There is a difference between the grade level you hold and your actual progress in Budo knowledge and skill. Don’t let yourself assume that the belt you wear automatically equals the sum total of you martial abilities.
Most modern Karate styles have a syllabus with grade levels and coloured belts that, if plotted on a chart, would look something like this:
The syllabus outlines the general expectation and time for knowledge and skill development within that particular style .
It’s along these lines that determines an instructors decision regarding a student’s grade level.
In my opinion, problems arise when students mistakenly think grades are the same as actual development. An instructor can know the system and they can compare you to it, but they can't know you.
It needs to be understood that Grades are simply the instructors opinion of how you compare to the general outline of development within the framework of the style (and a bad instructor compares your development to the students around you). It's impossible for anyone to know every little thing that you know and all the skills you have acquired, so no one can truly know your real stage of development.
This means that grades are at best an 'educated guess', but your actual true development is absolute (and difficult for others to quantify).
From The Beginning
Misunderstanding of how grades work (compared to real development) starts from the very beginning. If we 'zoom in' on the chart shown above; I'll show how people tend to think that we start here at the white belt level.
When in reality we already had some knowledge and natural ability, so we actually started somewhere here (this of course varies depending on the individual).
As we progress through the first couple of grades, we feel we are improving at the at the required rate, when in reality the grade requirements were mostly met already by our natural ability. This means that even though we are learning and improving somewhat, it's not at the rate we assume.
The "Blue-Belt Blues"
Eventually we reach a point where the grade requirements catch up with our actual ability/knowledge level. This is where the two lines intersect:
Now, in order to continue along meeting the requirements and maintaining a certain standard, something needs to change in order to change the direction of that line. The change would need to look like this:
But remembering that we mistakenly think that we started at the very bottom of the chart. We think our development looks like this:
(No one's development looks like this)
We think that if we keep going, putting in the same time and effort, we will continue to progress as required.
Because of that initial misunderstanding, we're now in a position where we're required to change what we're doing but we have no idea that the change is required.
Many students become frustrated and even despondent. They can't work out why they were doing what was required but now suddenly they aren't progressing at the desired rate.
Many of these students realise it's not as easy as they originally thought and so some of them quit training. The student dropout rate increases at around this level.
People call this the "Blue-Belt Blues".
(There are a number of theories regarding blue-belt blues and ideas about the cause. There's most likely a few different factors that contribute to the student dropout rate at this level, but I do think this is a major cause for it.)
Once a student realises that they do need to make changes in order to keep developing to the standard required by the system, there is a number of changes that can be made.
- The first change should be obvious, more training. Both attending more classes and more training at home. It should not be underestimated how important and how beneficial training in your own time can be. Realistically you should do more training on your own than you do with others in a class.
- Another change should also be relatively obvious, put more effort in during training. It's about the effort put in physically, but also effort into focusing on the task at hand. Don't allow yourself to tune out as much (pay more attention).
- Another change is keeping a positive attitude about your development progress. It would surprise you the impact that having a negative mindset would have on your physical abilities.
- A similar change in attitude is don't compare yourself to others. If you're worried about when others do and don't grade compared to you, you'll always find reasons to find frustration.
- One more change that you can make to boost your development is seeking deeper understanding. Move beyond just the physical activity and actively seek to understand all aspects of the art form. Find the reasons why certain techniques and kata are the way they are. Never just accept what you've been told, make sure you get the point of what you're doing.
Keeping the Standard
Because of the "Blue-Belt Blues", the chances of a student wanting to give up increases.
As anyone who has been around martial arts for a while would know, the Blue-Belt Blues are just a phase that everyone goes though (sometimes more than once) and eventually we all move past it and everything is fine. It's just a small stage on the journey.
It is the responsibility of the instructor to help the student understand this and see that they need to make some kind of change (like the changes mentioned above) and also to just keep training.
Inexperienced or poor instructors fail to make this clear to the student, and instead just want to keep them happy. An instructor who is only interested in keeping the students happy is most likely willing to sacrifice the standard and the integrity of the Budo that they teach, just to keep the student/s attending the Budo classes.
