Gradings

hi all

I was just wondering what you all have to do for your gradings and how all your different styles are structured!

In my Kung fu style its for 2 hours with a lot of hard training and then we will be called individually by our instructor to perform our forms in front of him and thats all of them and so far I have learnt 9 forms, 8 unarmed forms and a stick form!

I was just wondering what you have to do in Judo, Karate and I know in Taekwondo you have to do some breaking and sparring!

But believe me my instructor makes us work for it! and we always leaving the class sweating!

Well Judo, you have to do a little bit of theory (that you normally do with your instructor) and there are gradings, which is basically where you need to get ippon (1 full point) to score, you can also get points towards this in competition.

You have to be fighting someone of the same level or above and basically every time you win it goes towards your next belt - so when you see a blackbelt in Judo, it's been won through hard graft and many, many fights.

Karate - there are so many different styles but for Shotokan, you do your basics (punches, blocks, combinations) then you do your forms (Kata), then you do your sparring (in varying forms, you don't actually do free sparring until about brown belt). All this is done infront of the watchful eye of an examiner (this is not allowed to be the instructor). Please note I have been out of shotokan for about 5 years - but I doubt this has changed. As memory serves there are only 27 Katas in total and you only need to know 10 or so at black belt level.

Didn't train in TKD long enough to do a grading so don't know, but I do know it depends what type of TKD you do as to whether you break or not. One is full contact and the other Semi (I'm a little unsure though!)

My dojo, where the style is wadoryu, does things a bit differently. The guys doing the grading are pretty much always the people doing the instructing for color belts, since qualified instructors in clubs have the authority to grant those in the Finnish Karate Federation. The national graduation board dudes (some 5 high ranking instructors) do the black belt grading. No breaking (if you're referring to smashing bricks and stuff), heck I never even heard of anybody in Finland every doing it.

In Parker System American Kenpo tests, we are responsible for EVERYTHING we have learned up to that time. We must know history, etiquette, pledges and anatomy for each level, describe and explain the meaning of each part of our patch, basic stances, footwork, blocks, punches, forms, sets, and the techniques for all previous belt levels in addition to the one you're testing for. Some weight is also given to class and tournament attendance, learning outside of class, (seminars, camps, readings, etc)and teaching lower-ranking students. My last test,(for Blue Belt)lasted 2.5 hours.

Funny you mention it because we are actually testing the kyu grades (colored belts) tomorrow. All the students going for the test must know all previous requirements, general knowledge, one step sparring, Tuite Jutsu, Kyusho Jutsu, Katas and Bogu Kumite (full contact sparring). Basic test lasts roughly 1 hour. But advanced tests last from 2-2 1/2 hours. Black belt tests lasts roughly 3-4 hours.

Regards,

Raul

I suppose it should also be mentioned that some styles/federations/clubs/whatever use written exams. Some with stuff like "What is a gedan-uke?", "Why do we train with bare feet?", or even things like "Write a 300 word essay on becomming a shodan" (saw that on some South African Ashihara-karate site).