 There are many opinions and outlooks in the concept of the black belt, but whether you love it or hate it It is an integral part of many martial arts and in a lot of ways it can be a gift and also a curse So in today's episode, we're going to talk about why you should accept the rank of black belt and also why you shouldn't So if you guys support what we do here and you're enjoying the content We put out in the channel Please consider supporting us on patreon this that patreon is actually gonna help us build a channel to bigger and better Things and also there's a bunch of exclusive membership stuff that we put on there for you guys to thank you for your support Now specifically in this episode, we're gonna talk about the rank of black belt We're not really going to build up the history of how the belt started and what the colors and what the ranking system means We've actually done that before and how many belts are in karate So please be sure to check that video out if you want to understand the history of where the belt system came from Today we're specifically talking about achieving and earning the rank of black belt or the black belt equivalent because not every Art uses belts, especially if you look at the Chinese martial arts They don't often have the same type of ranking system. It's more of like a family hierarchy set But the whole concept of achieving a senior rank or being certified as an instructor or that kind of Level is what we're talking about today accepting the responsibilities that come with that and we have the same divide when it comes Just to the rank itself We have so many people who actually covet and they seek out the belt Then we have others who absolutely hate it and hate what it stands for and there's a lot of course a lot of gray Area in between in my personal opinion I believe it has helped the martial arts in many ways But I also think it also damages the integrity of what the arts stand for And again a lot of gray area in that So first let's talk about what is the belt like what it actually is It is a tool of measurement to see where you're in your curriculum It is also a marker of the time you've put into an art and also it's just a mile sown in your training It's basically a check off the to-do list or the checklist of your training. That's all it is It's a measurement. It's a category what it is not it is not a measure of your skill It is not a measure of your superiority or make you a better person than anybody else And that's where a lot of conflict comes from is that some people look at the belt and you put it on and they automatically feel They're better than everyone else or they can fight better than everyone else And there's a lot of stigma out there. It's like, oh, you're a third degree black But we should be able to beat that guy up. No problem. There's too much competition with that Bottom line if you want to compare your fighting skills with someone else spar or compete It's that's that's a kind of a different topic black belt encompasses so much more. There's mental aspects There's psychological aspects. There's physical aspects. Yes, you should be able to fight If you're wearing the belt, you should be able to match the physical demands that come with it But there's also teaching and there's understanding and there's academic and there's psychological There's so much to it. So it's not just I'm a better fighter than you. It should encompass everything together Okay, first, let's ask why do why do I like the belt? Why do I think it's actually added to the martial arts? One is great for organization. I mean the whole belt system is designed to Break the curriculum up into digestible pieces so a person can see where things are So you've got your beginner levels your middle intermediate levels and your advanced level So the belt system I think is great for breaking it up the pieces like that It's kind of like in college semesters or grades in the class, you know your second grade third grade It's broken up in difficulty and it gets more advanced as you increase. I also think it's great psychologically Whether you it's you subscribe to this or not a lot of people need to see progress and it's you know Everyone thinks differently especially children. They like to see progress or they get bored or they lose focus It gives them something to focus on not necessarily place the importance on the belt itself But the material and the meaning that comes with it So as a measuring tool I think it adds to that and that's why like when we work with the kids in our kids classes before We had a few individuals that they were young because we know we accepted kids You know four years old sometimes but to be quite honest You're not going to teach a four-year-old self-defense techniques that they're going to climb the ladder the same way as anyone else at least not older children and the thing though is You know if you have like someone who's like in second grade, you know, they get to wipe out level a few months You know they can learn the material and move on to the yellow belt and we work their way up a young child Can't always do that and in three months. They're not gonna be ready for the yellow belt But what do you think that child's attention is gonna be like if you keep them at that rank for a year? So some schools and what we did was for the kids that weren't quite ready yet We would give them the intermediate like a wipe out with a yellow stripe or start putting like the tape on it Little things just so they can say hey, I achieved something and I know a lot of you