How Many Hours Are In A Black Belt?
For my branch of Dynamic Kenpo Concepts, we don’t look at years in training, but rather hours – in our system, it
takes not only understanding and execution of the required material along with
consistent display of the combat attributes, but also a total of 600 documented
hours of in-class training. For those traditional Kenpoists who’d say ‘that’s
not enough time’, remember this: Ed Parker once sat down for an interview with
Joe Palanzo (published in the January 1999 issue of Martial Arts Illustrated)
where he said “it takes 360 dedicated hours, highly concentrated hours, to be a
black belt in our system”.
360 hours,
training all of the basics, sets, forms and techniques of the Parker Kenpo
system.
When asked
about the difference between the vast amount of required material in Parker
Kenpo and the streamlined amount of required material in DKC, I
relate to the philosophy of the one hour of training between the boxer and the
karate practitioner: given one hour, the boxer only has four punches (jab,
cross, hook, uppercut) to hone in a practically-endless number of combinations.
The karate practitioner will have his basic strikes, then forms and routines,
then standardized techniques to hone. Now, each has its merit and value; but I’d
rather have the same tools without the massive amount of standardized routines
and techniques. So we minimized the requirements (techniques, forms and sets),
while placing a heavy emphasis on live and spontaneous drills to hone the
student’s ability to attack and defend.
Remember,
vocabulary of motion has its place – but NOT before you’ve really developed and
honed your basic tools, and never at the expense of spontaneous reaction
training.
Does your wife know where the black belt came from and why it takes an average of 4 years to reach black if you train diligently.
ReplyDeleteThe old Masters would take on a possible student for a year. He would have to take care of the teacher for a year and then if he proved worthy, he would become a student. Then the teacher would train him. While in training the teacher would not cut his hair. When his hair reached the ground, he would test the student. If he passed, the teacher would then braid and cut his hair off and give it to the student as a sign of passing. Hence the first black belt...