 We've talked in the past about karate belt ranks and what they mean for the martial arts, like what they really mean, are they good or they bad, and how much stocks the person put into a belt rank. Now today I want to talk about something a little bit different and look at the belt rank as an actual tool other than a curriculum marker. So we're going to explore that today. And the unfortunate truth is, whether we agree with it or not, is that there are people who will place great importance on belt rank. So everybody views belts as, you know, a little bit differently than everyone else, and especially with children. Children tend to identify to things a little bit more closely, especially when it comes to social structure and bonding and status and things like that. So it's important to keep all that in mind. But there's several different ways you can use belts as tools in your classroom. And one of the ways that belts can be used in a disciplinary manner is to take the belt away when the student behaves. And this applies really more to the kids than adults. But unfortunately, there's some situations that might apply there too. But, you know, of all the schools I taught for, you know, it was at several schools, and they all employed the same general tactic of a student who was supposed to behave in a class, after a couple of warnings, they lost their belt. And then they had to spend however much time, you know, a day, two days, a week, it depends on what they did, to earn that belt back. So it was used as a tool saying, hey, look, you're not living up to your responsibility, you know, the students here in the class are working hard for their belts are hard for their material and you're preventing them from learning. So you're going to lose your rank. And a lot of times, the kids didn't work harder to earn the belt back. And if we want to go down that road, there's also the idea of demoting students and putting them back to the previous belt rank. I know some schools will employ this. That one I'm a little bit fuzzy around. Our schools never really did that. I don't know that I really agree with that because I like the idea. I'm a little bit more lenient to agree with, you know, we're going to pause them at their rank, or we're going to kind of take their belt away for a little bit of a time out. But to put them back is a little bit of a slippier slope, I think, for more ways than one. I'm not really quite sure what message that's sending because they're not losing the knowledge that they had. They're just not living up to where they are currently. But then if you've got a school where parents have paid for belt tests or even adults have paid for belt tests and all of a sudden you've put them back to the previous rank, you might be setting yourself up for some conflict with families and parents being like, Hey, I paid for that. They tested for it. Why isn't my kid at that level? Again, right or wrong, whether we agree or not, that is a potential conflict that could come up. So I'm a little bit less inclined to agree with the concept of demoting them and more along the lines of pausing their current rank or just saying, Hey, look, you can't really wear it right now. You have to earn it back. I don't know. I'm kind of curious what you guys think about that, but that is a disciplinary measure, whether we agree with it or not. Now I'm definitely not above or definitely not against the idea of withholding the student from testing if they have not performed to the level that they're expected to perform at. And that doesn't mean just physical testing. That doesn't mean just physical performance in class. They might have all the techniques correct and perfectly, but if they're little jerks, if they're out of line, if they're talking back, or if they're not behaving, they're not going to test. And here's the situation. It gets a little bit fuzzier. I had one viewer actually leave a comment about a month or two ago. They were very upset that they had technically failed their current test because they didn't make it to school on time and their instructor had him sit off to the side and sit out the whole class and they weren't allowed to test this time. This one gets tricky because first of all, if you're going to test, if you're an adult or if you have your own means of getting to school, then there's really no excuse for you to not be on time for your test. That is part of being responsible. No one else in that school has responsibility or the obligation to make sure you are there on time. If that is within your control, then you need to make sure you are there on time. That's part of respect. And then if that's what a condition is, that's a requirement and standard that your instructor holds, they have every right to do so. And honestly, the best thing to do is suck it up and just, you know, try to make it on time the following month or whatever the next test is. This gets hairier when it's a child who does not have their means or a person who does not have their own means to get to class. And then that might be a measure of, if it's a constant tiredness, if it's a constant issue, you might have to pull the parents aside and talk to them or maybe if you, maybe you're older, but you don't have a ride, maybe you can work out a carpool situation. Bottom line, Noah, is that's something that you need to, or that the student needs to analyze on their own and it makes their own arrangements because ultimately it is a student's responsibility to be in class on time. It relates to that we had a lot of kids who would forget to bring their belts to class or whatever and they're like, oh, my mom forgot the packet and we'd be like, well, who is it? Your mom's belt? No, it's your belt. It's your responsibility to know where it is and make sure you bring it with you. So it's all part of that teaching the children responsibility or just teaching students in general, you know, setting the standard of what the accountability you expect is and holding them to that accountability. But what are some other ways we could use belts to incentivize better behavior or better effort or even just a well-rounded balanced student? One is this was a tactic that my last instructor did. I thought it was interesting. He had a camouflage belt that he used in the classroom and basically it was not, it wasn't the rank, but what it was used for was each week a student who had demonstrated strong leadership or enhanced effort or overall improvement or just really stood out as a beacon of example of what a student should be. They got chosen to be student of the week and then they rewarded the camouflage belt that they got to wear for that week. And the privileges that came along with that belt was they got to choose the first part of the warm-ups that they wanted the class to do and they got to help around, walk around and help out as a little helper in class. Sometimes giving responsibility to a student or giving responsibility that they've earned can actually help students elevate their self-confidence, their awareness and even their behavior because it's just positive reinforcement. And then at the end of each week that student got to put in their input with the instructor as to who the next person was going to be and they would take the belt off and hand it to that student. So I actually liked that system and I saw, we saw a lot of improvement amongst children's behaviors because they all wanted to be student of the week. They wanted to wear the camouflage belt because it was something that was earned and it was