I've been involved in the martial arts since about 1975 and have seen many changes over the years. In my opinion the martial arts in America have lost much. The one thing that disturbs me the most is how so many schools and associations have turned it into a money machine for the school owners and association hierarchy.
These schools promise that you will be a black belt in between one to one and a half years; and, they usually end up awarding the rank to those who can afford to pay for it. Friends, having a black belt and being a black belt are entirely two different things. In order to develop the skills required to be a black belt it should take the average student between three to four years, if they train consistently the whole time without stopping like so many today do. It seems that people today think they can let little Johnny do karate a while, and baseball, football, soccer and everything else that comes along and still be great at all of them. Call me an old dinosaur but I still believe that if you want to be really good at anything you have to focus all your energies on that one thing. Everything else is just a distraction and robs you of valuable time you need to be using on that one thing you want to be really good in.
Well, in these martial arts schools it's not uncommon to see little kids running around with black belts, and some of them with two and three stripes on them. That is absolutely ridiculous! For example we had a kid come to our school from one of these schools about two years ago. He was a brown belt and in kindergarten. His parents told us about how good he was and about all the tournaments he had won in his division. When we let him spar later that night every single white belt in our school beat him. It was pathetic. When we were discussing him with his parents later they were pretty upset. I remember them say: But we paid for his brown belt. I bet they did. They were probably paying every time they turned around. And that was the problem. They were paying through the nose thinking all that money must be getting them something really good. But it wasn't. They were just being ripped off.
Now don't misunderstand me here. I'm not saying that instructors shouldn't charge a test fee. It's just that in a school where you only work out two, or at the most three nights a week, there is just no way you are ready to test every month; or every other month for that matter. It's not enough to just know the moves, you have to develop a certain level of skill in the move as well. And that takes time. The schools I'm talking about don't care about the skill level. If you can just remember the moves they are ready to test you, and get that nice little test fee for it.
This young brown belt brings me to another thing about these money pit schools. The reason his parents thought he was so good is because they never saw him compete against any other kind of martial artist. These schools and associations only have "closed" tournaments and competitions. In other words, they only compete against each other. That's a pretty safe way to keep people from finding out how bad they're really being ripped off isn't it? A legitimate martial arts school will compete in "open" tournaments where all kinds of styles and schools/organizations are invited.
Well, to finish the story of our little brown belt, after a week or two his parents decided to follow our advice and put him back in a white belt. We started him over on the basics. He lasted about another month before he quit. One of our instructors ran into them a year later. They had put him back in the money pit school where we was so "good". I just hope he never has to really defend himself.
If you are looking for a martial arts school take a little time to check it out. If the instructor is a young guy in his twenties and he's got six or seven stripes on his belt I'd be leery. Remember, having is not the same as being. If they promise you a black belt in less than three years my advice to you is RUN.
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