I'm curious on your thoughts about Black Belt? "A black belt doesn't mean a mastery of martial arts."?

I'm afraid you too have not understood what a black belt means. The greater part of martial art training is the mental aspect. No amount of technical mastery is going to help you when your mind is not tough enough and you lack the understanding of why things are done the way they are. Monkey see and monkey do does not prove mastery. Even your own words that beyond Shodan means to be "faster, stronger, and more lethal" illustrates that you do not understand.

Very few children have a true understanding of what is real fighting or real life for that matter. In our western society, children are sheltered and pampered to the point that life and death is just some abstract little understood words that adults uses. While some children can mouth and repeat what adults tell them, the truth is they do not really understand the words they repeat - they are simply imitating or parroting their elders.

And this applies to children in martial art. I'm willing to accept that there are exceptions, but the exception does not prove the rule. And a black belt does not mean mastery because no rank or status symbol ever means mastery.

I often find myself ping-ponging on the subject of awarding children black belts. It's ubiquitous these days, it's pointless to argue the merits anyway. Nevertheless, a black belt is nothing more than a white belt who never quit. I don't see 1st dan as a master, but the problem is that is how it is conveyed - even if overt:

You give a kid a white belt, he'll look at the next belt (eg, Yellow), and think that's the next goal. And so it is with all the colors - including black. Now he's a black belt, and there are no more colors. To an adult, we sort of "get it". But a child? This is one reason a child shouldn't have one: they don't understand what is really meant. And here he is thinking there's no more belts to earn, and so, why keep training?

Now look at the concept of "martial arts". Is it self-defense? Or sport? Or recreation? Each is just as ubiquitous, too, these days. Places like Taekwondo schools, who are hard-core Olympic competitors and have no clue (or care) about self-defense - only that trophy. Here, it makes perfect sense to have children black belts: they will be grouped by age and rank. If you never gave a kid a black belt, the assumption would be they're not as experienced, and so, they compete with the next lower category (eg, Brown belt), and then the Brown belt category becomes the new "black belt" - except for the new brown belts who can't hold a candle to those who would otherwise be a black belt. And so it goes with each lower belt. And that's not fair.

So the solution is to make a child a black belt, and then group by that age. Then, organizers can assume all black belts are experienced - and not likely to hold more than a couple of years at that rank, so, no need to worry about 2nd, 3rd, etc dan.

When a child grows into a teen - still with his black belt - he'll have an edge over other competitors, given his longer years of practice. And then when that teen becomes an adult, he can compete with the big boys - and still retain his experience.

But that is sport, and it makes perfect sense. In a way, those recreational places it's the same, except there's really no need to have any belt system at all, other than to grab for money.

Self-defense schools, it's another matter. No competition, but, you still can't teach a young child the same techniques as an adult, nor should you teach them how to attack so that his partner can defend - that's just a recipe for disaster in the school systems.

So when it comes to sports and self-defense I think sports is okay, self-defense is not.

The reason I teeter on the subject is because in the sport schools, kids think what they've learned is adequate self-defense. Depending on the sport they've learned, this could be disasterous: a typical taekwondo black belt knows little about anything other than kicking, and zilch about falling and getting up - to say nothing of his grappling skills or knowledge of self-defense law. A kid who gets a black belt in MMA "(yeah, there are MMA schools that give out black belts!) could be much more well-rounded, and may not have the full gamut of skills, but they'll at least have grappling and falling skills. While they won't have weapons, multiple opponents, or law skills, this should be fine for the situations they're likely to encounter as a child. Until they get older and more independent.

So here, the instruction makes a huge difference: some schools, black belt kids can make sense, while in others it does not. There are some schools that teach hard-core niche fighting (eg, Taekwondo), and also teach real self-defense skills. Such schools are advertised as, for example, "Taekwondo" - and a lay person wouldn't know the difference.

Black belts are a status people get for hanging around a martial arts gym for a while and paying a bunch of money. I've seen 12 year olds with black belts who would get beaten up in any real fight because they haven't had the training or maturity to really know what the h*ll they're doing.

What is taught to adults and what is taught to children are not the same. The requirements for rank is not the same. Okinawan and Japanese martial arts were not created with children in mind. It was for adults. No child had the responsibility to protect the family. Training children became popular later after more wide spread knowledge of people kidnapping children and women being kidnapped or sexually assaulted was being talked about more in the media. Then women and children were encouraged to learns some sort of self defense. Later many schools could no longer keep the doors open unless they offered classes to children. This spread and then more watered down martial arts became popular and more sports karate, etc were birthed and became popular to teach.

The average child would not be able to take on a adult if attacked. Also there is an age requirement traditionally for one to meet the requirement to even test for a black belt. Most places it was from the age of 18 to 21 to even be eligible. In few others the minimum age is 16 but that was for an exception student. The average was still between 18-21 before they would be tested.

