Marine Corps Martial Arts Program
In my attempts to change the perception of karate from an old impractical form of fighting to a useful system combatives I often look to MCMAP to see how they train and what makes them more respected in the world of fighting. Some of the big things they do differently are more conditioning, more practical application, and fewer belts. The one I want to talk about today however is the difference between rank and years in training.
Belts Represent Knowledge
A trend that I think karate instructors should work to move away from is the practice of promoting students every so many months regardless of how much more they have learned. It is important to recognize how long a student has been studying karate (combatives), but belts are there to recognize how much of the curriculum you know. In my personal system of teaching, by 3rd Dan you should know everything I have to offer. A brown belt will not only not perform kata as well as a 3rd Dan, but they will also know less kata. That is why there is a different colored belt.
How Do We Reward Years in Training
As I mentioned, it is important that you reward students for their years in training. From a marketing stand point, if students are being rewarded for being a student for a year, it is an incentive to work towards being a student for two years. Kind of a like a rewards club. Looking at this from a karate perceptive and ignoring the business aspect, if new students can see who has been in longer regardless of rank, it helps them learn about the people in the class.
I am friends with a lady who started years before me, but I am now higher rank. If you wanted to learn things that we used to teach or hear stories about how class used to be run, she is the one to talk to – not me. It has nothing to do with rank or breadth of knowledge, she has just been around longer than me.
How to Implement This
Tossing out a couple ideas here:
In MCMAP, marines have special stripes for their dress uniform (kinda like a nice gi or a tournament gi) that show how many years they have been in the service. Their knowledge of combatives is tied to their colored belts.
When I played football as a kid, we had circle stickers for our helmet to represent achievements like sacks, fumble recoveries, and interceptions. It was to show how much impact you had on the team even if you were in a less popular position like left end instead of the quarterback. Karate students could have smaller patches for the back of their gi for participation in tournaments (one per tournament), for each year they were a student, for each demo they participated in, etc. I know this sounds kind of like the boy scouts, but I think some schools would enjoy this.
Another option is to have one patch on the shoulder that would have a number to display how many years the student had been learning karate. These patches would have a color scheme matching the school’s colors and a simple large print number in the center.
My final idea involves using colored gis to represent how long a student has been learning karate. All students start with a color of the schools choosing. I will use white for my example (but blue or black or anything is ok). All students are supposed to have white gis. After being a student for a year, you are allowed to wear blue, or white, or a combination of the two. Students can show off the colors they have earned, but don’t have to. Upon reaching two years of training you can wear black, blue, or white and any combination of the three.
Instructor Status
Last thing I want to mention is that I think there is a difference between knowing the curriculum and being qualified to teach it. I will save this for a later post though. Do you think that rank and years in training should be linked together? What is your favorite method of highlighting a student’s years in training? Do you have your own method?
I like your idea of rewarding students and making it easier for other students to see each others’ experience levels, and I think that a student’s time training is relevant IF their commitment and learning has been consistent. Someone who trains once a week for a year is not going to have achieved the same level of skill and understanding as someone who trains 3 times a week for a year, and that person will not have achieved the same level of skill and understanding as someone who trains 5 times a week for a year. I almost feel as though class hours would be more relevant than time spans–perhaps achievement recognition for 500 hours (which would be about equivalent to three 1-hour classes a week for a year), 1,000 hours (2 years at the same rate), 2,000 hours (4 years), 5,000 hours (10 years), etc. Even with that, though, some people do more practice and study outside of class that can’t really be confirmed other than by observation, and that would be where the belt system comes in, making it a separate recognition and goal-setting system from the time recognition system. It is certainly an interesting idea to toy with.
It was really funny, as I read your comment I would reply in my head…and then it would be the next thing you said. Happened twice. I think you were onto something when you said it should be class hours instead of years. Take everything I wrote about one year and replace it with 150ish hours of training and it should still all make sense. Thanks for the ideas Noah.
Well, I definitely agree that no instructor should promote any student based on time in rank… and once you break the perception that rank isn’t about how long someone has been doing training, the time in training I don’t think really makes a difference. When we line up at the beginning and end of class we line up in order of rank, because that represents the level of knowledge (which should translate to level of skill). I don’t know why, but the idea of rewarding anybody for how long the have trained rubs me the wrong way.
How about this question, what do you do with someone that meets the requirements, they know the katas well and have passable technique but they can’t fight their way out a wet paper bag… do you promote them (obviously I am talking about higher ranks…. we don’t expect the lower ranks to be able to fight well)?
I think the amount of reward I was suggesting might not have been clear. I agree that knowledge of the curriculum and ability to apply the knowledge are more important than time in training. How many schools do you know of that line up in order of rank, but then when people are the same rank, they line up in order of promotion date? I think what I am suggesting is “recognizing” people for training rather than “rewarding” them. Everyone knows up front that anything they get for time in training is automatic. I do agree though that rewarding people for how long they trained rather than what they know would rub me the wrong way too – which is why I am trying to make it harder for instructors to fall back into that trap. Does that make sense?
As for your scenario, I wouldn’t. I think a lot of instructors would because they feel the need to promote people (I have had that urge too). As instructors, we want our students to be promoted because it means we are teaching them and they are learning – almost patting ourselves on the back. I require my students to spar from day one. I think my lower ranking students should be able to fight. I think my higher ranking students should be better at it and have more techniques.
Tnx for this post. Liked the idea of “years stripes” and seems worth to think about. Hours counting IMO could be to complicated. Instead “years stripes” in combination with colored belts quit obviously could show how hard/often one sweats.
Something I did for our forum was a system where once you get your black belt (establishing you know the system/basics or are familiar with the forum in our case) then you earn red stripes for participation/years of practice and gold stripes on the opposite side of your belt to symbolize teaching proficiency. This is particularly useful for a common problem of having 15 year olds that know the material and have put in the time to study, but aren’t ready/capable of teaching it themselves.
Very glad you found this useful and thank you for leaving a comment.