This is going to piss off some folks but I just can't hold this one in. I am going to express myself anyway. I read an announcement via email today that I normally don't follow. I read it for some reason that I can't figure as normally I delete it. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that a recent posted question on a forum I frequent spurred me to look. It was a question about tenth dan's in martial arts. Here is the excerpts from that announcement (the names were hidden/change to protect .....):
"... promoted from green belt, to Black Belt, due to his kata performance and excellent fighting ability, ... A very quiet humble man, with whose fighting ability was ferocious and earned him numerous grand championships in both kata and free style fighting ..."
I don't really care that someone does a kata performance at a tournament really, really well. This does not mean they understand and utilize kata in the appropriate classical way. I also take umbrage to a fighting skill determined by the rigid and restrictive rules of a tournament. In a nutshell neither of these either alone or together warrants a black belt. In my mind that kind of promotion diminishes the meaning I have for a black belt.
Neither of these speaks to any ability to either fight or defend out there, outside the constraints of the tournament. If it were strictly expressed that this promotion was due to sport kata gymnastics and that the sport oriented fighting ability, a don't think skill is appropriate here, then maybe but black belt. Maybe if they promoted the black belt as a black belt in martial sports.
I guess it is just the way it is and I don't have to accept it but it burns my ass that it promotes the misconception that it will be there for you in a fight, i.e. fighting skill as connected to the "grand championships in ..."
Then again maybe that is why I finally decided that the belt I wear, when and if I wear it, is not black or red-n-black or red-n-white or red; it just doesn't carry the meaning or weight it once did so very long ago. It has been subjected to so many convoluted meanings that it became a commercialized money generating title and symbol.
Oh well, rant is done, I feel a bit better and yes I do express it from a point of view of someone who did not win any tournament stuff or grand championship stuff. Yes, I will admit that it does take a form of expertise to to what this person does and did. I also admit freely that to overcome the many stresses involved in competitive aspects of martial sport takes considerable effort, dedication and diligence of a person but ( a big but ) it should and needs to be in the proper light in which it was given. Maybe today everyone knows and assumes that regardless of the expressions conveyed it is S to be martial sport.
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