got there going oh, it shouldn't matter We understand that but a four-year-old doesn't and I'll tell you right now There's a big difference in the four-year-old when they got that stripe or they got that belt They went oh, I earned something we saw a change we saw a difference and after a couple of stripes they got a little bit older than they were ready for the next junior level and Just showing a kid progress that that feeling of accomplishment. It does add something so in that aspect I think the ranking system is great because it's a teaching tool Okay, why I don't like the belt Mainly because it becomes the focus It's just a piece of cloth. It should not be your goal It should not be your focus when you are training and working hard Your mental image should not be because you get to wear the belt It should be about what you're achieving and people get way too competitive with this I mean to the point where I think it's unhealthy and compulsive. It's like yes, it's a milestone. Yes It's an achievement. Yes, you should have to work hard for it But the belt itself should not be the goal. It's supposed to represent a better version of yourself Also, I don't like it when it's used as a marketing tool and unfortunately, especially in America. It is a lot There's we all know about the McDowell Joe's and schools that are belt factories people sell the idea of the belt There's online training programs where there's been programs where you can pay them You get your all your disc set and the belt just comes with it It's like oh watch all this and you got your belt It becomes a selling point and I think that really diminishes what it's supposed to be and what's supposed to teach and unfortunately That's rampant and I think that's a negative aspect of it And I think that's one of the things that damages the integrity of the martial arts in American Kempo Traditionally when when we award a belt or at least in some schools when you're awarding a belt any rank to a student Especially the children. We have them sit in the ground. They take off their old belt They put it in front of them and they take the new belt and they form the leather L And we tell them the letter L stands for a lot of things first of all stands for love Love for yourself for your family for your school learn to love people to have the hate It also stands for a loyalty you develop a loyalty to your friends and your family a loyalty to your school You build relationships, so you don't divide you try to unite It also stands for longevity through martial arts You want to be stronger healthier live longer and also if need be defend yourself So you want to extend your lifespan It also stands for a lie that if for whatever reason you feel like you have not earned this belt It would be a lie to put it on and finally the final L stands for lots and lots and lots Just because it doesn't matter how long you've trained how many belts you've earned what you've achieved There's always a lot to learn so I always love that symbology of the L And I try to live by that and we try to impart that on to our students and and going forward because also It's also helping them stand that once you achieve the black belt. That's not the end That's not the end of your training. It's actually really just beginning of your real training I like to look at Martial arts and like the bell rings. It's kind of like school system You've got your q-levels your lower belt rings white yellow orange purple blue whatever the color scheme is those are your grades first grade Second grade third grade fourth grade you work way up through grade school. Then you graduate That's your black belt that the black belt the first three black belt is your high school diploma It means you've been through all the basics you've been through the regimen you've seen the curriculum You understand how it works now the real degree begins now the real training begins And then you spend more time working on getting your second degree third degree fourth degree And that's your different levels of college courses your different masters your doctors all the way up And also in the case of most starts to the curriculum only goes so far So most karate systems there are exceptions, but most will go up to tenth degree But that doesn't mean there's material and curriculum that goes up to tenth degree Usually it can go up to second third fourth fifth depends on the art But at that point any degrees after that are usually honorary and campus the same way too It our curriculum has gone through a few different versions So it depends on if you're on the original at Parker manual or the second and third The material might go up the first degree or it might end at third the particular one I the curriculum I worked on went up to fifth degree so after that it's all honorary So just because there's curriculum doesn't mean that that's what's going to take you all the way to the top There's still a level of contribution back into it So now also speaking honestly too is we already talked about how I don't think the belt itself really means anything other Than it's a piece of cloth But what you achieved that doesn't mean others are going to look at you the same way When you achieve your black belt when you accept that black belt and you wear it You will have the expectations and people are going to put that authority on you and you are expected to follow that You're expected to fulfill that whether you agree with it or not You will be treated differently and you will be expected to know the material You will be expected to know