I don't train in Taekwondo regularly but I have a good friend from Korea who is an instructor, he is very traditional he's been training for over 20 years and I asked him his rank he said 3rd gup. I always thought Taekwondo had dan ranks but he said that dan ranks in taekwondo are made up and traditionally there are 30ranks in Taekwondo and they are all called gups so you start at 30gup and go to 1gup. 1 Gup he told me was similiar to somewhere aroung 5th Dan in karate which is really about as high as karate goes based on technical ability. But he insisted that the highest possible rank in Taekwondo was 1gup. Does anyone know about this ranking system?

I personally have never heard of such a system in taekwondo but who knows? I have studied both ITF and WTF styles with various clubs and all used either 10 or 9 gup rankings (same as kyu) and then dan rankings. If your friends system trains the way he said it would be interesting to hear more about it. What forms? What techniques are focused on? If he has the training it really does matter that much what rank he is. Can you really ever compare the rank of one person to another's? [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif[/IMG]

Also it is commonly excepted that modern TKD is developed from karate (mainly shotokan) and should have a similar ranking system.

are you sure he wasn't kidding you?

He said it was based on military ranking to some extent, it was obdvious to me he had top technique. He said that the top 10 gup rankings became dan rankings so people could understand equivalent rankings, and that the bottom 10 gups were dropped so students didn't start moving up in gup rank till 19th gup. It seemed reasonable to me.

the gup system is often used from white to black in ranks. Often the dan system picks up where that left off. In my system, we have 10 gups, white being gup 10 and red being 1 gup. Then you just go up in dans at black. Never heard of a system like the one he mentions, but you gotta remember that there are hundreds of different TKD systems and schools out there that all do things differently. My school does different forms from almost any other school!

How does one achieve a rank higher than first dan?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by OklahomasGreg:
How does one achieve a rank higher than first dan? [/QUOTE]

In this guys system he said 1gup was roughly equivalent to 5th Dan in karate which is about as high as technical ranks go in karate nowadays.

No, Im speaking in general terms. After you earn a blackbelt, what do you do to earn a second degree? And after Second, what do you do to gain even higher ranks? Do test again, and then that makes you a second degree BB? Or do you train under a different instructer?

Sorry if I didn't make my question clear.

older times?

wait 2 years.
Learn the 2nd degree form.
Become more active in the martial arts community. ie. give back
Test under someone that can test you.