The Shintaro Higashi Show - The Belt System

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

Since being introduced by the founder of Judo Jigoro Kano, the belt system has been an important part of virtually all martial arts. How did it come about, and how should we approach it? Shintaro and Peter discuss various aspects of the belt system to provide a balanced view on it. Please support us on Patreon if you can: https://www.patreon.com/shintaro_higashi_show. Any amount helps!

Hello everyone, how are you doing? My name is Shintaro Higashi and you guys are listening to the Shintaro Higashi Show with Peter Yu. Thanks everyone for being here. Today we're going to talk about the belt system. Right, so Judo has a whole history with the belt system, different variations and whatnot. So let's start with at the beginning. What happened in the beginning that made Kano introduce the belt system? So supposedly, made kano introduce the belt system so supposedly supposedly kano invented this belt system which has been adopted all over the world and you hear this in jargon that's not even related to martial arts he's a black belt in finance or he's a that's a huge deal right the black belt has become synonymous with like someone mastering something

so that's an amazing thing and supposedly kano started it yep and it started with kano's training gi right the judo gi the uniform that pajama looking thing that people are like well you know pajama wrestling this it's kind of like people look at it like oh it's like a karate key thing right so anyway they he invented this thing i guess so it's like you could grab and it creates more handles around the body to make you a more effective grappler, right? Right. And then it teaches you and it forces you to learn more intricate stuff. And my best sort of thing that I say all the time with Gi and no Gi, so why do we train with the Gi?

Because it adds a layer of complexity and it slows it down a little bit more. Therefore, it becomes like this massive, learning tool right right because if you think about it all the things you do in no gi you could still do with the gi but all the stuff that you do with the gi you can't do in no gi so there's a little bit more stuff there when you can do use the gi right it's like the supers set of the no gi stuff yeah i guess so yeah that's a good way to put it yeah and also yeah you could argue gi no gi all this stuff but it's relevant because you know the gi opens up you need to tie something together that's where the butt comes in but before i even get to that with the gi it slows everything down too right

because if i grab someone's wrist that's very fleeting it can be gone in a second but once i establish a grip on somebody right with the gi it sticks around a little bit more and then you could really transfer energy right right somebody right and especially being a little bit more further out not like locked in like body lock so that's a really cool thing but they needed something to hold the thing together therefore the belt comes into play right and then the beginning everyone wore a white belt so white belt white top white pants white belt no black belt no color supposedly supposedly so the gi gets really dirty right sweat you sweat in it people bleed on it so you have to wash it but because of sumo culture with the mawashi the diaper looking thing uh you're not supposed to wash the mawashi

it was like a traditional thing i know it sounds disgusting but you never wash your belt because there's this superstition of like oh you know you gain patna right uh patina and you gain knowledge and it acquires and accumulates if you wash your belt you like wash away it goes away too yeah who knows if that's true but you just don't wash your belt you like wash away it goes away too yeah who knows if that's true but you just don't wash your belt that's not something that you do right and you know it's a centerpiece of your thing and you want to show how much training you've done and all this stuff goes into it you just never wash it you wash your gi the gi gets stays white the belt gets dirtier dirtier dirtier dirtier and all of a sudden you have this like dirty dirty dirty dark looking belt

so when you walk into a dojo in those times person with the dirtiest belt has put in the most amount of training and that person's probably the best i see right so you know people say a black belt all the black belt is is a dirty white belt you've seen you hear people say that people love those isms i i like that yeah and then it's like what about the red belts like a red belt i don't it doesn't have a really cool one yeah how about your belt huh red and white and your dad's red belt it's like it signifies the beginning and signifies me bleeding who knows what it right what it means i'm sure someone does but yeah so the white black belt that was it so in the beginning white and black belt that's it and then yep i i know because i

i did some judo in korea too they only had and in japan too right they will still only have white and black mostly white and black that's it if you go to a kid's program they'll have yellow and green and all this right right i see i see yeah but basically any sort of progression situation in japan they have q grade and downgrade so that's everything is based around that and the belt system corresponds to that q grade downgrade system right which still happens around the world like q and don everyone's yeah yeah and it's a little confusing and it's a little bit antiquated so like i'm not i don't get into it too deep at my school so like if you ask a green belt at my dojo like what q are you he'll be like what are you talking about right right right so it's not part