how to fight You're going to find yourself being held up to a lot of different pedestals or a lot of different comparisons and that comes with the territory and Handling that to me is also part of accepting the rank that you need to be mature enough to understand that It's also important to keep up with it If you if this was just a hobby something you did and you got your belly like okay I've done that moving on to the next sport or whatever whatever that's that's that's up to you That's that's one thing and that's fine, but there are people who are lifelong martial artists When you achieve that rank you're expected to also stay at that level and that's easier said than done Like you you walk out as they say you get your third degree black belt And you take a year off because you've got to deal with a family issue Or you have to travel for it and you come back and you forgot your cottage You forgot maybe oh, you're kind of fuzzy on this material here You can still spar but you don't have the endurance you had you know a year ago You walk in those doors people are still going to hold you that third degree status So you have to accept that you're going to be accepted to keep up with it And the worst feeling is when you do get rusty coming back Your those like expectations are still there And sometimes you feel like you're not the rank that you're wearing so you have to Mentally accept that understand that and get yourself back to that level again. It's fine. It happens. Everyone goes through this at some period in their life Just push through it and get back to where you were when is it appropriate to wear? Okay, you've spent all this time you've worked hard you've earned the belt Where is it appropriate to wear? Obviously your own school not a problem sister schools usually just you know, there's usually the same curriculum You can wear it there If you are a guest instructor or if you're invited to another school as a teacher or guest or seminar role No problem wearing it there Generally speaking though if you're going to go take another art If you're going to go visit another school as a student that you have not trained in I would recommend out of at least respect wearing your white belt or offering to wear the white belt Sometimes the instructor will let you wear your current rank But just out of respect if you go to a completely different art you've never trained in put on a white belt It's just courteous and also to If you don't And you go to another art Sometimes you're a target if you're walking with a black belt Brazilian jiu-jitsu especially if you walk into Brazilian jiu-jitsu school And you're not a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and you're wearing that belt And you haven't grappled before you're getting torn up All right. Now the other side of this coin When you don't get the belt, maybe you tested and you expected to get it and it didn't happen There's a lot of legitimate reasons why you might not have gotten it Perhaps you need more work or maybe something wasn't as sharp as it should have been Or maybe you didn't put in enough time or you weren't in school long enough Or you didn't have your attendance is low and you weren't quite the level you should have been or You don't have the endurance to keep up with the class or sometimes Some schools will fail you as a test of will to see how you'll react if you react poorly Okay, well, then you definitely didn't pass but sometimes if you accept it gracefully you get to test again soon a lot of different reasons But whatever it happens is when you don't get it How do you handle that? Do you get mad you get depressed or do you get determined to push forward and try again? And honestly, if you can't figure out why if you don't understand it It doesn't hurt to talk to instructor again depending on the art Sometimes the older traditional schools you don't question it But in a lot a lot of schools if you have an open dialogue with the instructor Perhaps talk to them. Maybe they can give you insight that you weren't aware of And honestly sometimes it really isn't fair sometimes you did earn the belt But you didn't get it and I do have unfortunately a couple of personal examples of this that I've witnessed My first instructor, which I'm just gonna call mr. R. I worked for him for a couple of years teaching and He wasn't the person I thought he was when on the floor And there were students he didn't like and he kind of had it out for them And I was sitting on one of his blackboard boards for one of the kids This is a kids class student getting their junior black belt there like 12 13 Was for the junior black belt and there's one kid in particular He didn't like this kid did his material. He did his techniques. He did the stuff He had his requirements, but he was nervous and when he was nervous He was the type of kid who kind of grinned and laughed and he got nervous Well, my instructor's like, oh, he's he gets you think it's funny You think it's funny He kind of targeted in the whole class at the very end when they were lined up at the end of the room When he's walking and giving each kid their belt. He walked up to his one kid. He goes now He goes you weren't serious enough. You're not gonna get your belt Crush this child the kid actually just broke down running Mother came storming in they had a big fight kid left the school and never saw him again And I felt horrible because I'm like He earned it like he did just as much work. He was just as good as the other kids My instructor didn't like him. It was a personal thing and I thought