Quickest Blackbelt

cletus

Niall, to reply in short to your post, leaving aside muay thai as it has no belt structure, I can be pretty certain that if i spar a judo black belt, i will be thrown on my head, if i roll with a bjj black belt i will be tapped out, however the same doesn't hold true of high grades in kung fu, karate tkd and myriad other styles.

Obviously every black belt in judo or bjj cannot be a world champion, its impossible, but through competition with other bb's who compete, the level is maintained

Niall Keane

Doug,

Were there always so many belt colours and Dan levels? Why were they introduced?

Do not Judo and BJJ have the same root? If so, somewhere along the way someone decided that in one art BB = o.k. and in another it meant expert. I am talking about the devolution of quality in martial arts over time and its relationship to establishing artificial hierarchies.

Either a BB was originally expert or someone started handing them out like smarties so Dan levels needed to be invented to centrally control, regulate the “experts” demoting them to practitioners. And therefore we are talking about the corruption of money, or selling honours.

Alternatively, perhaps BB just meant practitioner and the Brazilians weren’t into being seen as experts, but why would they use any belt then? A coloured belt is not a subtle item of clothing, it makes a statement.

SBG Ireland

i would tend to agree with niall regarding the 'bjj is young' part. i've been training around 12 years and notice a big difference between the standard of the lower belts then and now....but and its a HUGE BUT....as a ground grappling art it will always maintain its effectiveness because of 'the roll'.

if someone wearing a purple belt or above cannot easily control an unskilled opponent (of similar age/weight) in a ground grappling match then they can immediately call bull****.

but of course its not the style that matters....or the 'man'.....only one thing will decide if its effective or not.....the training methods!

if you train with compliance and doing kata routines....then you will end up very good at kata routines and looking cool on compliant partners....

if you train with Aliveness (or whatever you want to call it) then you will end up doing something that resembles boxing/thai/kickboxing/wrestling/bjj or some combination of the combat arts....and be able to work with resisting opponents.

...but ive only been saying that for about 8yrs on forums now

Niall Keane

Niall, to reply in short to your post, leaving aside Muay Thai as it has no belt structure, I can be pretty certain that if I spar a judo black belt, I will be thrown on my head, if I roll with a bjj black belt I will be tapped out, however the same doesn't hold true of high grades in kung fu, karate tkd and myriad other styles.

Obviously every black belt in judo or bjj cannot be a world champion, its impossible, but through competition with other bb's who compete, the level is maintained

There are a few unfounded generalizations there; you have painted all of one side as capable and the other as not.

BTW Chinese martial arts never had belt structures, these were borrowed from the Japanese and added by some systems a cynic might say in order to make money, high level kung fu does exist, and always has competed in a format called Lei Tai, sanshou and shuai Jaio. Likewise I have as many know been around the block a bit and have wrestled with a few Judo Blackbelts, there was a similar approach to some signature techniques they tried, but never could I say an equality of skill, some certainly would be able to take down the average guy others would struggle, at least that was my experience, I know subjective?

I hear what you are saying about most “trad” styles but really what you are referring to are the bullshido trad styles, the ones already watered down. I know, I’ve sparred with some of these guys too and at times felt as though I was in the ring with someone with a physical disability. They at first, so they tell me much later, really believe that they had skills, because they have been awarded a mark of such that they believe in - a black belt Dan level whatever. When you inquire further you find that the guy who awarded them likewise is martially handicapped, and so on. Generations playing at unworkable techniques.

Without control mechanisms such as competition I feel that it is inevitable. And if this is necessary for a belt qualification then at least there is some control in place and that’s something. But the control mechanism can also degrade. A local competition is not the same as an international. I take your point about mixing with international fighters and that is ok, but not the same as taking part (ask them) but at least it does allow exposure to quality. If say you must win 10 fights to be a BB, doing so in regional’s might be a bit quicker than doing so in the Pan-American?

but of course its not the style that matters....or the 'man'.....only one thing will decide if its effective or not.....the training methods!

The training methods should be the essence of the style. Form is how we express our martial technique, how we shape ourselves dynamically to break and create structure. If we have a peculiar way of doing things thats different or unusual this gets noticed and we have a style no? BJJ and ground fighting, but then rolling is a big part of it? Muay Thai and standing combinations and striking from the clinch, so they spend allot of time in front of the heavy bag? Real Tai Chi and moving and adhering, allot trained with appropriate wrestling and striking drills. Some run through these drills some participate, just like some tap at heavy bags, not considering their guard, wasting their time.

