidelines as to the number of colored belts, but never specified the colors of or the order of those belts. So saying that you have a blue belt in Tae Kwon Do doesn't really mean anything. (This is as opposed to BJJ. If I came here and said I had a Brown Belt in BJJ everyone would know almost exactly where I rank in BJJ.) To complicate this problem further, many schools simply thumb their noses at the system and have as many belts as they want anyway.

So yes, the belt system is an increasing joke with TKD and sadly there is no way to revamp it because there is no real enforcement ability. Either way, rank doesn't matter. "I have a black belt. It covers about 2 inches of my butt. The rest is up to me."

[Silv3r]

my school gives out junior black belts to kids as younge as 10. they can test for an 'adult' black belt at age 13. i've been able to beat many of these black belts in sparring since i was 8th gup. they're just so little that i can keep them away with my legs and i don't have to try hard because their kicks don't hurt. i don't think your really ready to get a black belt until at least age 16-18. i myself wont be testing until i'm 18 and i probably still can't hold my own to some of the people in my class.

[Torre]

In my organization, you can't even test for first brown belt (3rd kyu) until age 14 and you have to be 18 to go for black, no exceptions, no junior black belts. However our grading system isn't exactly what you would call good, due to lack of emphasis on full-contact sparring.

[Sake Sipper]

Maybe all good reasons to ditch the whole 'belt' thing. If folks are competing regularly they will know who has the goods and who doesn't.

[souldrum71]

My current school has no set age requirements for when a person can test for black belt, and that's something I've brought up to the head instructors recently.
Much like Silv3r's school, the dojo I trained at in Japan had two types of black belts: junior dan and adult dan. You could get a junior dan ranking at a very young age if you met the requirements, which were mostly mastering techniques, one-step sparring, kata, and medium-contact padded sparring. Junior dans could only progress to third degree. However, you had to be at least 13 to test for an adult dan ranking, and the requirements for that were a lot more brutal. In addition to meeting the same requirements as the junior dan, adult dan testing involved breaking and full-contact no pads sparring.
I liked the way that system worked because it visibly seperated junior ranks from the adult ranks.

[Chapel]

I definitely think that this kind of thing could become a double edged sword. Age minimums come under fire a lot for keeping down people who are particularly dedicated and train very hard. However, taking the complete opposite side of it and saying that a black belt in some art should always be able to beat a lower belt in the same art might be pushing it a little too far. Certainly if someone was much bigger or much stronger than someone one rank above him it would be fair to assume that he would be able to hold his own against him and probably even win. It would be, I think, a little ridiculous to tell someone that they have to put on about 30 pounds to get their next belt. (This is martial arts, not competitive eating.)

The one thing I will say, however, is that a black belt of any style should never be 'absolutely helpless' in a fight against anyone no matter how big or strong the opponent is.