of my daily communication and you know some people will criticize me for that but i just don't think it's that necessary to to know it right so then just to touch on it the cues start from 10 to go down to one right uh would you catch all that because you cut out for a little bit on the thing oh yeah yeah i caught all that i think yeah we'll splice this out okay so yeah so the queue just kind of go over the queues and dance just for the sake of coverage so queues start high down to one right like what 10 10 q to 1 q or juku to eq i guess yeah and then you get showu-dan, which is the first one,

which means the first dan, and then ni-dan, san-dan to ju-dan, right? So there's q-grade and then dan-grade. And dan-grade is the mastery area. So much so that if you're a q-grade person, let's say you're a mu-dan-sha, which means like you're a no-dan. Yeah that comes also with the philosophy of the first time you get a don a first done right now all of a sudden that's where your training begins because now you have the foundation

so there's q grade and downgrade and like you it goes down. So it's almost like a countdown until you get a Dan grade. Right, right, right. Yeah. And then that's why Yuran Shakai, the association of people with Dan degrees exists, right? That's right. That's exactly right. Yeah. Oh, good for you.

That was amazing. It's almost like you speak Japanese. A little bit, a little bit. Cool. for you that was amazing it's almost like you speak japanese a little bit a little bit yeah cool so then uh what and another thing is that like the concept of the black belt i think it there's some difference between how it's perceived in the western world and then how it's definitely perceived in the eastern world like korea and japan for example like shodan you don't say yeah shodan doesn't yeah it doesn't really mean that yeah it has some master it's like the first don right that that's when you start like you kind of know what judo is right yep and then so in the western world if you get a black i think i get you can see it in bjj if you have a black belt bjj you're like a master

right yeah master yeah yeah but it's different so you know if you have a black belt in bjj you're like a master right yeah master yeah yeah but it's different so you know if you ask somebody in japan like what's your rank in judo they don't say i'm a black belt they don't say that right right they say nanda it's like what down are you yeah and then if you hear like show down they're like yeah okay you've done a little judo sundown like okay from sundown like third down third degree black belt that's where they're like okay so you know maybe you were pretty good. Right. And then it goes up to 10th Dan.

So it goes first degree, second, all the way to 10th degree. And based on that, like it really, really legitimizes you. Right. And it's not just judo. You have this system for everything. Everything. I know they have for Go. You can get like a third Dan, yeah, for Go, for chess, or this, or, you know.

So they do this all the time. So like the Q grade system, the Dan grade system, it's across the board. Every, almost every skill that can be sort of measured, they'll do this. I see. So it's very clean. You know, if I went to Japan and they say, oh, you do Judo? And, you know, even if like a young teenage person's like hey what nanda what's done and i'm like i'm a sixth down yeah then they're like oh

wow like you're that's you know so that's pretty cool nice nice you know yeah so then so where do the how did the colors come in here colored belts when i think it was more of a western thing right right so now you have the white and the black belt and then white it's whatever q grade that you start with like i said it was a countdown so if you look at white belt there's sixth q or tenth q depending on where you are right because you have to fill the q's with the different belts but let's just say it's tenth q or sixth q whatever it is and then you have showdown which is the first degree and that's the black now you have the just the two different colors right and then you know you're a third degree fifth degree you still keep that same black belt right you

don't really you know get that much so maybe like sort of the stripe system of like having one line across two lines across the show that what don you are that probably happened at some point. BJJ does that, right? BJJ does that. Judo does it too. Oh, they do? Okay. Not everywhere in Japan you don't see it as much, which is kind of interesting, but like judo schools over here definitely do that.

I don't have stripes on my black belt. Maybe I should add it. You can, yeah. So, yeah. So then then you know i think uh i kind of want to say it was the french it was a japanese sensei that went to france and came up you know to keep right because if you're a 10th cue to be having foundation to black belt and now all of a sudden you have no markers or no indicators of your progression people are going to get bored with it right think about every video game that you've ever played call it you're like level one you play one game you're level two you

came two games you're like level three and then you know the time in between gets longer and longer but by the time you're like level 23 you're sort of invested right right right and you have all this and that and you start taking pride of this and then you know that is the message in a lot of martial arts because like this is your belt don't put it on the floor right yeah this is your rank you earn the rank you know and if you go to tako do school it's like this is your orange belt signifies the rising sun and then the sunset that you train from morning to night this and that you know like so you know it's a way to have people buy into it too and it's a way for people to have pride in saying i earned something right it's like more of an external like more explicit signal that you're progressing

yeah yeah definitely definitely so it's a extrinsic motivator for sure because people want something that they could hey look this is something you can never take away from me like i earned this look at this degree you you know, something like that. So then, okay. So we cover the concepts. Well, I guess, and then you have the, let's kind of talk about the black belts and the color belts in the Dan degree.

