the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

from the archives. and yes...i still believe this is true. i'd predict the responses this will elicit from my fellow martial artists, but that might ruin all the fun.....

My eighth grade algebra teacher began every homework discussion the same way.  She’d say, "First of all, somebody tell me The Almighty Answer."

Three or four students would say, "Two!"

She’d say, "Okay.  There you have it.  Two.  Now that that’s out of the way, who wants to come up here and show me how you got that answer?"

As you may imagine, almost no one volunteered for this phase of the project.  Those who did quickly learned that they had to understand the problem completely, since she wouldn’t let them take any notes to the board.  As often as not, she’d be forced to select someone.

She always had our undivided attention.  Those who didn’t volunteer paid close attention because they knew they might be sent to the board at any moment.  Those who understood the problem wanted to see who would be humiliated next.  Her method shifted our priorities admirably.  We’d been judged on our abilities to produce The Almighty Answer for years.  In a few short months, she taught us that our ability to solve the problem was far more important.

I often think that karate training would improve immeasurably if we removed The Almighty Black Belt.

The black belt is a funny thing.  Everyone sees it as the goal, the ideal, but the prosecution intends to demonstrate that it’s actually the single greatest reason that most of today’s martial arts students learn little or nothing of practical value, and why most martial arts students quit in four years or less.  It is a major contributor to the rampant egomania in the martial arts world.  It encourages greed, as it’s usually "awarded" for the instructor’s selfish reasons—not because the student has earned it.  It’s the source of hypocrisy and lies.  It isn’t a boon at all.  It’s a curse.

First of all, try this experiment:  walk into a dojo and ask, "How long does it take to get a black belt?"

You’ll probably be told "As long as it takes you to go to the store and buy one," or something equally "witty."  This comment manages to imply that the belt itself is unimportant.  Meaningless.

Now, go buy a black belt and wear it into his dojo.  Oooooh…it does mean something to him, doesn’t it?

The black belt is rather like the top-knot in Japan.  The top-knot is a Japanese hairstyle which is traditionally restricted to male members of the samurai class.  Even today, the only Japanese who may wear the top-knot are sumo wrestlers, and they must shave it when they retire.  Like the top-knot, the black belt signifies that its wearer holds a position of honor in that dojo.

The "belt is for holding up pants" answer is popular because it allows the instructor to appear enlightened, downplaying his own achievements in such a way that he gets credit for them and for being modest at the same time.  It also allows him to avoid pinning a time limit on achievement.  But its main purpose is to plug the "train for technique, not for belt" notion…although I’ve not yet met anyone, even a master, who really believes this himself.

That’s right.  Everybody in the system wants rank, including the instructor who implies—or says outright—that it doesn’t matter.  And this desire is only natural.  You don’t institute a grading system upon which children are judged in the public schools, then convince them that grades are irrelevant.  You don’t give mailroom workers a way to become executives and expect them to pretend they aren’t interested.  And you don’t institute a rank structure which marks achievement and prowess in the martial arts, then expect the students to not care about promotion.

But we in the martial arts like to play this game, don’t we?  In every school I’ve seen, visited, or heard of, students are deemed worthy of promotion only when they pretend it doesn’t matter to them.  The instructor may even say things like "Don’t you want to get your black belt?" to inspire the student, but should the student ask to be tested or promoted, the instructor assumes that the student is more interested in promotion than he is in mastering his technique, and he is refused.  In other words, "Here’s the carrot"—dangle, dangle—"Now pretend that you don’t want it, and I’ll give it to you."

I’ve done this to my cat.  When she was young, she was a shameless beggar, and it irritated me, so she got nothing but the occasional slap in the face for her troubles.  Now when she sees me prepare food, she carefully positions herself within my line of sight then acts distinctly disinterested in what I’m doing.  I reward her, of course, by allowing her to lick my dishes.  And like the typical martial arts student, she has become quite the accomplished hypocrite.

On the other end of the scale are the schools which actively reinforce the idea that the black belt is the goal of training.  Students who scream "Black belt!" while doing warm-up drills set my teeth on edge, to say the least, but at least they’re allowed to admit their desire to reach the arbitrary goals that have been set for them.