So I agree SBG, ability comes down to training methods, and where it is lacking I would say you have an undeserving hierarchy of people in place who have taken over and can no longer teach the training methods that made the style effective. Tyranny of the weak?

SBG Ireland

sorry niall but i can rarely follow anything you say....you have to understand im quite stupid!

this short video explains what i mean by our training methods best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r-G33oKHc

OLDMAN1

nice clip,you use the word aliveness, others use other phrases, i dont have a word for it except normal,i would like to ask a question, i have heard in the past from junior grades in bjj that a black belt in bjj is better that any other black belt from a traditional martial art, as one of only 2 bjj black belts in Ireland i would be very intrested in hearing your opinion on the subject.are you better than any other black belt in the country, this is a geuine question and i hope that you take it that way, Tony....

Doug Cartel

Niall Keane wrote: »

Do not Judo and BJJ have the same root? If so, somewhere along the way someone decided that in one art BB = o.k. and in another it meant expert. I am talking about the devolution of quality in martial arts over time and its relationship to establishing artificial hierarchies.

I can give you the temperature in Celsius or Fahrenheit, but it won't change how warm it is outside. BJJ and judo use a different scale, you can't use that to say one has become more diluted than the other.

cletus

Niall Keane wrote: »

There are a few unfounded generalizations there; you have painted all of one side as capable and the other as not.

Yes, i speak in generalities, because we are talking about a broad spectrum of people.

I'm not painting any side as incapable, simply that judo and bjj bb's are all very solid at their art, some are just that, some are world beaters, but all would be considered good at what they do

TKD blackbelts, for example, in my experience vary wildly from excellent to apalling, with some of the blackbelts I've sparred verging on completely useless

Considering you have experience of various judo bb's, can you say that, even though some are better than others at the same level, that any of them are fundamentally bad at what they do

yomchi

cletus wrote: »

Niall, to reply in short to your post, leaving aside muay thai as it has no belt structure, I can be pretty certain that if i spar a judo black belt, i will be thrown on my head, if i roll with a bjj black belt i will be tapped out, however the same doesn't hold true of high grades in kung fu, karate tkd and myriad other styles.

Obviously every black belt in judo or bjj cannot be a world champion, its impossible, but through competition with other bb's who compete, the level is maintained

Wild generalisation there Cletus, you fight any BB worth there salt at their own rules and your destined to be beaten by them.

yomchi

TKD blackbelts, for example, in my experience vary wildly from excellent to apalling, with some of the blackbelts I've sparred verging on completely useless

Yep ok, agree with you now

da-bres

yomchi wrote: »

Wild generalisation there Cletus, you fight any BB worth there salt at their own rules and your destined to be beaten by them.

Il never forget watching my 16 year old mate in school about 75 kg, a green tag in tae kwon do, kicking the crap out of a '5th' degree black belt instructor in the art.

Some BB's are just that level because they never missed a grading, paid there money, did there couple kicks, got there certs.

If you have ever sparred with a BJJ Black Belt You would know the skill level is through the roof! Mainly because, as JK mentioned, 5000 hours on average of training go into developing a BJJ Black belt.

Now imagine if you trained 5 hours a week in tae kwon do, it would be the equivalent of around 19 years of training to get your black belt.

As well as that most serious BJJ athletes are obsessed with BJJ:o

Niall Keane

Doug, to me as someone outside of belt culture and given the common origin of such arts it seems less like different scales imperial and metric and more like someone along the way for political concerns has voted to agree that water freezes at a different temperature for their organisation. My point is that if you follow the curve you eventually end up in a mcdojo. It may take a couple of hundred years. It a process!

Niall Keane

I agree the judo blackbelts had skill they weren't useless like other dans but every Thai boxer I fought was also skilled, and didn't need a belt. I think belt culture exposes an art to risk fundamentally it establishes a permanent irreversable heirarchy. If you get a nut case oldman resting on his laurels that takes you down the wrong route some will resist and split and some will follow and so arts are diluted and the rot sets in. seems inevitable to me?

Doug Cartel

Niall Keane wrote: »

Doug, to me as someone outside of belt culture and given the common origin of such arts it seems less like different scales imperial and metric and more like someone along the way for political concerns has voted to agree that water freezes at a different temperature for their organisation. My point is that if you follow the curve you eventually end up in a mcdojo. It may take a couple of hundred years. It a process!

People within judo wouldn't hold one of their own with first dan black belt in the same regard as people in BJJ would hold one of theirs. You'd have to get up to probably fourth dan to get the same level of kudos.