Yes. Before we move on to other stuff. So black belt, showdown to go down, like first degree to fifth degree, you wear black and like and then someone like you eight yeah is red and white six seven eight is red it's red and white and then oh and the ninth and tenth is red and your your father it's a ninth degree right yes he's nice nice yeah and then legit yeah amazing and so sick yeah so how how does the so i know that um from showdown to maybe sandan you're done it's all mostly skill

based right like you gotta win points competitions and whatnot depends on what track you're on so this is the thing about the belt. People from the outside think it's an objective thing. If you're sixth, you're better than fifth. If you're fifth, you're better than third, right? Things like that is not objective at all. It's not objective at all. It's very, very subjective,

especially at the lower level of Shodan Nidan. It's like, I'm an instructor. This guy's been doing it for that long like this is our dojo criteria do i give him a dojo belt or do i give him a a rank that's recognized by a bigger organization for us it's hudson judo that's recognized by usjf right so under that whole pipeline right and the usjf has contacts with kodokan so you can apply for a kodokan belt so now all of a sudden you have this chain of like me here you go hudson here it is this is the criteria for hudson they put it to usjf now you have kodokan now when they give you a certificate for shodan that's

recognized globally kodokan is the mecca of judo right right right can i say that mecca yeah is that cool to say right it is like the center of judo right so that is a thing that's a special special thing right how do you get that right so does it start with me just handing this thing right is there any sort of verification process right yes no maybe right how is this person different than the person standing next to him who got his black belt that was just handed to him by an instructor i don't know in africa or something right that the person before it did judo and the person before that did judo and right how do you determine who's more legit you really can't so it's a subjective thing and you know for me to say ah your skill's there. You don't deserve to wear that.

That's not really my place to be able to do that. But sometimes you'll see a crazy, abhorrent thing of like, this guy has definitely never done judo in his life, but he's wearing a black belt. Take that off, right? But you rarely ever see that because judo is a show-me sport. It's like, show me that you could take me down. And they're like, um. And it's like, you definitely you could take me down you know and they're like um

so it really happens because you know you get your butt kicked and smashed right right so yeah it's definitely subjective uh i see and we got to kind of think about that in a way before we kind of get into it and you know people want to believe what you're thinking of peter is like this meritocracy promotional system right at the local level where they have to compete if they're on the competitor track right right right i see then there's a little bit different than a non-competitor track which is a little bit more time-based and there that's a path in all in itself because competition is not for everyone not everyone can compete you know maybe you were a competitive athlete before you had three knee surgeries and you just simply cannot do judo at the same capacity right you know as a you or a from my dojo or something you just can't right right right like we're gonna tell them like oh

you'll never be a black belt like forget it that's not right either right rob them the chance of being good at judo and gain the benefits of that so and being a competitor a good competitor doesn't necessarily mean that you're like your judo knowledge is the best i guess in a way yeah you're good at one thing you know competing so one aspect of judo yeah one aspect of it you're competing under the rules of competition right there's a lot more to judo and grappling than just the rule sets that guide that competitive realm right yeah so then so having keeping that in mind um how do you how do you recommend people approach the bell system and progressing through the bell system like it uh that's a very good question yeah so it's a little bit different right um the way i approach it at the dojo right is i tell people it is a merit-based system right so if you're a white

belt coming into the dojo and there's two sort of philosophies on this. Some people say every dojo has to have a clear path to the black belt, clear path, no matter what. It should be laid out like a curriculum. You know, you come for 10 classes, you get a yellow belt, you come for 30 classes, you get a green belt, and then you have to do 100 classes before you get to a brown belt. Then you have to show me the kata, show me this, this is a criteria, you have to pay for it, then you have to take this test, and you have to do that. And then all of a sudden, you could definitely get a black belt in five years right and that i get that you know i get people who like having the syllabus the student type where it's like i have to do these things check box here you know and maybe even within that plan