The problem with arbitrary (external, material) goals is that they override the inherent goal of karate training—to survive, to win.  This goal is self-perpetuating:  the more you know, the more you know you don’t know, and the harder you train. External rewards shift your focus from this singular aim, thereby degenerating the quality of training.

If you don’t believe me, pick any self-defense technique you’ve been taught and ask yourself if you’d use it confidently in a real encounter, exactly as you’ve learned it, without embellishment.  If you said Yes, either (a) you have a very down-to-earth instructor (and the odds are against this), or (b) you have no real concept of the speed and power with which a real attack is launched.

If you’re honest with yourself, you probably admitted that your self-defense training is a huge waste of time.  So why did you bother learning it? Because it was a requirement.  Right?  A requirement for what?  A belt.

And all the kata you’ve learned…would you use any of it as is, with the interpretations you’ve been taught, in a real situation?  Only the severely self-deluded think they can actually low block a front kick then step in and punch an attacker.  So if you wouldn’t use it as you’ve been taught to, did you (a) refuse to waste any of your time practicing something you know you’ll never use, or (b) badger your instructor until he provided valid interpretations for the moves?  You didn’t do either, did you?  You shut up and learned your forms, like everybody else, because if you didn’t, you wouldn’t get promoted.

Thus, the belt system has made it possible for hundreds of thousands of instructors to teach worthless information unchecked.  The student who is scope locked on a black belt is far less likely to even notice that you’re teaching him hogwash. If he does notice, he’s equally unlikely to call you on it.

This is what you get when you train for rank instead of survival.

I’ve been told that the belt system is useful because it helps instructors remember each student’s skill level.  This argument sounds reasonable, but in the end, those instructors who believe this do not cater to the students’ skill levels (i.e., what they actually know) so much as they cater to students’ ranks (i.e., what they should know).  If you remove the trimmings and decoration, the task of separating the skilled from the unskilled is far simpler.

Probably the most common excuse for the belt system is that it "gives the students something to aim for."  In my experience, 75% or more of the students who make black belt (which is acquired, on average, after three years of training) quit soon afterward.  I call this SNBBS, or Shiny New Black Belt Syndrome.  And what do you expect?  You gave them "something to aim for," and they reached that goal.  Apathy is the natural aftermath of achievement (and the greater the achievement, the greater the apathy).

Moreover, the idea that students "need something to aim for" implies that technical proficiency isn’t enough.  The students "need" something tangible, apparently…something they can take home and show off to their friends and families, something to prove they’ve finally arrived.  In other words, this system caters to and counts on egotism and pride, the very demons that martial arts training is supposed to overcome.

It is through my acquiescence to these demons that I’ve bought four black belts.  That’s right…you heard me:  four.

Oh.  You’re thinking, "You bought yours?  And you admit it?"

Yes, freely.  But I use the term in its literal sense, as opposed to its accepted martial arts usage.  According to Webster, a gift is obligation-free, a purchase requires payment, and that which is earned is payment.

While everyone else uses these words to reflect how and why goods have changed hands, martial artists use these words to describe skill levels.  The person who says, "Who gave you a black belt?" has just rudely implied that your skills appear to be substandard.  If he says you "bought" your belt, he has not only suggested you don’t deserve it, but that the master who sold it to you is morally compromised, as well.  Of course, we all like to think that we "earned" our belts (i.e., our ranks reflect our skill levels).

Notice that, in the martial arts world, only one of these terms acknowledges the involvement of money at all—but it goes without saying that you pay for the belt.

Test, I mean.  You pay for the test.

That’s what they tell you, anyway.  Right.  If you’re in the army and your commander says to you, "Specialist, you’re an outstanding soldier.  You excel in your assigned duties and set the example for your fellow soldiers.  I think it’s time you were promoted to Sergeant.  It’ll cost you $200 to be considered," do you (a) get excited and fork over the $200, or (b) have your commander arrested for using his rank and position for personal advantage?  (Take your time.  Answer when you’re ready.)

Maybe I’m being unfair.  There are some tests we do pay to take, aren’t there?  I paid to take the SAT and a CLEP test, after all.  I have a friend who paid a princely sum to take her teacher certification test.  I’m sure the bar exam isn’t free, either.  But all of these tests are entrance exams.  They are administered to determine your knowledge and skills prior to admission to an institution or profession.

