The next coloured grading is on Saturday 20 October conducted by Master Andy Betts 7th Dan. We use the standard GTI grading syllabus with the following upgrades.
Yellow belts with Green tags need to do “free sparring” instead of “3 Step-semi free sparring“. This means Green tags and above need to own and bring a full set of sparring equipment to their gradings.
The Power test for Blue Belts and above means breaking for both Juniors and Adults using age appropriate plastic boards. Display your hand and foot breaking techniques appropriate for your age, weight, grade and general awesomeness.
The GTI press-ups requirements for each grade
- White – 10
- White with yellow tag 15 press ups
- Yellow Belt – 20 press ups
The following are the NLTKD requirements which are conducted during the “Basics” phase of the grading
- Green Belt – 30 press ups
- Blue Belt – 40 press ups
- Red Belt – 50 press ups
None of the above is new. Just posting all syllabus changes from past few years in one post.
I know from my personal experience that press-ups can be hard. I hated them as male adults have to do press-ups on knuckles, but also they are not impossible. I asked in class today, particularly the adults and ladies, if I should lower the press-up target and they all said keep we should keep it. The ladies said reducing their requirement would be discriminatory 😎 OKaaaay !! Also in my experience the students who struggle to do press-up will generally struggle to be a good Black belts and whilst the student who are going to be good Black Belts will do 1000 press-ups if I asked. Press-up, like patterns and stretching simply need practice.
Also making a clear rule that you need to be 11 years old to be a Blue Belt. This is not currently an issue as you need to be 11 to simply join our club, but we occasionally take younger students with previous martial art experience or siblings of existing students. Under those circumstances, the student will now need to be 11 before getting a blue belts. I have heard there are 10 year olds with 4th Dan Black Belts out there but . . not with the NLTKD.