it's like you have to do one white belt competition, one green belt competition. Can the competition requirement be waived if you are, you know, not capable of doing it? Yes. And then having that. I don't do it like that at all. I don't do it like that at all. Mostly because it requires a system that needs to be managed and it's very time consuming for me to keep track of all that stuff, you know. But, you know uh but you know you develop sort of an eye a little bit too right right and i see the effort of the people and

there is sort of a general timeline of like how long it takes from white to yellow and for us it's probably like three to six months right three to six months or the ability for that athlete to take a break fall properly in the Nagakomi context of not going live. We're not even talking about that. White belts don't do live at school. Right, right. Are they capable of doing the waza live? That's kind of the top 50 percentile of the white white belts crop of white belts that are in the room right now so the entire dojo kind

of shifts i guess you could look at it like a curve right and that's sort of my system and uh i like that way because it's like i'm showing up day in and day out and yes some people fall through the cracks i'm sorry you know You know, yes, people should. I'm not criticizing anybody that takes attendance and counts and how many classes that they've been. I'm not criticizing any of that. It's just my method. You know, because that way I could look at the effort. And a lot of the dojo is structured in that way.

When we do the one minute burpees at the end, who's pushing, who's not pushing, right? If someone's coming in three times a week, that person's on my radar. Lawrence is a new kid. He's a smallipino kid he's probably like 130 pounds he signed up and he's come to every single practice oh wow right yeah maybe like for like a month and a half now you know like that kid's on my radar yeah i think he was going to be good in the beginning no i did not but now i'm like okay this kid's putting a lot of effort. Is he going to beat the 190-pound white belt that comes in with jiu-jitsu and wrestling experience?

Definitely not yet, right? Right, right, right. But this kid can potentially get good. Yeah. So now I'm already thinking about when I do the one-minute burpees, pushing himself, he's asking to do more Nwazu Ndori, which, sometimes we do at the end of that initial beginner and intermediate class. And he's just a nice, polite kid. And now I'm like, all right, this kid, if I do, like, you know, and I kind of do it on a whim, too.

It's like, oh, you know, it's been a while since I promoted. It's going to be, oh, I'm going to do promotion today. Let's see who deserves it. Oh, that kid definitely deserves it. Right, right. Right. Something like that. You know?

He could be a good partner for david my brother yeah yeah yeah yeah that's good yeah so something like that you know so that's the way i like i like to you know structure it and then and people have criticisms of that too right right how can you look at everybody and there's a critical mass sort of a number if i can't do that if there's more than 100 people in the room all the time right right first of all we can't fit 100 people in the room right but if i have 100 members and there's consistently 25 to 30 people in the room which is generally where we are in the adult program right right now it's a little bit of a different time because of covid but like generally that's kind of the the gist of

the program i have 100 people signed up and probably 25 to 35 people in the room at once and then day in and day out i'm having conversation i'm scanning the room i look in see who's training i work out with this guy work with that and then it's like i kind of get a feel of it and it's like every six months or so it's like all right all right, we're going to do a belt promotion. Who deserves it? All right, looking. Yes, that guy. That guy. That guy.

That guy. And it's not always merit-based. It's effort. It's where you started to where you are now. Because you can't have everybody going under the same standard. You can't have everyone just getting rewarded on time that they're there. None of it is fair right that's the thing that's the reality of it it's just it's simply not fair right and then the clear path to success situation it seems fair but like it that itself is not fair too because you could just be showing up and hanging out you could just be showing up

hanging out that person has nothing else going on in there like they just have more time to show up right is that fair no right everyone has a different thing and there's just so many different factors contributing contributing to it it's like and that's the problem sort of with the belt system and you kind of have to have like uh that benevolent dictator situation sort of the philosophy that it comes down to you know right you're you're benevolent so it works so the i mean i guess i don't want to think of myself as a dictator but i mean it's hard to have not have that sensei syndrome when you're the only red and white belt in the room right right right you know and or even in like uh you know certain mile radius and people

are seeking answers and because they see it as a objective thing of you're a red and white belt you're the second from the top right in the division situation so it's like it's hard not to gas myself up and but that thing one good thing like the main point you're trying to make is that everyone's situation is different like someone like you said someone could be you know very busy with their with their work yeah but if they show up uh even once a week and when they're busting their ass to like keep up with and then make uh get good at judo he or she deserves the next belt you know and then every the whole context has to be you love considering the whole context even in judo and yeah and it can be a very very side

