We have a guy in our class who has trained for 20 some years in various martial arts styles who started at our school 4 months ago as a white belt.
He is being promoted past orange and blue belt to green belt. He knows the forms, and seems to have the ability that is expected of a green belt in our school.
I don't have a problem with it, and maybe it's a good thing because he'll be able to train on techniques that are more in line with his abilities.
My only question, which I haven't asked him, is why didn't he stick with one style.
I don't believe he trained in our style, (tang-soo-do), but like I mentioned, it's obvious that he has trained for some time now. I have learned a lot from working with him. (we usually pair up).
I was curious about what opinions everyone has on this subject, and the subject of skipping belts.

The belt system is rubbish anyway.

Anyone who spends enough time in any given school knows who is good and who isn't. They also know a person's belt ranking says next to nothing about how good they are. At many schools, you'll find green belts and blue belts who, in a real fight, could beat the stuffing out of most of the black belts. Belt promotion tests are just a gimmick for schools to make extra money.

Frankly, it sounds like your school is more honest than most. They actually want this student's belt ranking to say something about his skill level. Good for them.

Personally, I'd be happy to train in a school with no ranks.
I think belts represent your expertise in technique and forms of a given style, and your maturity and attitude as well, more than your ability to beat the crap out of someone.
If a person thinks they're a bad-ass just because they have a high ranking belt, they're simply fooling themselves, and may be in for a rude awakening out in the real world.
Most of our black belt and other advanced belt students are very humble, and practice with seriousness and urgency. They don't seem to buy into the illusion that a high ranking belt means that you're unbeatable, and that attitude filters down into the lower ranking students, which keeps their egos from getting the best of them.

We had a woman in class last year who skipped two stripes. At first I thought this was wrong. Then I came around.Her technique was great and she put in more time than the rest of us.
It was one of my other classmates that pointed out that sensei is a 3rd dan and that he has a much better read on her abilities than us.
Oops! I felt so low when I realized that my ego got bruised by someone elses promotion. I was ashamed of myself. Big lesson learned.
We are on our own journey and the promotion of others is to be cheered not envied.

Mark

I was happy to hear about this particular student getting bumped up because we started out in our school at around the same time, and I didn't stop to think at first that he had trained before. I just though that he caught on really fast, and that I was worse off than I thought I was by comparison.

The British Judo Association and the Irish Judo Association use to have gradings based on the old Batsugan method: You got your belt depending on how well you applied your knowledge of Judo. In other words, the more people you beat of roughly the same size, age group and gender, the faster you went through the belts. Of course a certain amount of theory and technical knowledge was expected, but that never took a long time to learn.

It was a far from ideal system, but there were no doubts about rank. You got the belt you were capable of getting. One guy earnt his black belt in a little over 2 years in Judo because he knew his stuff, trained like an animal and beat EVERYBODY he came up against. Another guy from the same club had been doing Judo for 8 years regularly and was a 1st kyu brown belt because he hadn't won enough matches to get to black belt. The point is you can't bluff skill, regardless of how long you have/or have not trained. If you have the skill and know your stuff, you should get the belt you deserve.

As to why this guy in the OP has studied so many different martial arts, well, that is quite a common thing to do. In fact you could argue it is necessary to do in martial arts. I know very few people (who have studied martial arts for at least 5+ years) who haven't tried other styles or classes at some point. It keeps training fresh. Believe me as good as your class is, if you are doing the same thing, week in, week out, you need to change things up once in a while. A good teacher can keep things fresh. Otherwise training can get mundane after awhile, especially in TMA where you are repeating the same movements/forms week in, week out.

If this guy has been able to train in martial arts for 20 straight years power to him. As to why he has tried different classes, well, he could have legit reasons. Maybe the class he attended closed down. Maybe the instructors changed and he didn't like the new teacher. Maybe the class fees shot way up and he couldn't afford to train anymore. Maybe he got injured in a class and didn't want to go back to said class. Maybe he simply got bored with his training and found it too hard to keep going back. As I said, there could be a ton of legit reasons.

I agree.
I didn't mean to imply that he changed styles for a negative reason, but I was curious as to why he did change styles/schools.
It is more of a friendly conversational question than anything else, and ultimately the only thing that does matter is that he's still training.
I'll probably ask him when I get to know him a little better.
As far as changing things up is concerned, I agree that content needs to be fresh, and our instructors do a good job of that.
A traditional karate student can expect classes on drills/forms, groundwork, strikes/kicks, sparring, takedowns, self-defense, ect...
They used to post the class topic for the evening on a calendar in the school, but some started picking and choosing, and subsequentally certain aspects would fall by the wayside for them. Our instructors will point out to the students areas where they feel improvement is needed, give them recommendations, and let them know when the next class on the weak area for them will be held. Then it's up to you.
I prefer to simply show up and not know what the class is on until it starts. They always switch things up, and I get a good variety of everything by just showing up to class consistently.
They always seem to pull something else out of the hat that I've never seen/done before, and that challenges me and makes it fun.
I do feel that repetition is necessary in order to actually get good at what you're doing, but not to the point of beating it to death.

Skipping a belt is up to the instructor. If someone has his knowledge and skills up to the level, than why hold that someone down the grades?
Don't compare yourself with fellow students. Concentrate on your own training.
Your instructor will compare his students (between students) with the skillset the instructor finds suitable. If they are up to par so to say.

I didn't know any better at that point, but I know now.
Live and learn.

Speaking of skipping belts, I tested for my orange belt last week.
I felt pretty good throughout the test, did my form, and everything else that they wanted me to do. No problem.
They had me doing more than the other white belts at the test, which didn't really surprise me because they do that with me in class as well.
Then they asked me to do the next form, which orange belts have to know, and I nailed it.
Last night they gave out the belts, and they skipped me over orange and gave me a blue belt.
After class the owner told me that he felt that it was a waste to give me an orange belt because he felt that I was ready for blue belt techniques, and there was no point in having me pay another test fee (40 bucks) to test again in the near future.
I wasn't expecting it, and it was a nice surprise. Now I have to get to work learning my next form and some new stuff.