that was very unfortunate Sometimes it isn't fair. Also. Sometimes it's a business reason And unfortunately same instructor We had an assistant instructor who was at their probationary black belt They were just under black belt first degree brown depends on what ring can you go by And he taught and he worked and he's like he was ready for his plot He was ready. Trust me. He could fight He was fast and he taught all the classes the main instructor sat in the back office at this point My instructor was this was several actually a couple decades ago He wasn't paying more than minimum wage and when the assistant instructor asked him for a raise My instructor goes, okay. Well, you'll get your raise and you get your black belt That was always his answer for getting the raise When you get your black belt, but he kept pushing out the black belt test when he got to the point We realized all right. He just doesn't want to pay him and I kind of experienced the same thing with him when I taught from later So yes, there are legitimate reasons sometimes why an instructor won't test you There's also others who maybe can't you know, not every school I didn't know what my instructor's rank was when I first started. I was 14 I didn't even really understand the concept of first second third dan and all that I don't even really know what he was. He just wore a plain black belt and sometimes when you get your black belt They might not be able to promote you further There's certain requirements and sometimes they don't want you the same rank as them and This could be a lot of personal reasons. So unfortunately sometimes it really isn't fair Sometimes instructors do it on purpose and if you're in a situation like that You've got to really come to terms with do I want to be at the school or not? When should you question if you should test or not? Well, ask yourself are you ready? Do you feel ready? Are you trying to cram in a bunch of training just to rush it because the test is in june and it's now May like I only got a month and you're trying to speed through the material If that's what you're doing then you might want to question that and perhaps push off to the next test Because you're doing yourself a great disservice if that's how you're going about it We did have a student that was kind of awkward Years ago it was actually for my second degree test and we had a few of us testing He heard there was having a black belt test and he did that he was that last month He was trying to cram He was trying to review five belt levels that he was rushing on and learned two more in this month period of time And he was pushing he was pushing he was coming to private classes And when we were working out together, it was very very apparent that he didn't know at all He was rusty. He would stop he would freeze and it was getting kind of awkward because we could all feel the tension in the room Thankfully, he's actually stopped. He goes. You know what? He goes. I'm not ready. I'm sorry, sir I'm gonna I'm gonna back out and my instructor's answer was I'm so glad you did that because I was about to tell you you can't test Don't force it again. It's just a belt. It's just a piece of fabric It doesn't mean anything if you try to force it So if you're not ready wait for the next test and spend that time getting better You'll be at a higher more elevated level than you are now So don't do yourself with the service by trying to force it if it's not time yet Now when it comes to actually testing and earning your black belt I believe that there are two sets of expectations. You're supposed to meet your instructors and your own Just because an instructor feels that you've earned it doesn't mean you do or vice versa Um, I actually have a story to this actually would this break right now my fifth degree black belt Our curriculum was kind of all over the place. My instructor liked to change Curriculum's and he changed material. We went through so many different versions of chempo Every day was almost a different day Which I love because it made us think it made us digest the material and break it down and do combinations It was great But I did have a talk with him and I said I told him what I wanted to achieve for my fifth degree Or when I got each degree we talked about what I wanted to learn. I wanted to learn the whole material of the curriculum I wanted to go through it traditionally while still breaking down what we did in class And understand it and he agreed and he would actually teach me with private lessons and actually help me with the stuff I wanted to learn And when I got to the fifth degree, this is where the curriculum ended and I said look I really want to finish this out. It wasn't what we were necessarily doing in class I wanted to finish what we did in class But finish out the traditional material just so I could be through it and know I at least did it and then I could apply it to our other training And he you know, he videotaped him doing all the moves and he gave me lots of manuals So he gave me the material to work with and I was just working with it Well, he came time to He was actually closing the school when he was moving out of state and he came up to me. He goes look He goes you've earned it. He goes you've done all our stuff in class. He does you you've met all the requirements I've been through his curriculum and he promoted me to fifth degree black belt This at the time I was conflicted because I had not yet accomplished what I wanted I had a certain amount of things I wanted to do before I got the rank But at the