SBG Ireland

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

nice clip,you use the word aliveness, others use other phrases, i dont have a word for it except normal.

yes thats why i said

if you train with Aliveness (or whatever you want to call it)

to people coming from combat sports like boxing, wrestling etc when you explain aliveness to them they go 'duh well of course you train that way!'. to people coming from martial arts with no sparring/competitive element it can be a break through. i know this to be true because ive seen it happen hundreds of times over the last few years ive been teaching. ive had guys with 4, 5 and 6th dans and +15-20yrs training find it mind blowing when they learn how to drill correctly with 'progressive resistance'.

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

are you better than any other black belt in the country, this is a geuine question and i hope that you take it that way, Tony....

better at what? at BJJ i would hope so....at TKD etc i wouldnt have the first clue

SBG Ireland

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

a black belt in bjj is better that any other black belt from a traditional martial art

also define 'traditional martial art' for me

Ug Lee

John,
You have been away for too long. This is one of the best threads in years.

SBG Ireland

back for a while anyway

OLDMAN1

thank you for anwsering my question in the spirit it was asked

SBG Ireland wrote: »

also define 'traditional martial art' for me

on the subject of what is a traditional martial art, well a lot of people here use traditional to describe a martial art in a less than flattering light, which is a pity because i believe that BJJ is a traditional martial art, but im open to correction if im wrong...

SBG Ireland

you're welcome

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

which is a pity because i believe that BJJ is a traditional martial art, but im open to correction if im wrong...

you didnt answer my question

also define 'traditional martial art' for me

Cork24

I'll be doing Judo since 2000, now 10 years on am i a black Belt? No, Far from it, i Started when i was about 15 i am no 25. why am i not,

was in the Cork Judo Club which was based down by the Train Station they Moved to the Kung Fu academy which was across the river from the opera house then after a while they closed.

UCC were the only club in town and as i was only 16 i couldnt pass off as a Student. then new clubs opened up one that was in the South Side and a newer one in the North side of Cork. which i went alot. now i just come and go maybe train 3 times then dont go for about 2months. go back down once and dont show up till 6weeks, i keep telling my self this is the year your going to go for your black belt!. but that never happens. got it into my head one stage i'll do judo 4times a week, in 2 clubs. but thats not going to happen.


were people are saying BJJ & judo with belt System, you cant saw one is easier then the other, in BJJ you dont fight for you belt in Judo you do.

Alot of BJJ guys were going into judo matchs and all they were doing is going for the legs and pull the other person down, and work on the ground, so the IJA change the Rule to Judo and you cant left the other person leg with your hands etc. stop alot of BJJ going to judo Opens.

cletus

I actually thought the rule change was to try and distance judo as much as possible from the other Olympic grappling art, wrestling

Could be i'm wrong, it happened that one other time

yomchi

SBG Ireland wrote: »

better at what? at BJJ i would hope so....at TKD etc i wouldnt have the first clue

Beginners classes this September

OLDMAN1

SBG Ireland wrote: »

you're welcome



you didnt answer my question

i had to think about that one , but simply a martial arts system that has a history behind it...

Niall Keane

but of course its not the style that matters....or the 'man'.....only one thing will decide if its effective or not.....the training methods!
The training methods should be the essence of the style. Form is how we express our martial technique, how we shape ourselves dynamically to break and create structure. If we have a peculiar way of doing things thats different or unusual this gets noticed and we have a style no? BJJ and ground fighting, but then rolling is a big part of it? Muay Thai and standing combinations and striking from the clinch, so they spend allot of time in front of the heavy bag? Real Tai Chi and moving and adhering, allot trained with appropriate wrestling and striking drills. Some run through these drills some participate, just like some tap at heavy bags, not considering their guard, wasting their time.

So I agree SBG, ability comes down to training methods, and where it is lacking I would say you have an undeserving hierarchy of people in place who have taken over and can no longer teach the training methods that made the style effective. Tyranny of the weak?

sorry niall but i can rarely follow anything you say....you have to understand im quite stupid!

this short video explains what i mean by our training methods best

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r-G33oKHc

SBG, really here I’m saying that traditional martial arts in their original form do this “alive” training. How do I know? From my perspective I can only relate to Traditional Tai Chi Chuan.

Traditional defines the older styles, as opposed to modern wushu which was compiled by China to combine the “flashy” moves from various styles, exaggerate them and set them in routines, and there are no drills, neither sparring nor wrestling within wushu. Just clearing up what I mean by traditional and modern.

