The
purpose of this article is to clarify the North County
Martial Arts Academy (NCMAA) and Master Na’s Black Belt
Academy’s position on belt promotion. We understand there
is some confusion as to the testing process, namely, how
students are determined to be ready to promote to the next
level. In addition, it has come to our attention that some
individuals and families are in conflict as to the “value”
of their/students rank, if testing requirements are deemed
to be “too easy”, and if so, whether this somehow lessens
or “cheapens” the accomplishments of the student.
I wish to take this opportunity to address these concerns,
to share my thoughts on this process and to hopefully put
the belt promotion process in its proper perspective in
relation to the NCMAA goals and objectives. I want everyone
to understand that much thought has gone into the belt
promotion process. In addition there has been much
discussion between myself and Grandmaster Na and amongst
other masters and instructors within our system in regards
to this matter. I have over 20 years of martial arts
experience and have done extensive research regarding
martial arts history and philosophy. The 8 full and
part-time instructors at NCMAA have over 130 years of
experience in martial arts. Within the broader system of
Master Na’s Academy’s there are several hundred years of
martial arts experience. What I hope to present is our
collaborative view of where we stand as a martial arts
system, our vision for our students, and why we have our
system and belt promotion process set up the way we do.
The belt promotion process is and has always been an
arbitrary system of rewarding progress through setting
artificial benchmarks to help students maintain motivation
on their road to black belt. Different systems and schools
have the autonomy to set these requirements differently.
How these “standards” are set usually is related to the
vision of the academy in which a student is a member. On
one end of the spectrum you may have school “A” which sets
the requirements so high that only the best students, with
extreme levels of perseverance, motivation and athletic
ability can ever hope to ever attain their black belt.
Classes are geared to the ability of the most athletic
students and students with lesser athletic ability struggle
to keep up in class. What ends up happening in this type of
system, is most students become very frustrated and drop
out. On the other end of the spectrum you may have school
“B”, with “testing periods” every 4 weeks, everyone tests
and passes, and the instructors do not appear to do much to
fine-tune the skills of the students. The curriculum is
geared toward the least skilled person in the class. The
intensity level of workouts are kept at a low level.
If you took a closer look at what motivates these schools
to adapt these approaches you would likely get a pretty
good glimpse of what these schools are about.
School “A” may take the approach they do for any number of
reasons.
One reason, though quite rare, may be that the academy is
run as a club with absolutely no dependence on financial
income. They are only interested in turning out a high
level student. We can give such a school the benefit of
doubt and believe their motivation is strictly altruistic,
that they are somehow remaining “true to the art” and are
hoping that they can hopefully retain enough students to
keep the art alive in its most traditional sense.
Another reason may be that they are geared strictly for
sport competition. It is likely they will do well in
competition, especially since at most tournaments they will
be matched with students of the same rank, regardless of
the fact they may have been sitting on their rank for a
long time and are matched with a student who has half the
level of experience that they do, because their opponent
has been promoting every 10 weeks instead of every 6 to 9
months. This school will retain the only most athletic
student. Such schools usually need to be located in
localities with a very large population or charge
exorbitant fees for their services.
In some cases it may be that turning out only a few highly
athletic, competition minded students and winning a lot of
medals for the school is a means to satisfy the ego needs
of the instructor or school owner.
The owner of School “B” may be afraid to lose students if
the physical demands in classes are too difficult. In
addition it takes a lot of time to pay close attention to
students’ progress and work on the details of their
technique. If the primary motivation of a school is
financial gain then it is difficult to provide enough time
to any individual student to improve their technique much.
Our objectives at NCMAA are multi-faceted. Our priorities
can be listed in descending order as follows, number 1
being our main objective and 5 being a priority though less
of a priority than number one:
1> LIFE
SKILLS: Our top priority is to assist families in
developing disciplined, respectful, confident, successful
students with high levels of healthy self-esteem. . That is
why we discuss life skills in our classes and require
students to improve grades and bring report cards from
school and home to their belt promotion. It is also why we
view the journey to black belt as a personal journey of
progress and fulfillment for each participant. With this
objective in mind, students are not compared with each
other and the top priority is not given to meeting a
particular athletic endeavor standard. Rather it is
personal improvement that matters more in meeting our goals
and objectives. Our top priority on the physical level is
for students to practice the ART of Tae Kwon Do and the
goal of each student is to improve themselves and not to
compare their skills with other participants. Though
students are judged in terms of the quality of their
technique, it is more of a means of helping them to improve
their skills technique rather than to “fail” them for being
unable to match the athletic standards of other students.
2>
The ART of Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido: We believe that each
participant through practicing the art of Tae Kwon Do and
Hapkido will develop a stronger sense of self, be more
focused and attentive in school, and become more successful
in life. The goal of each student is to improve their
technique and artistic expression on their personal journey
to black belt and mastery of the martial arts.
3>
FITNESS: Provide our students with the means to be
physically fit and healthy. Our classes, especially with
intermediate and advanced students, are highly aerobic and
designed to produce students who are highly conditioned. We
spend a lot of time developing conditioning, strength and
flexibility.
4> SELF
DEFENSE: The world we live in can be unjust and dangerous.
We hope that our students will stay with us for a minimum
of 3 to 5 years. A student who has trained with us for that
length of time will gain awareness to improve their ability
to avoid dangerous situations. If such an encounter cannot
be avoided, then their skills will greatly increase their
chances of surviving a criminal assault, or physical
attack.
5> SPORT
COMPETITION and ATHLETIC ABILITY: Though it is not the top
priority of our academy as a whole, we provide the means
for our athletic, competition-minded students to be
successful at tournaments. We currently have an opportunity
for black belt club students (students who have made a
long-term commitment to earning their black belt) to attend
sparring class 2 to 3 times weekly. BBC students must gain
sparring skills to attain the rank of red belt level and
beyond.
If we were to make the comparison to completing the public
school system, then a black belt at our academy is like
earning a high school diploma. In any graduating high
school class there are those that make the honor roll or
even chosen to be class valedictorian, and those that
struggle to graduate. Every student who manages to complete
high school should feel proud of their achievement even if
they are not honor students. Not every student at our
academy is blessed with superior athletic prowess. It is
our opinion, that their hard work and perseverance should
be rewarded with promotion. You can be sure that every
student, even students with seemingly a lack athletic
ability, who is promoted to black belt has truly earned it
and deserves to feel proud of their accomplishment.
Our athletically gifted and competitive students who wish
to demonstrate their prowess are encouraged to compete in
tournaments. This will provide the challenge needed for
them to prevent boredom and to even further develop their
skills and sense of accomplishment. This is the appropriate
venue for comparison of skills between our students and
others.
I do appreciate the fact that our families want their
students to be the best. I have the same goal. That is why
we have such a wide variety of opportunities for our
students to develop their skills. In addition I think it is
reasonable to expect a checklist of pre-requisites and
objectives that students must fulfill before being allowed
to promote to the next level.
From this point forward students will have a checklist of
requirements they must fulfill before being allowed to
promote. In addition we will shortly be including fitness
level testing for our advanced students.
I hope this article clarifies the position of our academy
and Grandmaster Na. If you have any further concerns or
feedback please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Master Steven Burger