In the martial arts world, this isn’t the case.  A college course run on the same principle would charge you for the class itself, then $35 and up for each final.  Moreover, you wouldn’t be allowed to progress to the next class until you’d taken that final.  This is the fail-safe in most martial arts schools:  you aren’t taught your yellow-belt techniques until you’re promoted to yellow belt, and you can’t be promoted until you pay "for the test."

I’m not being unfair at all.  The word for this—also according to Webster—is "extortion."  Any college that tried this would be sued.  Why do martial arts studios get away with it?

The "belt test" façade is more apparent when you realize that you can’t fail this "test," because you can only take it at the instructor’s recommendation.  (You can’t ask to be promoted, since this indicates your priorities are skewed.  Remember?)  So when you’ve learned enough to move to the next skill level (or if your instructor is about to go on vacation and needs a little extra cash), he’ll tell you it’s time for you to test.

If I sound jaded, it’s only because I am.  I once watched a brown belt (where I trained, so I knew the standards) take a "test" in which he could remember no more than 20% of his requirements, and the techniques he did remember were so sloppy as to be worthless…and he passed. I’ve watched countless students perform well below their current ranks in belt tests, and I’ve not yet seen anyone fail.  In extreme cases, if someone’s really awful, the test will be "extended" for an extra day or two.

"He just got nervous," the tester says.  "I know he knows it.  He does it in class all the time."  Isn’t this an admission that the test itself was unnecessary? So why the test at all?  Because without a test, you lose the "testing fee" pretense, at which point you must either admit that you’re selling a belt (at quite a markup), or you must drop the fee altogether.

Imagine what would happen if an instructor recommended a student for promotion, the student paid "for the test," then failed.  He’d say to the instructor, "I wouldn’t have tested, except you told me I was ready."  In other words, you ripped me off. And he’d have a point.  The instructor knows this.

In other words, a belt test is a formality.  The instructor’s recommendation itself means that he’s ready to promote you.  You’ve earned the belt already whether or not you ever actually wear it.  The moment you pay to "test," however, you buy it.

I’m probably beating a dead horse, but consider what would happen if a student were to train diligently for years, both in and out of class, but he never takes a single belt test.  Meanwhile, the students who began at the same time or even after he did have been promoted to black belt.  Does this mean that his skills are poorer than theirs?  Have those students "earned" the black belt while the abstainer hasn’t?  Of course not.  The skill level is his whether he chooses to "test" for the belt that represents that skill level or not.

The belt is only a symbol of what you should know.  But you don’t get it until you fork over the money for the right to wear it.

You buy it, all right.

You can buy a good black belt over the internet for about $11.  What did you pay for yours?  $150?  Do the words "buyer’s remorse" mean anything to you?

I can think of only one good reason for wearing a belt in practice at all:  to allow simulation of normal clothing so that a student may practice defenses against realistic attacks.  An attacker will grab what he can, and the waistband of your pants makes a wonderful handle (more food for thought:  when was the last time you practiced defenses against an attacker who grabbed your belt and yanked?).  You could wear normal clothing for such training, but the karate uniform (and belt) is far more resilient—and cheaper.

But I don’t like belts, and I never have.  They are bulky and uncomfortable.  They twist and ride up.  They restrict your movements while you train.  They reduce air flow through your clothing, making the uniform hotter than it needs to be.  They whip you in the eye when you kick.  I don’t even like to wear belts to hold my pants up; I’d rather just buy a pair of pants that fit.  Since they do make an excellent hand-hold, they’re more of a liability than a benefit to the serious trainee.

During a recent visit to a local dojo, I watched the master demonstrate beginner self-defense techniques with one of his black belts.  The black belt noticed at some point that I was watching him closely, and he actually strutted over to a couple of beginners—I swear he puffed out his chest—to observe their technique and offer pointers while the master helped someone else.

Amusing but sad.  He obviously took my attention as an indication that I was impressed by his rank.  In reality, I was thinking that his techniques were sloppier than the white belts he presumed to correct.  Had his uniform been no different from theirs, he may have tried to demonstrate his superior knowledge instead of assuming that his Almighty Black Belt spoke for itself.

©pdb, 29 Aug 2000

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