hustle intensive thing to be able to do and follow up right now i have to manage this entire system i have to print out the syllabus and do the check boxes and a lot of especially when you get to the downgrades with the organizations that give those things to legitimize it and to verify it it becomes very very paperwork heavy you know this yeah yeah hudson judo yeah yeah so if you want a first degree second degree third degree from h Hudson Judo, which gets pushed up the USJF, which gets pushed up the Kodokan, you have to do all the paperwork necessary. You have to check all the boxes.

You have to write down all the people who you've competed against. You got to get a recommendation letter from me. You have to do a sports safety course. You have to do a concussion course, right? You have to do, you know, child touching. Don't do this. Molestation, minor safety, whatever it is situation and you have to submit all that stuff.

You have to submit it on a deadline and then you have to show up and then apply for a CADA exam where you show your CADA. It is just crazy how much stuff that you kind of have to do. So when I see somebody that's a red and white belt that's verified through some of these systems, I sometimes think to myself like this is a person that knows how to fill out paperwork.

I mean, it's important. That's important, too, you know, for following up with the logistics. And they have all these different time deductions. Right. So if they say, for me, 6th to 7th degree, 6th to 7th 7th Don right how many years is it many many years but if you're A level competitor it's supposed to be

7 years I think so I need 7 years from the time that I got my 6th in order to apply for the 7th because I'm an A level competitor I made a world team so that automatically qualifies me for a much shorter time period as to my opposition who never made a world team. So that automatically qualifies me for a much shorter time period. As to my opposition who never made a world team, might take them 15 years in between rank.

So now I already have a time deduction. So now it's seven years. It's like, do you coach? Yes, I do. Take 5% off. Right? What do you do for the sport? I have these judo videos.

I teach judo. Not just in the local setting, but the overall setting. Okay. That may be a deduction. Things like that. Do you have a coaching certification? You do. International. Yes, I do.

Okay. That's a deduction, right? That's a 5% off the top or something. I'm making up numbers right now because I can't really think exactly. So, and fortunately for me you know my dad loves this stuff so he definitely helps me out with this and then he stays on top of it it's like hey do you know like with all the deductions now and all this stuff that you you you're capable of applying for this and i'm like yeah i guess so because if it were left to me with the way my

life was you know i probably wouldn't have done all this stuff because I'm not good with paperwork and administrative stuff. You know, I do it. I'm not saying my dad does all of it. I'm not saying that. I do it. I do it because, you know, I have reminders. He keeps you on your toes. Yeah.

Keeps me on my toes with it. And then, you know, who does, who has time for all that though? Right. Nobody. Especially if you're just like, I'm coming into the dojo and I'm training and I want to be fit and healthy. And I love the guys at the club and I'm just going and showing up and I don't really care about. Because having a downgrade for competition, it doesn't matter. You don't need a third down or a fifth down because you don't have these divisions.

You're either a black belt or you're not a black belt. That's really how it is with competition. You have black belt division, brown belt division sometimes sometimes and then you have a novice division i guess so in terms of competition it doesn't matter right because i guess i kind of fell through the crack in a way too it's kind of it's probably it's my fault but so when i got my second degree with usjf yeah i applied for a second degree in kodokan but the but the problem was that kodokan never gave me a showdown because i got my showdown through the korean judo federation which didn't apply to kodokan so kodokan gave me a showdown you probably have to get like a letter from them

and then send it over and then have it and then you got to backtrack it you got to talk to all these people make phone calls make emails and then everybody somebody over there has to push it through it's like yeah it's like it's a i hate stuff like that you know i really do and you don't nothing against them really because that's how you have to do it kind of right right there's so many there's no other way yeah because they can't have a subjective thing of like who's good let's get them all in the room and see who's working the hardest and all this stuff like there's no other way. Yeah, because they can't have a subjective thing of like, who's good? Let's get them all in the room and see who's working the hardest and all this stuff. There's no way to be able to do that. So you kind of have to have this system.