We often say that your training begins after earning a black belt. But most today believe that is the end of your training or that their training is complete.

We know that most schools that have young black belt are mcdojo. I've seen 8 year old with black belts. They don;t even have the fine or gross motor skills to do many of the techniques that are supposed to be taught to earn a black belt. They were sloppy and would not even have been promoted to the first colored belt in our dojo.

It is common in TKD that student are children with black belts. I don't put them down for doing this. Often in those places they are not teaching or developing life preservation skills. They are teaching their students a competitive art. That might be acceptable for that type of training.

Belts are only useful for holding up your pants. I've seen 3rd degree black belts totally ripped apart by amateur boxers and freestyle wrestlers. Unfortunately, with a lot of schools, the more belt ranks they have the more money they make when you "test" for them. You're paying up to 100 bucks in some schools for a piece of colored cloth or a strip of tape to wrap around it. Brazilian Juijutsu has belt ranks but you don't advance in rank until your teacher believes that you are ready to; unlike a lot of martial arts schools there is no "set time" between belt ranks (BJJ can take up to 10 or more years to reach black belt depending on how dedicated your training and effort is). In BJJ you're either ready to advance or you're not. Any school that "guarantees a black belt in a set amount of time (usually in about 2 or so years) should raise a red flag. My Tang Soo Do instructor was known for double promoting students.

When you defend children black belts, this is what you're defending:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wLEGhHCNBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNeAGgiQELs

If that meets your standard for what a black belt should look like, then let's just give everyone a black belt.

The best martial artist I know, who isn't one of my head instructors, got his black belt at 15 after about 9 years of training. To the contrary, I also know students who are currently about that age and have trained for about the same amount of time, but they are still several years away from being both physically and emotionally ready to be a black belt. So I don't believe there is a universal age at which someone should be able to test for and earn a black belt, just because they've been training for a "long time."

For as often as people say that earning black belt is just "understanding the basics," there is little agreeance on what that actually means. At this stage should someone just be able to go through the motions? Or should they be able to demonstrate all techniques with power, control, and full knowledge and understanding, without the need to sneak a peek at what the person next to them is doing? My dojo requires the latter. And although it means we don't have a lot of black belts, it also means that our upper belts could hold their own against black belts from schools with lesser standards. Ultimately it's your choice to make: Is the color of your belt more important, or is your actual knowledge and skill level more important?

You are correct about a black belt.

As for kids having black belts, personally I really have no issues with that. Every teacher who issues a black belt has to stand behind that student (adult or kid) and the decision he made to issue the black belt. I really do not make other people's decision my problem if it does not directly affect me. I do not feel threatened by a kid wearing a black belt and I think I am mature enough to know what it means a kid wearing a black belt and an adult wearing a black belt. Sometimes there is little difference. It really isn't my problem.

My school has fairly high standards and it has been my experience that no really young kid has ever met the standards for black belt. They simply struggle with so many other issues as well and growing up is not easy and there is much to learn in life. Learning basic life lessons of being a decent human being too is part of being a black belt. By the time they do get the mental and physical capacity to earn a black belt they usually have trained a few years and by that time are about 15 or 16 years old. It seems to be a natural process and I am very comfortable with that. On the same hand I do not have issues with other schools issuing black belts to kids either. They simply have different standards and if you apply the standards of the general society of what to expect from kids which is very little nowadays then it is easy to issue a black belt to kids. I personally have more faith in kids and give them much more credit than your average teacher in school so I expect more and surprise, kids deliver and can do it if given the chance to prove themselves. But nothing expected, nothing delivered. People are naturally lazy and tend to sink to the lowest denominator if not motivated.

A black belt is someone with dependable enough transportation, an open enough of a schedule and enough money to go consistantly to work. I mean, train. Without missing too much for a multi year period of time.

I bet I would suck just as bad if I never moved and eventually got my black belt. But I bet if I was trained correctly like when I eventually took Krav Maga. I would have been way better off. If I took Krav Maga since I started and got a black belt in that. I would have never gotten jumped so often growing up though. For sure.

To me, a rank of shodan is supposed to mean a serious student, well versed in the basics, and ready for more advanced training. It certainly doesn't mean 'master' is any realistic way. The "master" ranks are 5th dan and above, and I find I question the "master" part of that too.

There are very few these days who I would label a "master", and those individuals consider themselves students. Any martial art is too deep and complicated to 'master' in one life time.

Just my take on martial art masters. I have been called such, and I shut that down the moment I hear it.

There is or was an old saying in TMA many years ago before the martial arts boom of the 70s started. Back then I was just a fledgling martial artist with on several years under my belt. It was often said back then that "a black belt meant that you had mastered the basics and that was all". There is a lot of truth to that because that also meant that your first black belt in some martial art was really just the beginning of your training in it.