This results in the instructor awarding grade ranks as an incentive to stay, rather than as reflection of the students development progress.
This can only result in students of poor quality. The unfortunate thing is that the students are unaware that this is happening. The student in this situation is wearing a belt that reflects a certain standard and the student believes that they are of that standard (because they trust the instructor's opinion), but they aren't of that standard:
In This case, the student is wearing the belt of a 1st Kyu rank, but their actual ability only resembles that of a 4th Kyu.
This scenario is not a rare occurrence, it is becoming more and more common all the time as more and more people are training. The popularisation of martial arts is what has directly lead to more instructors of poor quality teaching.
An instructor with any integrity should be willing to wait until the student is of a certain standard before awarding certain grade ranks. They should, of course, do their best to help students understand, but if a student is frustrated, the instructor is better off keeping the standard and risking students leaving rather than giving out ranks and awards here and there just keeping people happy.
The Style & You
What I have talked about so far is just the first couple of years of training (the Kyu grade levels).
After decades and decades of training, the above points really become less and less relevant to you. There are however other things to understand.
I've talked in the past about 'SHUHARI' and the steps towards mastery.
When you understand the concept of Shuhari, you know that you can't just follow the style if you wish to truly master your art form.
'Following' is only the SHU level. There is a lot more to it than that.
On this chart, everything below the blue line is what you can get from the style. As you can see, the style will always have things to teach you, but it will only let you develop in skill in knowledge so far on its own.
The style alone will only take you as far as the first couple of Dan grades (this varies depending on the school and their syllabus). It is possible to keep doing only the style and continue through the grades, but a higher level Dan grade student should start to realise that grades and belts aren't relevant. A mature Budoka knows that it's more about the sum total of your knowledge and skill in Budo and the person you have become.
A Person who only follows the style would have a chart that looks something like this:
Over the years after becoming a Dan grade student, if we only follow the system, the progress of our development eventually slows and stops due to the restrictions within the boundaries of the style.
Any higher level Dan ranks can only be based on this, your progress within the style can only be determined by the style.
This reinforces the fact that your grade in a particular style doesn't reflect the total of your knowledge and abilities.
An unfortunate truth is that the red line on the above chart is what the majority of Dan grade students will follow.
In modern Budo schools there is an institutionalised fear of going beyond the style and seeking to work out aspects of Budo for ourselves. I think this is born of the fear of higher grades leaving a particular school and joining another or starting their own. In my opinion, if anyone feels that it's what they need or want to do, then it's not the place of the style or school to stop them.
Everything above the line is everything that you won't learn from your style.
The style should remain as a foundation, you will still learn things from the style but as time goes on and you develop more and more, there will be more and more that is above that line.
Your Style
The whole area above the blue line is everything that is uniquely you. It's fair to say that because of this, you could call it your personal style.
This is what I think Budo should look like. Every student training under whatever instructor then eventually they slowly evolve what they do until they are doing the Budo that suits them.
So there wouldn't be the few styles that you see today, there would be many thousands different variations and opinions.
You'll notice that the line is far above the level of the Kyu grades and even the first couple of Dan grades. This is because for the first 5 to 10 years we are required to follow the style. This is the 'SHU' level of SHUHARI. Until you have progressed beyond the SHU level, you are unable to adequately find what is uniquely yours.
Everyone's Path
Everyone's path is different and no one's development follows the path depicted in any of the charts above. The red lines shown are just the average path.
The true path looks more like this:
We all know that we have slow periods and fast periods. There are times when we learn lots and times when we seem to go backward.
It doesn't really matter what shape your path takes. The main point is that we keep training and keep striving to be the best that we can be.
At the end of the day, grades and ranks are nice but they aren't you, they're not even a true indication of your progress on the path.
In the end your grade doesn't matter.
I'd even go so far as to say that grades are irrelevant.
Comment below to share any thoughts or opinions you might have. J
Thanks for reading.
Derm
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