Black Belt Schools

"Becoming a black belt in just two years!" "This is a black belt school, you've seen the ads. In a short time, many martial arts schools promise to award the student with the coveted black belt. Programs of this kind give students a crash course in the techniques of style, but fail to develop real martial artists.

Traditionally, a student received a white belt at the beginning of his training in martial arts. The student was asked not to wash the belt, because it would symbolically wash away all they have learned. Over the years, the student would be perfect the basic movements of its style through repetition. Repeat developed muscle memory. Consequently, the student body has been formed at the point where it could naturally and instinctively perform such tests, even under extremely stressful circumstances.

In addition, the traditional masters explain very little to the student. In most traditional schools, the instructor would only demonstrate the techniques and students practiced these movements again and again. Students master kata the same way. The student has absorbed the bunkai "or application of the kata movements and thus the techniques are easier to execute. The purpose of this training method was for students to learn the mental, physical spiritual and martial arts on his own. When a student has learned something about hers, she had a deeper effect on him.

By studying a training all day with the same white belt they received on their first day of class, the belt has become dirtier. Like the students in mind absorbed the knowledge of martial arts and his body strength, belt absorbed all the blood, sweat, tears, and dirt from the student went through to learn these great things. Most of the students formed the black belt.

This teaching method was not popular with American society in general. Face it, we want immediate gratification. Therefore, fast food, medicines credit cards, and even flourished in our society. Martial arts schools have also followed this trend by promising students a rapid progression through a watered-down system and allocated to a black belt in a short period of time. Not only do these schools failed to properly train students, they were also misled into believing they have mastered the art by rewarding them with the symbol of martial arts achievement advanced black belt.

The color dyed American black belt can not hold a candle to the original black belt. Today, a black belt is more symbolic, but way back when, the black belt was in fact the direct result of hard work and experience.