something that showed, hey look what I did, look how good I was. Also children tend to identify a lot more with visual progress and this is where the belt ranks really, really work because an adult can train for four or five years and not see a belt rank difference and they understand the work that's put into it. They understand what the importance is. Kids are still learning at that level and they might not have fully grasped and if belts take a few months to earn then a strike system is not a bad idea. Let the kid try out, you know, once a month or however often your school holds tests, get a little stripes, you know, something that they can earn incrementally just to show them that they're making progress. It's, you know, it could be silly, it's psychological, but it works. This can get a little bit tricky too and we've had examples in the past of students who, they started really young. I mean some kids started like four years old which is honestly pretty young to be working with any sort of curriculum and a lot of kids, it took them a little bit longer to mature and kind of acclimate the material that, you know, if normally a new student got their yellow belt, you know, got promoted within the first three or four months, these kids weren't quite moving at that pace. And then the last thing you want to do too is hold them at six months at the same rank when everyone around them is improving. So it can be discouraging, but if you don't, you know, if they're not at the next level, what do you do? Well there's half ranks and this, you know, everybody might feel differently about this, but we saw this really, really more commonly with the young, young, young students, like I said, the four-year-olds, the five-year-olds. So they would start off at white belt and maybe after a couple months they'd get their stripes and after a couple months when they would normally be due to test for the yellow belt, if they weren't at the level yet and of course they didn't have the material yet, then they would get like a half white, half yellow belt. So they're still getting promoted, they still saw the advancement and then they would be at that rank for a few months getting a new set of stripes and usually by a few months after that they were ready for the next level. So sometimes you have to evaluate the student on an individual individual basis. So while a lot of people might not agree with that, that is an option to take. You know, sometimes half-ranked belts can be effective. We saw some effectiveness with it and it doesn't go all the way up, you know, it's usually just for the first couple levels until the kids actually start to find their groove. Then we have the slippery slope of skipping ranks or advancing quicker than normal and I would exercise this one with caution. We do come across students that are exemplary students. I mean, sometimes they are just really good and they pick up the material and they're little prodigies. That has happened, I've seen it and so some kids just picking up like that. If there's cases like that, if they can fully demonstrate their techniques, that they can fully demonstrate the curriculum at the level they are expected to and they're little leaders. We had a few kids that would actually go home and like study hard and they would actually look up online academic material and look ahead and come back and ask questions and they would volunteer to help other students who were struggling with the same thing. So we definitely saw their level of growth increase. Okay, so if that belt normally took three or four months, they might have gotten it in two. Now, here's a question for all of you. How about maintaining a rank? I know there's some schools, especially some key auction schools where once you achieve your black belt or you test for your black belt or second or third or black belt, you get a temporary belt and then after a year you get your official belt and this is done to make sure that the student will continue to perform at that level. Life, of course, gets away. There can be a variety of reasons why someone falls out of the practice or might fall behind a little bit, but I like the idea and the notion of that, the message that comes across of, hey, you've earned this great job, but you will be expected to maintain this level and keep going further. Your work is not done. So I'm kind of curious to know what you guys think about this one. And the final thing I want to bring up are instructor belts. Now, this is interesting because we've seen this a few times when I started, when I first started in class, we had an assistant instructor. He was not a black belt, but we didn't know that. He was actually a green belt, but he was really good. And he was the top instructor aside from my instructor, and he would work with the kids' classes and the young teens' classes. But the problem though is there's a psychological aspect there too. Whenever a student is teaching and they don't have a black belt around their waist, a green belt comes up, a parent might look at the green belt and be like, well, why are they teaching my kid? Why isn't the black belt teaching my kid? That's not an instructor. They haven't finished yet. Or even to some degree, some adults might feel that way too is, hey, why am I not being taught by a higher level belt? It's unfortunate. It really shouldn't matter if the person knows the material. They know what they're material. But there is a psychological aspect to that. So sometimes schools will give assistant teaching belts. They could be black belt. In this case, he wore a solid red belt that said, assistant on it. Okay, it looks official. It's a little bit more ambiguous. You can't tell what the rank is. And parents didn't question it. And us as students, we didn't question it. We didn't care. We knew, we knew as a teenager that he knew his stuff. But you know, people coming off the street, look at that like, okay, he's actually kind of got more of an official title. It's stupid, but the psychology is there. Now, as far as wearing a black belt, I've seen schools use a black belt with the word assistant through it. That was a little bit trickier because I do feel that that plants the notion of that person being a black belt. And I do know some situations where the person acted as and told people they were a black belt, when they were not, they were an assistant instructor. So it might look good from the parent's point of view, but there's still a double edged sword to that. I tend to lean more, I like the idea more of the assistant belts, a specialized belt for the assistants versus just let them have a black belt because I've seen resentment happen from other students who are like, wait, why is he a black belt? He was a green belt last week. Well, no, he's not a black belt. He's, you know, he's a teacher, but it gets messy. So that's just my personal opinion. I like the idea of using a specialized belt for instructor versus just letting them wear a black belt because that could send the wrong message. They are nothing more than a teaching tool and how you use them is going to determine the effect you get out of them. Now, there's a lot more we can talk about with belts in the martial arts. So let's continue here with this discussion where we talk about the pros and cons of whether or not belts even belong in the martial arts to begin with and what they mean to you. And we also talk about the myth of the origin of the black belt. So let's really sink our teeth into some real meat and let's see where you guys stand on this one.