How Karate Should Be Taught

HardWorker

When teaching karate its important for a sensei, a sensei is a karate instructor, to have skill standards when it comes to students earning belts. For instance, if a student were to earn a black belt said student should have to have good skill in order to earn it otherwise it’s a cheap black belt and doesn’t mean much. However, a sensei should not have patience requirements beyond the patience that it naturally does take in order to develop good skill. Developing skill takes patience and so if you want to get skilled you have to be patient so if a sensei is going to require good skill to get a black belt that is a de facto patience requirement, but any patience requirements beyond that would be bad patience requirements.

In some of my other posts I’ve talked about patience and good patience vs bad patience and this would be the perfect example of bad patience. I once knew a case of a fellow who did karate and at his dojo, a dojo is a karate school, that his sensei required patience for rank advancement (beyond that which would naturally be required to develop skill.) Specifically, to get a black belt at his dojo his sensei required you to have patience as well as skill, so that even if a student was skilled enough for the black belt his sensei might not let said student test for or promote to black belt just yet because he wanted the student to be patient. Thus he made the student take more time to get a black belt even if the student was skilled enough because he wanted the student to be patient.

Such a requirement is unfair. As I said this is the perfect example of bad patience, when you take longer to do something because you want to be patient or worse, when you require somebody else to take longer to do something because you want them to be patient such as the case with the sensei who makes students take longer to get black belts, even if they’re skilled enough, because he wants them to be patient.

This is particularly a big problem if you have a goal and if part of the goal itself is to get it done within a certain time limit. Let’s say I’ve got a goal of earning a black belt before I turn 20 and my twentieth birthday is approaching. Im skilled enough for a black belt but my sensei wants me to wait longer because he wants me to be patient but by waiting longer it will take me past my twentieth birthday so I will not achieve my goal. Such a requirement from a sensei in a case such as this is blatantly unfair and such a sensei should be made to close down their dojo and should be banned from teaching karate. So this is how karate should and shouldn’t be taught and this is the perfect example of good patience vs bad patience, the kind of good and bad patience that I’ve talked about in some of my other posts.

Pantagruel

↪HardWorker

Not getting your black belt should not keep you from honing your skills. And patience certainly should be one of the weapons in your arsenal. Focus on the skill and expertise, not the rank.

jgill

Patience is being taught as well as pure technical skills. Not unusual for an Oriental martial art.

It sounds like you are young and eager to gain recognition among your peers. This is not unusual, either.

What should one do - or perhaps not do? Is your sensei trying to teach you something about life?

A good friend of mine designed the USMC martial arts program several years ago. Here is a requirement for advancement to 1st degree black belt:

Training hours - 20 hours 45 minutes
(1) Physical discipline – 12 hours 45 minutes.
(2) Character/Mental discipline – 8 hours.

Part of mental discipline is patience, and this is part of the warrior culture. You are not just learning how to trip up an opponent.

But it's hard to get people to see beyond the purely technical and not focus on going up number or letter or belt grades. I've seen this in a sport I was developing sixty years ago.

javi2541997

↪HardWorker

You have a good sensei and he is trying to teach you something important: how to understand and respect time.

It is not about having better or worse skills. I even think that your sensei is already aware of your talent. He wants to teach you not "travelling" or "going" that fast in your life. Respect the days, months, weeks, years, etc... every second is important. I would not call it "bad patience" but good practice.

Let’s say I’ve got a goal of earning a black belt before I turn 20 and my twentieth birthday is approaching. Im skilled enough for a black belt but my sensei wants me to wait longer because he wants me to be patient but by waiting longer it will take me past my twentieth birthday so I will not achieve my goal — HardWorker

Why do you consider as a "goal" to get the black belt before turning 20? What will you do when you will be 30? If everything happens that fast... it will disappear fast too.
Your sensei is teaching you a path of life not just physical skills. He is trying to explain that Karate can be part of you the rest of your life if you learn how to manage time.

HardWorker

↪Pantagruel

Not getting your black belt should not keep you from honing your skills. And patience certainly should be one of the weapons in your arsenal. Focus on the skill and expertise, not the rank.

But a black belt should be proof of skills. Getting a black belt means you've honed your skills in a way that meets your sensei's standards and to an extent that meets your sensei's standards. Have you ever done karate?

HardWorker

↪jgill

Patience is being taught as well as pure technical skills. Not unusual for an Oriental martial art.

