Ever Younger Masters and Black Belts

When will the Young-Fu madness stop?

All right, enough already; I suppose it's time for a bit of rant mode. This "my son is only three and he's a black belt" madness has got to stop!

It seems increasingly often we can read about "The youngest taekwondo black belt in [insert country/state/city here]", or "Only [insert age here] and already a black belt in karate." A recent case in question is this article from the UK.

And let us not forget about the "master" label that is thrown around all too often. One thing is that the media nitwits sometimes seems to believe getting a black belt promotion in a martial art is synonymous to being a master. Another thing is when a young teenager gets to a relative high grade of fourth dan in taekwondo and is entitled to call herself a master.

Young black belt masters - Original image from Flickr.com

So young, and oh so cute

Yes this kids are cute and all that, and I have no doubt that they are good at kicking and punching and doing patterns and all the other stuff they do. All fine and dandy but that's beside the point.

There is nothing I want more than to see young people thrive in the martial arts and enjoy their art, their progresses and all the benefits the arts can give them. But do we really need to cling these really advanced titles to youngsters and hype up grades and promote like there's no tomorrow just to boast that "we have the youngest black belt in the country"? No way!

Six years old and a black belt in taekwondo after a little more than two years of training...? Fifteen years old and a fourth dan master in taekwondo after only 10 years of training...? In my book, this is wrong on so many levels.

Just mark my words, someone will eventually be promoted to "diaper-dan" black belt. "still wearing diapers and already a lean, mean killing machine - cute but deadly!" (and I'n not referring to the Japanese Sumo wrestlers wearing what looks like diapers here, I'm talking about the actual poop-pant, baby deal). Kind of like this Dragon Baby but obviously not as awesome :-)

So what do you think? Do you agree that we're doing children and young people a huge disservice by pimping titles and grades prematurely? Do we really have to cave in to the black belt factories and McDojos? ...Or am I simply an outdated and grumpy, boring old fart, perhaps someone even a bit envious? Let your voice be heard!