Episode 597 - Ratios of Black Belt to Non-Black Belt Students
In this episode, Jeremy and Adam talk about the ratios of black belt to non-black belt student.
Ratios of Black Belt to Non-Black Belt Students - Episode 597
Schools have varying ratios of black belts to their non-black belt students. Some have more under-ranked students than black belts, while some have a few or almost no under-ranked students except for the instructor. For this matter, what is the best proportion for a school to have good dynamics? In this episode, Jeremy and Adam talk about the ratios of black belt to non-black belt student.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome! You're listening to or maybe watching whistlekick Martial Arts Radio episode 597. Today Andrew and I are talking about ratios of black belt or equivalent students versus non-black builder equivalent students in a martial arts school. Doesn't matter? Yes, it matters. We're going to talk about why in just a moment but I'm Jeremy Lesniak, your host joined by co-host Andrew Adams. I'm the founder of whistlekick. I love traditional martial arts. Andrew loves traditional martial arts. Everybody involved with whistlekick loves traditional martial arts. I bet you do too and you probably do too. If you're checking out our contents, if you want to see all the things we do as a company, go to whistlekick.com. See everything we got going on there. One of the things you will find is our store. If you jump in the store to find bunch different stuff from apparel to training programs to equipment, bunch of different stuff, Use code PODCAST15. Going to get you 15 percent off. Let us know that you're supporting the show. You listen to the show and it lets me tell the account. Yes, that actually leads to some sales which is an important thing to do when you invest. What we invest here at whistlekick. Now, if you want to go deeper on the show, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com is the place to go. You're going to find every episode, gets its own page with transcripts, photos, links, notes, all kinds of cool stuff. Check out there. Sign up for the newsletter. All that good stuff. And if the shows we bring you two a week, if those means something to you, well, there are lots of ways you can help us out. You can make a purchase, share an episode, follow us on social media. Were at whistlekick. Everywhere, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, not tick tock. Not Snapchat. Tumblr, we actually even have a Tumblr. You can tell a friend about this. You could pick up one of the books on Amazon. You can leave a review or you could support patron.com/whistlekick. It’s a place where we post stuff that we don't post anywhere else. You go behind the scenes on the show, all kinds of cool stuff. An entry starts at 2 Bucks a month. So think about help us offset the cost of the show. I'm trying to think of some of the last things that we've done. I've got it. Today or tomorrow, we’ll be writing in a post about upcoming guests and the things that we've got coming, who's coming in, what order reactions to episodes and honestly, it is the most direct line to having an influence on who we talk to and what we talk about. So, if that's of interest to you as a best place to do it. So, Andrew. Black belt or equivalent let’s say senior students, however, how do we turn that cause different schools versus non, there's a ratio. I've been to schools where you know, there's like one black belt and I've been to schools where 3 quarters of the students attending or black belts. And it definitely changed the dynamic of the school. Is that why you wanted to talk about this?
Andrew Adams:
Yes, this topic was raised with... A guest figured out that I hang out with other martial artists.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Shocker.
Andrew Adams:
Like you guys. I know right. And my good friend Angela, who has been discussed a few times on the show because she’s the martial artist that is in my pod, my wife works for. So, she's in our group of friends that we are staying around right now. And so, we discussed martial arts quite a bit. And she brought up this topic idea and we discussed it a little bit. I said I don't talk about too much right now. I need to think about it more but heard her thought was what is a good proportion of black belts to non-black belt students in the school? Are you missing out by having all black belts and no under ranks or vice versa?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yes.
Andrew Adams:
And so, it definitely went live. I would agree.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Show’s over. Yes, it matters. Goodbye.
Andrew Adams:
Let’s talk about why? Because you and I know why. But let's give something for our listeners. [00:04:09-00:04:12]
Jeremy Lesniak:
I think on the surface, if we take just the perception issue, the feeling issue. I have been the lone lower rank student in a school with a bunch of high ranks and I feel weird. It feels like I'm doing something that I shouldn't be doing because apparently everyone who trains here is a senior student and I'm not. So, what does... Everyone else who's tried to quit figured out that I haven't. On the flip side, when I've been one of those black belts and there are no lower ranks. It becomes this echo chamber. You forget how to teach. You forget new wants and how to break things down. So, you know how in this black belt form we do these crazies jumpy jumping thing? Yeah, let's just do that 400 times. Okay. If martial arts are about growth and progress which I feel it is. I think no matter how you look at it you're trying to get better, right? So, there's an importance placed on growth. If you struggle to see and thus have a harder time remembering where you came from, where you all can go, I think that limits the opportunities for you. Even if you as a white belt lower rank in the back of the class. If everybody else is a high rank, it's going to be harder for you to progress. Now, there's something to be said. You're in a room of great martial artist, what are they, is the class going to be catered to your growth or theirs?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah absolutely. My brain's going to...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Just pick one.
