Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Black Belt
What does it mean to get your Black Belt? What does it mean to earn your first dan rank? In the "old" days it meant you were a serious student, so what would that look like? Did it look different 20 years ago then it does today, and if so, why? What's it mean in context of class? Any other thoughts on the topic? Just trying to get people's current point of view's on the topic.
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I'm really surprised to not see any posts on this yet.... So I'll stick my neck out first.
ReplyDeleteFor me it's kind of a mile marker. To date my progress in training has been very slow & it's been a hard commitment. On many a days I feel as if my training is limited & not going anywhere, even in reverse some days. Watching fellow students advance faster, and new students catch up can be quite hard. So for me looking forward to my black belt is a mile marker in the respect that my slow journey will show a level of accomplishment. Also a certain level of freedom. Freedom as in a flood gate opening up for my training. Up to my shodan I can't easily pick up fellow training partners due to known circumstances. I'm hoping once I achieve my shodan that my training finally starts to take off....
To say earning your first dan rank means you are a serious student, yes that's true but at the same time what does that say about everyone else that hasn't achieved that level yet? They are not serious? Of course not. To me it represents (or should represent) a certain level of proficiency and understanding of your art. It means you have an adequate understanding of the basics, enough to build up to more in-depth or complicated techniques or levels of training. It definetly shows you are a serious student, and one that has put a lot of time and effort into gaining the current level of skill in the basics.
ReplyDeleteThis is not always the case, by the time I achieved my black belt in taekwondo, I had met several higher ranks, and some black belts that had noticably less skill than I. Not that I was so great, but at that point I began questioning what that black belt means. I consider myself a serious student, but I have a very long way to go before shodan. Since I began training in the Bujinkan, I have been astonished to find how little I understand about most things. As a result I now have much more respect for someone who achieves shodan in the bujinkan than in one of the more popular martial arts.
I hate belts all the colors and the one that I hate the most is the black belt!! To pick on the mile marker thing or the black belt being some sort of marker indicating anything, to think that way is setting limits like : “I made it this far let’s see how far I can go ?” then when do you stop or when do you think you have reached your destination??? My view of martial arts is like making the decision of jumping off the ship in an endless see the more you swim the better you get at it you just need someone to show you how to swim !!! every one in the water is just a swimer no one knows how far they made it or how far they have to go some are good swimmers and some are not !!!
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