NaamKyun.com Discussion Forum

There was a situation in Sweden some years back. A little girl, 4-5 years old, was kicked in the leg by a boy so hard it broke. It was midwinter, and she froze to death trying to crawl home. Apparently the boy had watched martial arts movies and was showing off, not understanding the damage he had done while 'playing around.'

As for a five year old getting a black belt in what, three years, that's both sad and laughable. When I was in Judo as a little kid, we trained for a whole year before we got the first rank, yellow. I remember my parents promised me a uniform for christmas, and those couple of months waiting was torture. I wore nothing but that uniform for a whole week when I got it, hehe. I was just about to grade for Orange after a year as yellow when we moved, and it took a few years before I got into another judo school.

Nowadays it seems they start handing out belts when you first sign up, uniform included in the first month's fees, black belt in two years guaranteed or your money back.

As for the white belt turning black after years of sweat, dirt and blood, that's a good fable for experience, but the belt system is fairly recent, created by Jigoro Kano to match up practitioners for Randori, or judo contests so advanced students wouldn't just roll over beginners. Copied by everyone else in some fashion, since it's a good idea. At this rate though, we'll soon run out of colors and stripes and whatever else they put on to show how 'badass' you are.

I got a black belt too, cost me $4.95 + S&H and a week's waiting. I could have spent an extra $20 for nice gold lettering in Japanese or Korean lettering. "No Fah King Ai-Dee" or something fancy like that. Put it on once to look in the mirror, and then hung it in the garage for inspiration or a while before putting it in a drawer. I like colors and contrast, black on black doesn't look so good. Plus it intimidates good people and makes 'badasses' want to see how 'tough' you are.

"What's the sound of one hand clawing?" OOWW!