I’m quoting this in its entirety because it’s worth repeating.
We’re raised on chop-socky movies where the hero takes out 20 people with The Flying Fart of Death or something similar, and where fights take 15 minutes, people beat the snot out of each other and the winner does not have a hair out of place, and other nonsense like that. As I said earlier, when two people fight, two people get hurt.
And on the five guys surrounding you? Good advice, but an even better self defense is to control your environment and not get into that situation at all if possible.
I acknowledge you trying to help me. Thank you for taking the time in this thread to explain your experiences and what martial arts is about. I will get back to you later in about 5 hours.
I do not need your permission to return, Ravenman.
-When somebody knows a fuckload more than you do, it doesn’t matter where they got that knowledge
-You are ignoring the vast amount of experience that comes from actually running a business in this area. Clothy’s martial arts expertise is largely irrelevant to his understanding of the financial issues involved.
-No matter where he got his initial training, it seems clear to anyone with half a brain that he knows way more than you do. So shut up and listen.
1 - You reject Clothahump because he differs on the minimum age for a black belt. Take a step back and ask why instead of burrowing deeper in to ignorance. Why 15? What’s so magical about a hard age cutoff at 15? Clothahump says that younger students lack the mental discipline but he can see a 12-13 year old with enough discipline to master TKD up to black belt. YOUR argument is that “well it’s 15 because this website says so”. Which seems like the more reasonable, logical answer?
Analogously, Calculus is strictly a college level class. Is that to say that nobody not in college is able to handle the complexities of calculus? Taking it even further back. Some books are deemed as 5th grade books. If you’re a 4th grader, are you absolutely incapable of reading those 5th grade books?
2 - You question Clothahump because he’s saying that dollar amounts may be an indicator of “McDojos” but it’s not necessarily. Some dojo’s legitimately need that much money due to the circumstances. You’re saying “Nope. I’ve done months of research. I’m right.” Well, someone else already analogized the situation with rent in different parts of the nation, but I doubt a 15 year old is ready to grasp that fully.
How about an education analogy? What if someone said that $30,000 is the cutoff for reasonable college tuition? Anyone paying more than that is going to a McCollege? Well all the Ivy’s, MIT, Duke, Stanford etc would be lumped in as a McCollege. What if someone said that if you’re paying more than $200 for a violin, you’re getting ripped off? What if you’re getting a strad? What if someone said that if you’re paying more than $2 a gallon for gas, you’re getting ripped off? What if someone said that if you’re paying more than $10 for a shirt, you’re a sucker? These are all incredibly stupid, self-absorbed, ignorant statements and in saying that, it makes you seem incredibly stupid, self absorbed, and ignorant.
Also, for the love of sanity, please reserve the Pit for things that affect you personally!
No argument here - I didn’t really wanted to suggest more guns are a good thing – only effectiveness of handguns, which is part of the gun problem of guns, versus Martial Arts.
Sure, but someone can be trained to defend him/herself with a gun in less than 30 min. vs several years of training in Martial Arts.
Safety is another thing, however not the point here as such.
Advice I give all young people I know as they reach the age of 16-17 and start thinking they know everything;
Your world is this big (holds hands the size of a basketball), and you know this much of it (moves hands a fraction of an inch smaller). So you think you know everything. Well, the world is the size of this planet, and you know that much of it (hands that size again). As you move forward in life, you are (hopefully) going to come to realize just how much you don’t know.
AU, every day you demonstrate your collosal ignorance, and your collosal childish “I know everything” arrogance. Have you ever seen the movie “The Forbidden Kingdom”? Your cup is full. Empty your cup.
You don’t. But you should also stop acting like a spoiled know-it-all, or at the very least have the self-knowledge that you’re a brat that is on the verge of being totally insufferable.
I only say that because there’s no evidence that he gets beat up at school daily by kids who can’t stand him, but are too poor to afford the $100 a month to go to a McDojo.
Value is very subjective, and there is a mistaken assumption that ‘black belt’ has anything to do at all with mastery or the ability to defend oneself. The ranking system was invented relatively recently specific to Japanese arts, adopted by the Koreans with TKD as described earlier in this thread, and then became marketed and adapted as a popular grade measure by many other arts. Add to this the kids and youth programs where belts are just a shiny thing to reward progress, time, and money spent, then belts are really meaningless for any sort of objective measure.
I’ve studied and practiced regularly for 10+ years as an adult in beltless systems. I didn’t get anything material to show for my time, just knowledge. I wouldn’t trade that for any belt system. Of note, I’ve often sparred in various contexts, from light contact to full, from padded to unpadded. I’ve had blue belts kick my ass, and I’ve easily handed asses to black belts. It means nothing.
Does AU feel like his HS diploma is going to be devalued because there are kids scooting by with C’s and D’s getting the EXACT SAME DIPLOMA while he’s knocking down straight A’s in honor’s classes?
