Well yes of course we'd have to break boards too at red belt (3rd gup) and up, but for the kids if they couldn't break the board in 3 tries on the day of grading, they let them reattempt it in class later on. How lenient is that!
Some clubs wouldn't let some of my friends attain black belt on the basis they were overweight. It depends on where you're going I guess. As for me, I won't have any problem with conditioning, so long as our club ace comes back from his sabbatical... he's very fond of "the night of a thousand kicks", which is more like a thousand kicks, plus a hundred situps and pushups each, plus shuttle runs... I think there's a reason why senior class attendance is so poor...
In a way yes. Depends on where you come from, especially if you're in an Asian country, or a country which cites a national martial art. In particular, you do not want to mess with a black belt in TKD in Korea (especially not an ITF practicioner), nor would you want to pick a fight with a black belt karateka in Japan. By and large the training and their requirements are hardcore and they don't get a choice between sparring or not, they just do everything.
I find the Australian approach to grading and advancement in TKD to be generally very relaxed (except at the clubs which train international and olympic fighters). Here, all the colour of the belt will tell you is how many forms that person has learnt.
This is kind of my point. One place is going to have different standard for what it take to reach a black belt than another. Also there can be more or less grades between belts depending on where you train. So just saying you have a black belt doesn't really say a thing for how well you are trained. Someone from one of these countries with a national martial arts could hold a lower color belt, but be better trained than a person with a black belt from some place else.
I am a brown belt at krav-maga. In krav maga it go like that - white belt, with belt with a yellow mark, yellow belt, yellow belt with a orange mark, so on so on. i got a brown belt, and the tests for thr black belt was impossible! after a while i quited, befor getting the black belt.
Someone from one of these countries with a national martial arts could hold a lower color belt, but be better trained than a person with a black belt from some place else.
That's why I'm asking what I'm asking. Ultimately, to me, attaining a black belt is still important, but definitely not for the sake of attaining a black belt in itself. And, like my fellow senior club members following the example of our instructor, we aim to be the national champion of at least one belt of either sparring or patterns before grading for black. To be entirely honest though I don't think I would be able to compete at the dan levels, most of them are either being groomed for international competition or tradies with a mysteriously large amount of spare time on their hands...
Strop would kill all of us if he wanted.
lol I would never want to kill anybody.
He knows the human bodies weak spots and what they are called!
I don't know that many meridian points! Actually my main strength is that I'm unusually resistant to techniques that use them...
My school is Oh's Taekwondo (I have this habit of writing Oh's! Taekwondo, because of the mangaka Oh! Great, but that's another story altogether). Obviously named after Grandmaster Youl Young Oh, who brought the style to Australia. The distinguishing feature of the affiliated clubs is that we learn both the tageuk and polgwae forms, whereas the vast majority of WTF TKD clubs no longer teach polgwae. Practically speaking this means very little, except to say Grandmaster Oh felt it important that at least somebody knew how to pass on traditional forms.
My instructor is also an expert in iaido and wing chun (which I used to do but would have to probably train for another 3 years before I got any good at it). And sometimes his Brazilian jujitsu friends hang out at the club. And that's when I learn about meridian points.
My Master is Black belts in Lots of different martial arts I am called Instructor... will Blackbeltr0 except my user name is my real name. Sounds Great Guys Well I hope Strop Gets his Black Belt
I forgot to mention that i do ITF. and belts went white, white with yellow stripe. yellow, yellow with green stripe. green, green with blue stripe. blue, blue with red stripe, red, red with black stripe, black. and depending on your age when you start, its either one or 5 tests between white and white with yellow stripe. so yeah. all of that was 6 years for me. I did a lot of breaking but my instructor believed in letting kid's bones grow fully rather than possibly damaging them while they are still growing. my best was 2 inches of solid pine with one side kick and the same thickness with a back kick when i was 11. so yeah.
we had that but we had 1 test for each belt and now we have 6 belts because schools changed and we have white yellow green blue and brown then the 10 blacks