Yeah. But it's not perfect. It's not perfect. But it is a system. It is a very deep and complex system of different deductions and different time situations. And it's the best that we have. It's the best that we have. You can hate it and criticize it all you want. But you know, there's guys that I know who've been

doing judo for 20 years who got their showdown black belt and then on paper they're still showdown. They just never bother. And you know, there are organizations out there that you can kind of bypass a lot of this stuff too. That's not as administrative heavy. Like if you look at USJA, if you look at their organization, they're a lot of this stuff too. That's not as administrative heavy. Like if you look at USA,

Judah, USJA, if you look at their organization, they're a lot more loose with these stuff, this stuff. I see. I see. Cause they put a lot more value on like,

Oh, what did you do? Like for instance, uh, I think it was Colton, right? Colton's an Olympian by anybody's standards. He's a superstar in Judah.

Right. Right. He's great. He's great. Right. Um, yeah yeah he has he done all the administrative stuff and meticulously gone from showdown to knee down is his knee down to sound on paperwork good all this stuff probably not right but then he's like hey you're olympian fifth degree sure yeah that's good you know and they probably have a system for that as well right because i've seen people who are top-level competitors who never really done any of this stuff with the Kata exam and this and that and fun and stuff.

And they skipped rank and went to a certain Don. And people hate on that, right? And then there's some people who are like, no, they're an Olympian. They should have that. And that kind of stuff happens in japan too happens all over the world right right yeah i remember when in a way won an olympic something they just immediately promoted him to go down i remember this yeah something like that you know so it can be done you know it happens you know and it's not objective that's like the biggest

takeaway from this right and i And I know like in Korea, if you go to Yongin University, you get out with a third degree or a fourth degree. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. They just force you to go through. And they're students.

So, you know, they can make them take all the tests and stuff. And then there are like sort of isms, right? Not isms, but like kind of... Like, for instance, like if you go to Japan and if you're in high school, getting a third-degree black belt as a high schooler is a huge deal. But everyone kind of knows that if you make it to the All Japan Championships or you make it to the adult-level national competition circuit as a high school kid which happens right you automatically get a sundown is it written anywhere probably not right because it's like one of those things that's kind of fast and loose and it's kind of like a sort of thing but it's it always happens because you could be in a room and you're like that guy's a third degree black belt and he's

still in high school like you hear those kinds of conversations right and you see a showdown first degree black belt in middle school right in middle school you get this right so it's like right in america it's like we have uh half belts right for kids yeah right we have white white yellow-yellow, yellow, yellow-orange, orange, orange-green, green. And then so now we have to stuff those in the Q grade system. So they start at a much higher Q level. So there's much more ways to go. And a lot of schools do this too. It's like they have that.

So in the beginning, it's a lot faster to give out belts, a lot shorter times in between. So it's like white to white-yellow. How long do you do that? You know, I've heard people do like gray belts. It's like, this is the belt before the white belt. You have to earn your white belt at the beginning. It's like get a gray belt and then they immediately get promoted to white belt

like three weeks in, two weeks in. The kid's like, I'm already halfway there. Like, yeah, it's like, and now all of a sudden kids get motivated. And I think it is important to have that flexibility because people are motivated by different things right so the the takeaway is that it is important to for as a form of extrinsic motivation and yeah you know keeping track of your progress and whatnot but

don't be married to the idea that if someone has a black belt he or she would be a complete master of this or anything like that there's a lot more going on yeah and it sounds a little hypocritical coming from a person that is doing that playing that game me right red and white sick right doing the thing like you know keeping track of all this stuff and it does sound hypocritical when i say things like black belt is a dirty white belt. And you just have to let the belt age naturally. The color is going to come. It's just going to happen.

Don't focus too much on it. And it seems a little hypocritical. But as a teacher, as a coach, it is a motivational tool. It's a tool. They're indicators of where they are in their in their problem the training right so it's also a safety thing right you know there's a there's a lot of ways to look at it dice it up and you know look at the layers right and for me for me in the adult program is different how i run it with the kids program but white yellow green brown black for adults right right so when i have the room when i scan the room it's like i know the green belts

can throw down they can do randori but green versus green is a little bit dangerous right right so i'm doing randori too physically with the people i'm looking down the dojo at the side of my eye i see green and green going at it i'm like oh let's see what's going on over there immediately and i was like okay these two greens can do it okay yellow belt versus yellow belt like that can happen as well right so it's a safety sort of a situation too it's an indicator for me you know and based on who is motivated by what i'm more likely to reward and i'm a little bit more flexible so it gives me right and it's sort of all like in my head too which kind of is makes it not scalable right that's why people like this clear path to success because business-wise it's