I live in a wealthy part of an already very expensive state. My instructor only charges $78/month with a $10 discount for each additional family members (the limit is three family members for the discount). Now, I know those classes aren’t very long. They are two 45-minute classes per week (actually, more like 50). This is actually the weakest part of my Do Jang because everything else is compliant with that site’s rules about what a good Do Jang has, that you think is full of lies. Now price isn’t too much of an issue. Even that site that I cited says that this is only a minor warning sign, and they didn’t even give any specific price limits. So I’ll let this one go. I even said that high monthly prices are only a minor sign and usually isn’t a deal-breaker.
So fine, maybe martial arts classes can cost above $100/month sometimes, however if it does get very excessive, that is a sign to look out for because it usually shows that the Do Jang is overly interested in profit and not the art.
What makes you think the site I cited was unbiased?
Here, I will give you an anecdote. My school is WTF certified (so is my instructor), and like I said, it complies with all of the rules of that FAQ page. My instructor said that the minimum time for each of the low belts was three months per belt, and then six months for the high belts.
So basically the timeline for the minimum time goes:
White Belt - 3 months
High White Belt - 6 months
Yellow Belt - 9 months
High Yellow Belt - 1 year
Green Belt - 1 year 3 months
High Green Belt - 1 year 6 months
Blue Belt - 1 year 9 months
High Blue Belt - 2 years
Red Belt - 2 years 6 months
High Red Belt - 3 years
Black Belt 1st poom/dan - 3 years 6 months
And there is a kid in my class who’s been training for two years, and he’s still a yellow belt. The quickest time that anyone’s made black belt there is four years. Everyone else is taking 5-7.
Now let me reason behind that.
Here, I’ll just quote from that site the reasoning, and you tell me what is wrong with it. I want to know why you think that this site is lying, and how someone can indeed earn a black belt in two years.
And the ones that do ignore Kukkiwon are McDojos. Why do you think Kukkiwon would put such a limit?
This is not about whether or not they are going to pick a fight with a street fighter. If a black belt can be given to a child, then the requirements are simply set too low. Black belts represent maturity, discipline, and knowledge in the art. It’s something only the best can attain and can demonstrate skill above the average person. Not only do kids not have that (neither do I for that matter), but they also don’t have the motor skills to be the equivalent of an adult black belt. If you can prove that a kid is as equally skilled as a 15 year-old 1st dan black belt (through sparring), then by all means, give him the black belt, but I’m not sure that is such a possibility.
Really, that’s what that means. If a kid has a 1st dan black belt, then that should mean that he has the same skill as a 15 year-old 1st dan black belt, and they are equally matched. If you can prove that, then fine.
And black belts are given to kids, but they should only be “poom belts”. In WTF, you can convert to a dan rank once you turn 15, so technically, kids are getting black belts, just not the official dan rank.
No, I’m serious. My instructor only charges $25/test for low belts and $35/test for high belts. Why should testing fees be higher than $40/test? The problem is that it again shows that you’re interested in the profit and you want money that bad. A person that fully cares about the art won’t charge nearly as much as $65/test. But again, this is only a minor sign. Of course, not all schools that have expensive testing fees are McDojos.
That is true. Even my instructor said that the first step is to run away. But in the case that you can’t run away, you should be able to survive fighting a street-fighter if you’re a first dan black belt. And the only way to practice for that is full-contact sparring. Now again, I never said that point sparring was bad, but it is extremely bad if there is no full-contact sparring at some point in the process because that’s what really shows what your skills are.
Why do you keep claiming that those sites are lies? What’s wrong with that? Again, a lot of things I am saying are consistent throughout forums, Answers! pages, various websites and FAQ pages. I’ve been through hundreds of them. And they all more or less say what I’m saying. How can you immediately assume that that is all bullshit? What is it in those sites that you believe is false? You keep on saying that these sites are wrong, yet almost all of those people seem to agree with each other, and many are instructors themselves? So I’m not sure how you can call hundreds of webpages bullshit.
Another question: If my school is compliant with all of the rules on that FAQ page, then does that mean that my school is also “full of lies”?
I’m simply having a debate. I have no means of offending you. But I don’t understand how you can argue against those sites and call them lies. What is it about them that you hate?
Here let me break it down into a few questions for you:
Why do you disagree with the statement that kids cannot get a full-fledged black belt?
Why do you disagree with the statement that someone can’t get a black belt in less than three and a half years?
Why do you think that full-contact sparring is not an important part of training?
What other things do you believe to be lies on that website?
Also, in general to everyone else, why do I always have to be the wrong one? It seems like in every thing, I’m wrong. That can’t be possible. And no, Smeghead, I’m probably not leaving even if there are ten pit threads started about me. But this is a serious question. You always think I’m wrong. How can that be?
Please don’t take this as a boastful statement but I’m just sharing what I have experienced: in real life, people view me as a knowledgeable person (now I am not sure if this is actually true or not, but that’s how it is). In fact, people often tell me I should become a lawyer (which is actually a job I’m interested in). But how come every time I come to the Dope, I’m wrong?