I digress, so how do I know? Well we are lucky that some past masters stretching back to 1750 have left us writings on strategy, training methods etc. These have become known as the Tai Chi classics, all stress practice:

e.g. “practice as though there is an enemy before you, so that you can fight as if no one is before you”, “Ceaseless exertion is the method of self cultivation”, “we cannot suddenly become expert, we practice technique in order to acquire principle, and once we have acquired principle we can abandon technique”

There are tomes of this stuff, also I have in my possession video footage from 1957, with Cheng Tin hung and his students in a park knocking seven shades of s@”t out of each other, drilling, practicing isolated techniques and sparring. Form was used to warm up and down and for private solo practice. I didn’t get to see this video until a few years ago; a Canadian gentleman old student of CTH had it and issued it out to Dan Docherty. What surprised me was the almost identical method of training.

There also exists writings from CTH from 1947 where he speaks of his master Qi Min Quan, and describes his training, “the master would attack me with various methods and expect me to attack him back with Tai Chi Chuan techniques”.

This all seems pretty “alive” to me, so the question then remains, what the hell happened to the other stuff that became a dance in the park?

Why is form one of only five elements of Tai Chi Chuan the only thing now taught by many? Alone it is useless. It improves dynamic changes in structure, awareness of strengths and weakness along movements, and strategic possibilities, recovery and counter techniques, but only if the person practicing the form understands these possibilities, i.e. has engaged in fighting using the techniques.

In other words it’s pretty high level stuff, and not much use to average Joe, but Average Joe should get to know it at first it will heal and limber him up, later it will communicate with him.

From looking at martial arts magazines from the 60’s and 70’s its obvious everyone was fixated with discovering the “supreme” martial art, “your kung fu is no match….” SO my guess is that western instructors started peddling these “secrets” i.e. stuff left for competent fighters, not beginners, and so bastardised “traditional styles” were left in the west with loads of flashy esoteric nonsense without any foundation. The “aliveness” was skipped over for the subtlety. But crude hands can never be subtle. Is it a fault of the art? I would say such practices are not the art.

If people sought out results this could not have happened, the fools playing at mastery would quickly be demonstrated to be devoid of martial virtue. This is what MMA brought to bear in the 90’s, a long overdue ass kicking. SO we must then examine the structures the existed to allow the weak to lead and determine the practices within these “traditional” organizations. Inevitably we find an “honour” structure based on years spent in service and kowtowing rather than a hierarchy based upon fighting achievements. To me I feel that a belt structure encourages this progression, maybe I’m wrong, I hope so, it’s a case of: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

SBG Ireland

yomchi wrote: »

Beginners classes this September

ive enough on my plate without trying to learn TKD too....but thanks!

SBG Ireland

OLDMAN1 wrote: »

i had to think about that one , but simply a martial arts system that has a history behind it...

as opposed to one that just popped into existence?

could you name a 'modern' (i presume thats the opposite of traditional?) martial art that doesnt have a history behind it?

EnjoyChoke

SBG Ireland wrote: »

i would tend to agree with niall regarding the 'bjj is young' part. i've been training around 12 years and notice a big difference between the standard of the lower belts then and now....

Do you think the standard of lower grades in BJJ is worse now than it was 12 years ago?

OLDMAN1

SBG Ireland wrote: »

as opposed to one that just popped into existence?

could you name a 'modern' (i presume thats the opposite of traditional?) martial art that doesnt have a history behind it?

all modern martial arts have roots in traditional arts , the ones that jump to mind as modern would be krav maga and some of the urban combat styles. i have no problem with them but then again when i see wooden m16 rifles being brought into a krav maga class i do wondor.

i could be taking this the wrong way when you ask me to define a traditional martial arts: are you trying to get me to say a static system that stays the same as it was 300 or 400 years ago and does not elvove, if you are i cant say that as all systems have to elvove and not be STUCK in the past , just for the sake of it...

pablohoney87

cletus wrote: »

I actually thought the rule change was to try and distance judo as much as possible from the other Olympic grappling art, wrestling

Could be i'm wrong, it happened that one other time

That was the main reason they quoted but i think most people believe it was to make judo more "watchable" to a non judoka. Since they banned techniques where you cant attack below the waist with your upperbody it should stop "negative" judo i.e. two guys hunched over trying to break each others balance and not fighting for grips.
With the ruling i think they hope it will make the pace of a match faster and see more wins by ippon and big throws. Absolutely nothing to do with keeping BJJ guys away from the sport.