But you are being taught patience whenever you're being taught technical skills or anything else for that matter. Why? Because it takes patience to develop technical skills just like it takes patience to develop anything else you want to learn. So if you're teaching somebody technical skills you're also teaching them patience even if you're not intending to.

It sounds like you are young and eager to gain recognition among your peers. This is not unusual, either.

No I didn't care so much about gaining recognition among my peers, it was much more about proving myself to myself. I wanted to prove something to myself not to my peers.

A good friend of mine designed the USMC martial arts program several years ago. Here is a requirement for advancement to 1st degree black belt:

Training hours - 20 hours 45 minutes
(1) Physical discipline – 12 hours 45 minutes.
(2) Character/Mental discipline – 8 hours.

Part of mental discipline is patience, and this is part of the warrior culture. You are not just learning how to trip up an opponent.

Im not saying those are bad requirements, what Im saying is bad is if you don't let a student test to meet the requirements because you want them to be patient by waiting longer.

But it's hard to get people to see beyond the purely technical and not focus on going up number or letter or belt grades. I've seen this in a sport I was developing sixty years ago.

That's true to some extent, but belts in karate, such as the black belt, is proof that you've met your sensei's standards.

HardWorker

↪javi2541997

You have a good sensei and he is trying to teach you something important: how to understand and respect time.

This was not my sensei who had the "patience" requirement for black belt that I described in my first post, it was somebody else who mentioned that he had such a sensei on some martial arts Internet forum.
Anyway, making somebody wait longer to get something even if they're good enough (such as a black belt) is not understanding and respecting time, it's the opposite of understanding and respecting time. Life has time limits. You've only got so long to live so that's your time limit right there. So taking longer to do something on purpose just because you want to be patient (or making somebody else do that) is disrespecting and wasting time. You wouldn't open your wallet and dump your money out in the street, would you? Taking longer to do something just because you want to be patient is doing that same exact thing but with time.

Why do you consider as a "goal" to get the black belt before turning 20?

Because there was certain stuff I wanted to do as a teenager, getting a black belt was one of them.

What will you do when you will be 30?

If I get a black belt by the time Im 20, when Im 30 I will be even better. That's the thing about karate, it's open ended. No matter what goals you reach and no matter how good you get you can always get better and you can always set new goals. If you've ever done karate you would understand that. So I will just keep training and just keep getting better and better and keep doing that for the rest of my life, however long or short it might be.

If everything happens that fast... it will disappear fast too.

A black belt never disappears and by that Im talking about the rank of black belt, not the physical belt that is worn to represent the rank. And if everything happens fast that means there is that much room left for even more stuff to happen for however much longer you have to live.

Your sensei is teaching you a path of life not just physical skills. He is trying to explain that Karate can be part of you the rest of your life if you learn how to manage time.

As I explained before this was not my sensei but I have more or less pointed out, throughout this post, about how karate can be a part of the rest of your life and about how taking longer to do something on purpose is a waste of time and thus very poor time management.
Its not hard to understand how wasting time is very poor time management but the rest of the stuff
I've said about how it applies to karate might be a bit hard to understand if you've never done karate yourself.

Pantagruel

↪HardWorker

Yes, I trained in Shito Ryu Itosu Kai Karate for about 15 years. I was hoping to get my black belt within 4 years, when I would have been 21, but moving around for school disrupted that somewhat, I trained in Kung Fu and Tai Chi, it ended up taking me almost 8 years. Then I trained up for my second dan - twice I had over a dozen black belt kata down cold. Both times my knee let go at the end of my intensive training (I had had several surgeries for a blown ACL and meniscus).

So I can appreciate your perspective, I'm just offering the benefit of mine. :)

jgill

what Im saying is bad is if you don't let a student test to meet the requirements because you want them to be patient by waiting longer. — HardWorker

Seeing karate as a martial skill only, I agree. Unfortunately, there's the baggage of the culture of the martial art to contend with.

But it's hard to get people to see beyond the purely technical and not focus on going up number or letter or belt grades. I've seen this in a sport I was developing sixty years ago.

That's true to some extent, but belts in karate, such as the black belt, is proof that you've met your sensei's standards. — HardWorker

I've never gone into martial arts. I was a rock climber for over fifty years, however, and there was no culture baggage there, purely skills and accomplishments. No rigid rules (well, the Olympics is another story), just get to it and climb. No belts, just designations like, being a "5.14 climber". Once you've done something that difficult you can wear the tag. Kind of like an invisible belt, I suppose.

