| Friend,
"How long does it take to get a black belt?"
How many times have you heard that as an instructor?
People in the West seem to be preoccupied with symbols of achievement and success, forgetting that the symbol is worthless if the journey to earn it wasn't fully taken.
And some instructors capitalize on that fixation, handing out rank like candy in an effort to keep students training (and paying tuition). I've even seen black belts fall for this, sticking it out with a difficult or abusive instructor, just to get one more stripe...
The issue of awarding rank on a certain schedule kept coming up time and again in my coaching groups, so a few years back I wrote this article to settle the matter (from my perspective).
If you come from a style or system where people seem to get ranked up fast, or if you're feeling pressured to give your students rank faster, you'll want to read it:
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
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P.S. - Not that handing out rank fast doesn't work... fact is, people fall for that crap fairly easily. Case in point: the guy who had the school down the street from me during the time I ran my second dojo. Let's just call him "King of the Demo". This guy would approach my students and tell green belts and blue belt that he'd make them black belts in six months or a year if they switched schools. No one took him up on his offer. But after I sold that school, last I heard the guy had 300 students and built a nice new dojang. I'm sure he's still duping people left and right today.
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