you know what? I have some Chinese American friends that own a Chinese resturant. They are so close my friends, that one day they ask me to fold some napkins around forkso place on the tables. my frinend and I Anglo Saxon folded 100 something of these things. and once we where done. we went to put them with the rest that where folded by our Chinese friends and we had far more then they had made, but their's where so perfect not one could hold a light to the best we made.

In Korea and in my daddy's training days black belts whore just black belts. did not matter what dan the where. it matter how hard the kicked how good the form was. no how high they kicked. there was no 1200 eighties and 7million twenties. just men and women who lived day to day and you never knew they trained. My dad was forbiddion to attend turniments. risk your skill and body for trophies? is they wa they tought. if you went a head your where banned from the school.

now

you have to have black belt and embroidery and nike doboks. dang man did we all sell out or evolove?

I lesen to Lopez on the news that basiclt says tae kwon do is jsut sport! not in my book fellow brother. its more than asport its a way of life brother in the arts. i think ya lost site of genral try dream. Lopez should have said oplimpic tae kwon do not tae kwon do

when i trained over seas you had to ask a black belt what dan he was. plain black belt frizze and old and gray.

in the 2000 i went and learned tai chi and i found out they dont care how high you are in sash or belts. its just done no show jsut your hard work that healed your body.

i'm thinking have a spent to much time in effort trying to get paper work and dans. or should i just get them and study the way my dad and his peers did.

i think the black belt should be tossed (mentally)a side and we need focus on bettering our self our skills and just learn whats in our curriculum but focus on our path to being a great martial arts every year or every three months. for get the strips just know the black belt is in side of us its a spiritual thing not a peace of cloth. I think i pay to much mind to my belt and medials and not enough on my skills. im a great martial artist but i think i seated for a title and sold out on how greater i could become temporarily stunting my martial growth.

Last month, I had a conversation with a man who has studied TKD the same length of time that I have. We had a great talk about our shared experiences even tho we had never trained together.

He had had the opportunity to train in college with some Korean TKD students.  When the discussion of rank would come up, they weren't interested in the discussion. What mattered to them was only how long one had trained.

Because I spent 19 years at 2nd Dan, I run across many folks who have trained a much shorter time than I yet have higher rank. Most of these folks, who weren't born yet when I received my 1st Dan .

I have a dress belt with rank stripes on it for "special occasions". My daily belt has my name is Korean on one side & Taekwondo Chung Do Kwan in Korean on the other.

Some folks feel the need to show the rank that they are proud of. Others are equally proud of the rank they earned that they do not show. Each one needs to live with the way they train or teach...or don't train & teach. I'd bet it's like that for all professions. For a doctor, the proof is in their ability. 

I take pride in the belts that I wear, I'm not a black belt but I am commited to getting to that point.  But I'm also of a younger generation then some of you (24) and I've seen that rank comes down to culture. 

In wrestling, we didn't have belts, it was more jackets (Freshmen, JV and Varsity) I am on the only person to have worn all three and also the only one to have done it the same year.  We got medals and letters for our jackets which we thought was pretty cool.  But I went to a Russian Ran wrestling camp, thinking I was hot stuff being ranked in state and everything and the Russians didn't have that.  Their national team just didn't care what your rank was and they didn't boost theirs (some were top of their weight classes in the world). I learned that having a solid record, being ranked, having a varsity jacket didn't mean too much, there is always someone better.  

Grandmaster Jung's favorite belt is the first one he earned and brought over from Korea, not the prettiest belt in the world, well-worn, faided (even more white in some areas) and I don't think to many people will question him on his knowlegde of TKD.  But isn't not having the fanciest belt making a statement as well, maybe not saying anything about rank but more so about not going with popular trend?

I think it comes down to every person, like the statment about what people would like to be called.  I've vistied with some doctors that insist on being called Dr. So and So and others just didn't care (I do hate it when doctors I meet for the first time come in call me by my first name and acting like we just had a few rounds the other night, if know them fine, but first visit I like to be respected and called Mr. Jones, doctors that haven't done that I usually don't go back to them and I address them by their first name as well. But I had a teacher that liked to be call Mr. Harper and he addressed his students the same call them Mr./Ms. So and so.  I see it with college profs, where some demand to be call Professor or Dr. if they have their PHD and I've had others that just preferr to be called by their first names.  I really think it depends on the person.