To: martial-arts@dragon.cso.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Belt system sucks (not)
In-reply-to: Your message of Sun, 20 Jun 93 21:42:00 -0400.
             <9306210143.AA02534@umailsrv0.UMD.EDU> 
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there's just way too much agreement..  Ok.  I'll argue the other side.

I don't completely agree that this Dan and Kyu garbage is garbage.
I will agree that some dojos may emphasize it too much.  and that may be
a problem, but that is a problem with the dojo, not with the dan/kyu.

Much of karate mirrors life.  In life, we are almost always given
rank (grades in school, titles/positions at work, varsity/jv in sports,
just to name a few examples).  Often, very often perhaps, the ranks are
given to those unworthy, or not given to those worthy.  In life, we
should strive to take pride in our own abilities and let our
accomplishments speak for themselves rather than trying working to make
our titles (ranks) match what we think is our abilities.  Perhaps
abolishing kyu/dan rankings would only be to appease our desire to not
be judged.  or to deny what we feel is a discrepancy between what we
think our abilities are and what sensei feels our abilities are.

It would be my guess (I mean no offense to anyone by this and I realize
I may very likely be wrong) that the main reasons that individuals get
frustrated with rankings is because 1) a non-karateka has said "oh, are
you a black belt?" and answering "no" to that was hard, humbling, or
whatever.  or 2) the individual has failed a rank promotion that he/she
thought they should pass.  or 3) they see someone else higher rank and
think "I'm better than they are"

In all of those cases, I think the ranking system is doing good.
Although karate can do a lot of good in building self confidence, once
in a while that self confidence should be knocked a bit.