same time I had met his requirements and I didn't want to insult him because I had done what he asked and by his by his Standards I had met it. So I actually I accepted the rank I thanked him and then I spent six months on my own Training and learning the stuff that I wanted to learn before I even wore this for the first time Because I wanted to know that I'd been at least been through it And I back to the L's if I put that belt on at that time, it would have been a lie And I wasn't going to wear it if I didn't feel I had achieved my own expectations Yes, I met his but I still had my own so If you don't feel like you've earned it or if you've got something Something in the pit of your stomach like I want to do this first. There's no harm in meeting your own expectations Again, it's supposed to be a symbol of achievement not just a piece of cloth You have to feel good with the decision and your instructor has to go to the decision. It's an achievement Okay, now if you're trying to compare yourself to others by measuring rank You can drive yourself mad with that and it really does no good except All it does is build presentment a lot of people think that if you got your black belt You have to be the best fighter in the world other people think like no well the martial arts are more than just fighting There's a whole other aspect to it. You want to be intelligent You want to have critical thinking skills. You want to be observant You want to have better concentration better health along with fighting the self-defense. There's a whole Whole gamut that encompasses that so it's not just for fighting. It's a whole art There's a whole building a better you but in that perspective in that context. What does that mean? For example, we had someone in class when I was a teenager He was the same rank as us. He started with us. We were 14 15 16 at the time And he was climbing the ranks with us But he wasn't quite moving the same like the effort wasn't there and he wouldn't really talk and we're just like Why is he ranking? Why is he ranking? We find out later? He was actually autistic and that brings in an interesting question It's like Okay, the arts were helping they were helping him. He was getting better. He was becoming a better version of himself He was becoming a little bit more outgoing. His grades were getting better in school. He was getting more attentive He still had a lot of challenges, but then you have to ask that stigma with that black belt Do you hold him at the same level as someone who's it goes to become a cage fighter? Where's your definition is the black belt nothing to you but fighting ability? Or is it becoming a better you and it's it's not an easy subject I actually kind of would like to see what you guys think. This is a good topic for discussion because Not quite sure, you know, we're a hundred percent where we should stand here because someone with special needs They can meet all the goals They can I mean the martial arts help them and if they put in the time they put in dedication And they get better and they become a better version of themselves and they can function better in life Have they not earned it? Does that mean that they have to go and fight someone is someone in the wheelchair who earns their black belt But they've developed health and they're living longer and happier now because of it. Are they expected to go fight in a cage? How are you measuring that? What does that belt mean to you? Either either the belt is something or or the personal achievement is and that's something I really would like to hear from you guys if we can keep it civil is Where should we stand on that? Like how do we measure this because You know when it comes to comparing ranks someone can say they've got five years in an art Well, what does that mean? Does that mean they went every day for five years or do they go once a week or once a month? I mean You can't necessarily tell by just oh, I've done this for x amount of years Someone who's done it for five years, but when once a week are they going to be as good as someone who did it for One year went five times a week Again, it's that's a hard tool to measure And that's just where the fallacy of that belt comes in where people put this thing where they put this expectation On the rank and the focus becomes the rank and not what that person has achieved So that's where I think the black belt is a curse to the martial arts because it puts in these false expectations and this false sense of measurement That I think poisons and becomes toxic as opposed to trying to become an encouragement and a tool to learn from So basically the rap is all up. It's all about perspective. What is your goal when it comes to your training? If the belt itself is a goal Honestly, your goals might be a little bit misaligned. You might want to reevaluate that It's just a piece of fabric who cares what color it is You put the meaning in the belt, not the other way around So thank you guys so much for watching as always, please like subscribe share and I want to hear from everybody Tell me your stories. I want to know about your test experience. What goals do you have? What does the rank mean to you or or do you not even care about it? I'm interested in it all also for those of you who have supported our channel through patreon I will be releasing very shortly a video about going into my testing and what my tests were like And I'll show footage as to open the discussion and to thank you guys so much for being a part of this channel So thank you everybody and we'll see you next week