Andrew Adams:
Absolutely. I mean that the instructor is going to teach... I mean an instructor should teach to a medium ground, right? So, something for the lower students to kind of rise up to and you know some stuff that the operations will still get something out of. But if your instructor’s teaching a class of let’s put numbers on it, 15 black belts and one white belt. You know, what kind of classes that instructor going to teach? He's going to teach likely to the highest common denominator in terms of numbers of students. Yeah. Or what led up happening is the one white belt will go off with maybe one of the black belts to work separately. But now they feel excluded because 99 percent of class is in a separate room. And so, I think it could, for sure, be pretty harmful to be in that type of situation and scenario. Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If not harmful at the very least not as advantageous. Yeah, and I think it's important to recognize that. Now should we talk... I don't think we should open the conversation to how to prevent that. I think that's a whole different subject. I think today...
Andrew Adams:
We don't know how.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We well I got ideas. The intent of today is to get you take a look at what your student body is made up of rank wise and determined is that a healthy mix? In any complex system, you will not find long term sustainable benefits to a lack of diversity. Yeah, you talk about gardening and model cropping. We're starting to see some of the pitfalls of that. If you look at, there are studies showing in corporate environments that diversity in every way could interpret that word. Leads to better decisions and better outcomes and even better financial metrics.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When we have all black belts, all white belts, all blue but it doesn't matter if everybody's at the same place. There can be some benefit in teaching. But long-term sustainability, there's a reason that in most martial arts schools, we have mixed classes. If you look at older accounts of the one room schoolhouse, there were a lot of advantage. The fact that a teacher could teach. the oldest students and then they would teach the younger students. And anybody who ever spend time teaching those. Teaching help cement reinforce what you're learning, right? Everybody wins and that's kind of whether it's direct or indirect. That is one of the benefits of the mixed rank martial arts class.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, and if you have lots of different ranks. It helps to show the lower ranks students. The difference is that where you will be going if you only show them the end result. It is very difficult for the students sometimes choose figure out how to get there but if you show them the results. And then show them the step before it and then the step before that the step for that it's much easier for them to gauge how to get to the end result.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I completely agree. So, the question is there more is there more that we need to say on this?
Andrew Adams:
Well, I mean I think the other thing to consider is... No, I guess not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
[00:10:02-00:10:04] if there's more to say.
Andrew Adams:
Well, I mean I can say the opposite of like a class of lots of other ranks in only one black belt. [00:10:12-00:10:14]
Jeremy Lesniak:
I've... That one and what happens, what tends to happen is that advanced rank if that's the only class. That person's progress is generally limited because they're spending their time teaching more fundamental material and there are benefits. There's incredible benefit of that but if you... I've known people who have been at their senior rank for years and not learned the new material, they are expected to learn because they are not given those opportunities. It requires, I think as an instructor, a senior instructor, you're the one in charge of the classroom curriculum. Having a mix. If assuming that you in your school have break out groups and most martial arts schools I've been, will break out. You know, okay. So, I try to use different name because a couple episodes ago we used, we're recording these on the same day. So, you go take the green belts and Tom, go take the blue belts and Andrea, take the red belts. Right. Let me start to break out like that. But if you don't have enough black belts to do that or too many things get a little jumbled.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, having a mix is good.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Having a mix is good. Now, the premise of the question had to do with the ratio. Can we say definitively that there is a healthy ratio?
Andrew Adams:
I don't know. I don't know if we could. I mean my gut goes to a quarter and three quarters. I don't know why.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I could see that. I think there's definitely flexibility and I think it depends on the rate of progress. You know, you have some schools where there's more time between ranks than others. And I think we know that. You know, it's not quite a pyramid. You know that we don't always have the most of white belt and we have attrition off. You know, there's always going to be attrition. But so, there's something I want to point out. There is a phenomenon that I've witnessed that I think is relevant to mention here that interests you and most listeners have witnessed. When you have a group of people start at the same time, roughly the same time, even if they did not start together. If they didn't know each other, they tend to stick around longer. There is value. There is retention value. There is training value in having people that are your peers. There is the term used in gyms all the time, a workout buddy. Same reason you start training. And more or less the same time. There are others that you can relate to. You tend to hold each other accountable even if it's indirectly. You know we were working on that saying last time and now I'm a little sore but I'm going to go. And that occurs regardless of rank. If we were to commission some big study, I suspect we would find that in schools that have less diversity, there would be less retention.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. I see that.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So yeah, maybe we'll do a full episode on how to encourage diversity. We have to get people start all the time. The things that are good for bringing student center and good for diversity ultimately. But we can impact the... Anything else you want to add?
Andrew Adams:
No, I'm going to make a note. [00:13:58-00:14:00]
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright, thanks for watching or listening or maybe even reading if you're checking out the transcript of this episode go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for this and all of the other episodes’ links and notes and photos and videos, all kinds of good stuff. And if you’re supporting us and the work that we do, you have lots of options. You might consider buying one of our Amazon books, telling others about the show or supporting us at patreon.com/whistlekick. Remember we have this incredible strength and conditioning program. Does not require any equipment, built just for martial artist. And you get it at whistlekick.com and use code PODCAST15 to get 15 percent off. Another program or shirt, order something else. We want to hear your suggestions. Guest topics, whatever that feedback is. And if can you find over social media with @whistlekick. My personal email Jeremywhistlekick.com. So, let's send out. Until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.