probably better to have that but i like the flexibility and the way i view it as part of the dojo situation right so you know technically i guess from a business standpoint the way i do it is wrong oh because it's my preferred method right my preferred method and no one can take that away from me yeah in a way because you have the flexibility you can kind of you have the ability to take in everything like you know effort level what's going on in their lives and stuff and it could take over you completely man the promotion cycle for the hudson judo situation going a second going a third you know doing this having the proper paperwork and doing other stuff and it's like does everybody know all the black belts in the room know this do you want to go through that and you know a lot of the people are just happy with just

being able to don a black belt yeah i because what's the next one red and white to get to red and white it takes forever anyway if you're not a top level competitor so it's like do you want to be bureaucratic and do all this stuff you know at these intervals for the next 30 years in order to achieve that rank right right some people do if you want to do it god bless you do it and i'll support you and i'll sign the paperwork and say that hey you deserve whatever it is if they do but it's it's a tricky thing to yeah it's very it's a lot more complicated than right people think i should i I should get my knee down from Kodokan. You should.

I just have to fill out the paperwork. You can get your knee down from Kodokan and then you can probably backtrack and count the time and then apply for a sandan. Third degree. Then you're legit. Yeah, I know.

I think sandan will be a good goal for me. Maybe yodan if I can. But we'll see. Yeah. Now you have to go through the organization in michigan oh is that is that why like okay that see you don't have to you can still do it at hudson yeah then for the sundown for the third degree here there's a kata portion right which is katamana kata which is the nuwaza kata and i have to go back and practice with you guys

you gotta yeah you gotta do all the paperwork and then you gotta pick out the date you have to pick out a partner train it come back for that date and then do it and there's a good chance you get a a person that's a hard hardcore judge that says this is garbage you have to come back and do it in six months it's a good chance of that too yeah we'll figure that out but yeah sun done yeah well they um maybe you think uh you want to talk a little bit about how so the judo introduces bell system and they kind of propagate it to other martial arts do you know a lot about how other martial arts do maybe bjj you have a brown belt in bjj right yeah yeah and i know they're like they're more subjective there right yeah i think they're a lot more

subjective right and they put a lot of value on lineage right who did you get your rank from and stuff like that and right in jiu jitsu it's like white blue purple brown black and they have stripes in between right so it could be like a four stripe blue belt four stripe purple belt whatever it is and the more stripes you get and i hear a lot of schools just base that on time but you know because they take attendance especially when you're at a much bigger school they have to take attendance because right they can't keep track of everybody but if you're at a smaller jiu-jitsu school the instructor kind of says you know what i'm just going to give this guy about today because he's kicking everyone's butt at the

blue belt level right i kind of had a different path in bjj and yeah we talked about it yeah yeah i started and you know within two weeks the guy gave me a blue belt right this guy jojo and then you know i got a donna her i spent the summer training at the Donaher, and he gave me a purple belt. And then I had a judo student that, you know, was a judo black belt, and a BJJ black belt that gave me a brown. You know, and now I'm training with Brian Glick. We trade privates, judo and BJJ. I teach him judo. He teaches me BJJ.

And then one day I'm going to show up, and he's probably going to give me a black belt. I'm not, like, expecting it, you know, and I'm not asking for it. But if he does, great. If he doesn't, I'm okay with that too because I'm getting better and better and better and better. And there's going to come a time one day when my nirvana is so good that I could submit anyone and everyone that someone that's higher level than me is just going to be like, dude, you cannot be a brown belt. Take this. Just wear this.

Okay? And then I could forever put that person's name on my resume. So like that's sort of my path there's no clear path right because i don't sign up for a jiu-jitsu school and i don't have that traditional training right but my judo is good enough my nirvana is good enough to kind of take this path like it's okay for me and it's legitimized because you know i can show people yeah yeah yeah yeah and watch all these everybody now comment on my name was on youtube terrible oh gosh pinkie's facing the wrong way the thumbs the other way

the uh so and how i know like you you told me a lot about some of the taekwondo schools and how they're so good with the whole business side of the belt system and whatnot so how maybe we can touch on that a little bit like how do they approach it so i think a lot of it is time right yeah a lot of this time in the beginning it's a lot shorter right and it's a clear path to black belt that's always sort of the way that these people sort of have you on a syllabus because you remember uh going to college or something like that and there's 200 people in the lecture it's like okay you have to do the midterm you have to do the final and you have these two papers you have to do check them off what is the grade average

it out that's your grade for the semester people like that that's scalable you could have 200 people doing that right so that it's a taekwondo that schools usually take that kind of approach like show me this kind of approach. Show me this punch. Show me this kata. Show me this thing. Show up this many times. And they have other extrinsic rewards, too, to keep the students coming back based on what their interest is and how they're motivated.

