17/05/2026
This echoes my thoughts as TSKA members know. It's sad how its got these days with so many made up grades and ego driven titles. And people being awarded their next dan grade before the recognised time between grades.
Black Belts FOR SALE!
There was a time when a black belt meant something serious, not mythical or superhuman, but serious. It represented years of effort, discomfort, repetition, physical work, and the gradual development of capability under pressure. It was not simply a reward for attendance or payment. It carried weight because earning it required confronting resistance, exhaustion and reality.
Today that meaning has become increasingly blurred. In many places the journey toward black belt no longer revolves around developing functional ability, but around navigating a financial structure disguised as tradition. Monthly fees, affiliation fees, registration fees, preparation fees, extra class fees, and finally the exorbitant grading fee itself. By the time the examination arrives, promotion often feels less like an assessment of ability and more like the completion of a transaction.
Ironically the grading itself is sometimes the easiest part. Basic kihon consisting largely of punching and blocking the air. A kata performance or two. Perhaps a few techniques demonstrated on a fully compliant partner offering little or no resistance. Occasionally a board break, sometimes unsuccessfully despite being pre-prepared for demonstration purposes.
Then comes the rank, the title, and the authority attached to it. Yet beneath all of it sits an uncomfortable question.... What exactly was tested? Certainly not the ability to function under genuine pressure, adapt under stress, or deal with a resisting adversary. In many modern systems non-compliance is almost entirely absent from both training and grading. Everything is carefully controlled, rehearsed, and protected from failure.
This is where martial arts quietly transforms into something else entirely, the business of validation. Most organisations no longer sell effectiveness as their primary product. They sell identity, recognition, belonging, and status. The student receives a belt, a title, and a framed certificate. In return the organisation receives loyalty, financial commitment, and another success story to advertise publicly.
The problem is not rank itself. Structure, progression, and recognition all have value when applied honestly. The problem begins when the rank becomes the product being sold. Because if a system never requires performance against resistance, unpredictability, aggression, or genuine pressure, then what exactly is the rank measuring? Attendance? Memory? Obedience? Financial consistency?
The same problem appears in the explosion of titles throughout martial arts circles. Grandmaster, International Soke, Supreme Instructor, World Head, Chief Instructor. Many titles today exist with little or no legitimate Shogo connection, repeated so often that appearance begins replacing authenticity. Ironically those with the grandest titles are often the least willing to engage in genuine pressure testing. Reality strips away illusion very quickly and illusion cannot survive honest resistance.
That is why so many commercialised systems rely on compliance. Compliance protects the performance and it allows techniques to appear flawless because the outcome has already been agreed upon before the demonstration even begins.
The patterns are familiar, endless air punching, kata without pressure, unrealistic static attacks, frozen training partners, and overdramatic reactions. The attacker lunges, pauses, the defender performs a sequence, and moments later the compliant uke falls on by choice while the audience applauds.
But violence does not behave this way. Aggressive people do not freeze politely in place. Fear, adrenaline, chaos, and resistance fundamentally change human movement. Under real pressure, many techniques that appear impressive in cooperative training collapse almost immediately.
And this is the uncomfortable truth many organisations avoid, a technique that only works on compliant people does not prove effectiveness, it only proves cooperation.
Martial arts begin to lose their purpose when belts replace ability, titles replace competence, and appearance replaces substance. At that point they slowly stop becoming systems for developing practical capability and instead become systems of theatre, performance, and commercial validation. The tragedy is not simply that people are promoted too easily. The deeper tragedy is that many genuinely believe those promotions represent something they do not.