HardWorker

↪Pantagruel

Yes, I trained in Shito Ryu Itosu Kai Karate for about 15 years. I was hoping to get my black belt within 4 years, when I would have been 21, but moving around for school disrupted that somewhat, I trained in Kung Fu and Tai Chi, it ended up taking me almost 8 years. Then I trained up for my second dan - twice I had over a dozen black belt kata down cold. Both times my knee let go at the end of my intensive training (I had had several surgeries for a blown ACL and meniscus).

So I can appreciate your perspective, I'm just offering the benefit of mine. :)

So you had some good goals and even if you didn't get a black belt in 4 years as you were hoping to, at least you know why as you said you were moving around. If you're not going to meet a goal the important thing to know is why.

So yes you can hone skill without getting belts but the important thing is whether or not you're honing it the right way. After all, you wouldn't want to practice the wrong way of doing things, would you? That is what getting a black belt means, that you honed the proper skills, that you practiced the right way of doing it.

HardWorker

↪jgill

Seeing karate as a martial skill only, I agree. Unfortunately, there's the baggage of the culture of the martial art to contend with.

But when you take up an activity in a certain country(such as the USA) that activity is adopted to the culture of the country where you're doing it, even if said activity is originally from another country(as in the case of karate in the USA, which is originally from Japan and Okinawa.) Karate in the USA is different than karate in Japan and Okinawa not so much in terms of technique but in terms of philosophy. In the USA we are goal setters and that philosophy has been applied to karate in the
USA.

Just like baseball is very different in Japan than it is in the USA. Although baseball is originally from the USA the Japanese have modified it so that it suits their culture. To the best of my knowledge the techniques for playing baseball is much the same in Japan as it is in the USA but the philosophy is different, the Japanese are very honor bound so there is much honor in winning baseball games in Japan.

I've never gone into martial arts. I was a rock climber for over fifty years, however, and there was no culture baggage there, purely skills and accomplishments. No rigid rules (well, the Olympics is another story), just get to it and climb. No belts, just designations like, being a "5.14 climber". Once you've done something that difficult you can wear the tag. Kind of like an invisible belt, I suppose.

Well yes, doing certain stuff in rock climbing such as what you describe is a rite of passage and rites of passage take many different forms. Earning a black belt is also a rite of passage. Some rites of passage have physical symbols that go with them such as the physical black belt that you wear when you earn the rank or a badge that you might earn in an activity such as Boy Scouts or a varsity letter that you might earn in sports in school, and some rights of passage don't have any physical symbols (such as doing certain stuff that you describe in rock climbing.) Either way, it's not the physical symbol that's so important (if it exists) what's important is achieving your rites of passage, whatever they might be.

Also, since you claim to have never done karate I want to point out that getting a black belt is not the end and in fact, it's just the beginning. And although black is the highest belt color in many dojos, just because you're wearing a black belt doesn't mean you're of the highest rank. When you first start wearing a black belt you are a first degree black belt or 1st Dan. After that there's 2nd Dan, 3rd Dan, ect. usually all the way up to 10th Dan so first degree black belt you could say is a rather low rank.

But even if you're not going to earn any more ranks after first degree black belt the fact of the matter is that you're just getting started. There is no end.

jgill

But even if you're not going to earn any more ranks after first degree black belt the fact of the matter is that you're just getting started. There is no end — HardWorker

Yes, I'm familiar with most of what you've said. In the Air Force in the late 1950s my best friend was a black belt in Karate.

You need to appeal to the American Karate Association for a change of their philosophy.

HardWorker

↪jgill

You need to appeal to the American Karate Association for a change of their philosophy.

The AKA is just one organization that teaches Karate in the USA. Many dojos in the USA in fact are independent and don't belong to any organization other than the dojo itself. Changes in the AKA are not going to affect how Karate is taught in the USA overall.

jgill

↪HardWorker

I take it you've appealed to your dojo? In that case I don't think The Philosophy Forum can help your cause. Good luck.

HardWorker

↪jgill

I take it you've appealed to your dojo? In that case I don't think The Philosophy Forum can help your cause. Good luck.

I didn't appeal to my dojo although the issue has been resolved albeit way too late. Appealing to dojos is not the solution the way I see it. The way I see it, we should pass laws on how dojos should be run.

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