People who do not know me will say "Yeah, what is the point" whilst my colleagues and friends will probably note "It was just about time" knowing I was almost 42 during the exam. Both are right. There is nothing special about it and it is quite normal to improve and earn some grades to prove your advance and the age does not matter, but on the other hand there are many things that bring your motivation down easily prolonging the process of grading to longer periods than usual.
One of such things is what I call the "Inflation of Black Belts".
Despite having such critic stand and finding it as a reason to re-vive this blog, there are many reasons someone has to speak on that matter. I am sure many people do but nobody just listens.
I really thank my Master for encouraging me to participate in the exam and master such a flashy moves like double-kick breaks and jumping over big wooden box to break a board. That all looks great and draws "wow"'s from observers, but is that really all about Taekwondo? Is there not an art, being martial, that is also a way of life, which includes a number of techniques one must master - and know their names! even in Korean - to deserve a Black Belt?
Well, all these techniques - not flashy - are the base of knowledge for one to deserve a black belt. Unfortunately, quick commercialisation of TKD and constant push into Olympic waters with always higher "class" requirements in means of grade/belt to participate, forced many practitioners (what a dull word!) to bite and push in earning their grades for the price of quality. It is so said to watch a young guy, wearing his black belt maybe since he was 16, performing relatively simple 7th apprentice Poomsae (Taeguk 7) like a green belt one. The reason he does so is that he was - like many others - pushed and pressed to train TKD as a sport, to jump, kick, fight, calculate... while the correctness of his technique was left aside as not so important. So we have a number of great athletes fighting in WTF Taekwondo tournaments which do and know very poor Taekwondo.
Another thing producing bad TKD athletes is probably the economic side of exams. I have never heard of someone who failed the belt exam. How is that possible? Well, the money. Belt exams are being paid. Young people tend to get insulted if they are dropped and their parents get angry if they pay for something their kids fail to complete. Unlike schools, martial arts use "soft" approach meaning that no one or rarely someone fails the exam. And that starts with their first coloured belt and continues until black and further, just if they pay or (at luck) perform good in sport aspects of TKD. It is normal to consider someone's physical disabilities and take those in count, but not laziness and poor engagement.
If these were given enough time to train and perfect-ionise their basic techniques while achieving belts they are suited for, results would be much different. When I started training so many years ago - exactly 28 and some month more - I could not see much difference between TKD and Karate. The same as people outside martial arts can not see. But I had enough time to practice the technique to make it complete and then to compare it to Karate's. And yes, then there WAS a difference.
However, I needed half of a year to get my first yellow belt. And I wore my last red belt for one year because the time between exams was growing according to the level. Knowing there are 8 apprentice grades to achieve before you are ready for black belt test, can someone explain me how that time suddenly fits into barely two years? No, I was not disabled or stupid, that was normal at that time - you had to train and learn and gain experience to earn the chance to go for the next level.
Not to blame Masters and schools, that is WTF Taekwondo today. Much flash and colour and great events and happenings, but only few people keeping it up (outside of Kukkiwon, which I consider equally responsible for a situation) with the art itself and persisting in improving it. That is bad, bad for Taekwondo because soon it will become nameless sport like many other disciplines and we will have one big pile of MMA, BTF, GBL, VCW, BUS (yes I am talking nonsense) like in other martial arts and no real profile for which people will be able to say "That is Taekwondo!".
So to get back to the point - I was not motivated to raise my grade for a long time and made big pauses because it seemed pointless to me. I always considered advancing in the Art and achieving grades was about experience and knowledge combined with (a lots of) training. However, I am now overrun by people wearing 5th grades being 10 years younger. And I was able to meet a 10 year old boy with black belt around his waist. What are requirements for a person of that age to earn a black belt? I do not want to find out.
There we are, I think my 3rd Dan stays for a while again. My Master must be right, someone can wear a suit and still be a jerk (pardon my French). The same is about black belts. We have so many. How many do we really have?
Despite all the "inflation", I hope Taekwondo stays Taekwondo for many more years. Later they can give black belt to anyone who signs up and call the art "The art of wearing black rope around your white robes". I don't care.