For instance, you get this many stripes and sometimes it's an excellent stripe or sometimes it's like an achievement stripe. Different color rewards for everything. Right. And, you know, they keep track of this stuff so it's like oh i set a goal and i achieved it my goal was to stand up to my bully i did it tensei you get an achievement stripe you get this and you get this many stripes you get a patch and then you can put the patch on the chest right like that has nothing to do with rank but it has something to do with rewarding and you know showing off your merits all that sort of a thing not all taekwondo schools do it but i know taekwondo

school owners who do it and they have a lot of success with it because the kid that wants to train the kid that wants to compete the kid that wants to be fit they're just intrinsically motivated they're going to show up no matter what right the parents that are invested because they did taekwondo and i want my kid to do taekwondo they're going to bring that kid no matter what that kid that's kind of being forced to be there it's like oh my god like how do you keep that kid right there's a good portion of kids that is something that they're trying out for the first time right i do tennis i do soccer i have chest lessons i do taekwondo how do you make it fun for them and that's reward system yeah and it's not bad

it's like really you know introducing them to the whole world of martial art yeah i mean you know people criticize it but did that you know i've known taekwondo schools to have 600 kids right you know big taekwondo organizations 600 kids they have another one i know a guy you know that had 1300 students between like three locations you know and of course that's a different ballgame like i don't want to get involved that at all like it's not what i want to do but you know more power to them you know are each and every one of those kids getting great training i don't know maybe they are maybe they aren't right if you have a teenager elite in the class and just giving out patches and stripes like i can't imagine it being a full-blown thing. But who am I to criticize that? It's a different system. I don't really know it. I'm not familiar with it. I'm looking at everything through a judo lens. So, right. But the belt system is very important. It's like each belt signifies something. Each belt signifies that you put in X number of classes and X number of classes equals Y number of

dollars, you know what I mean? Because each class is cost a certain amount, right? So that way, you know, it's a bottom line thing as well. Right. You know, so you got to take it a lot of this stuff with a grain of salt and, you know, I have my opinions about it that I've kind of expressed a little bit. But I'm completely nonjudgmental when it comes to this stuff. Right? Because you have to run your dojo the way you run your dojo. Right. Some people are very, very much so like administrative crazy, like meticulous and tedious, stuff like that.

Keep track of everything. I'm not like that. You know, I just can't do it. If I had to keep track of every student coming in, how many classes, how many times they showed up, how many things they did, manage the paperwork and do this and that, I would lose my mind. I like teaching judo. I'm going to just teach judo. I like teaching what I want to teach. If you want to show up for that and interested in what I have to say and teach and do, then show up for that.

And if you work hard and if you grow, you get your belt. And that's the way I like to do it. But when I'm trying to progress myself in the world of ranking an organization, then I have to play their game because it's their game. So each, every person who's standing at the top,

you kind of have to play on their field if that makes any sense i think that's a good summary um yeah good way to end the episode anything any closing marks closing remarks peter thank you so much i'm gonna gift you a sundown now yes amazing guy you know my achievement makes podcasts with Shintaro yeah what's your lineage you know

Sensei Shintaro gave me a sondon on the podcast so I can say no that's my lineage yeah cool yeah thanks for listening

guys stay tuned for the next episode yep oh one more thing oh yeah yeah um don't pretend like you're better than someone because you outranked them

oh yeah huge huge huge maybe we touched a little bit on the dojo etiquette episode don't do that it creates a natural hierarchy in the room we don't want that and that natural hierarchy

you know stanford prison experiment dang your stuff so please check yourself right i gotta check myself too sometimes yeah be nice to each other be excellent to each other but i haven't read a white ball so i do i know all right thank you guys for listening thank you peter thank you