In RTMS we do not use the traditional color belt ranks. We focus on Mastery of the martial arts over external rewards. Students of RTMS will go from Gray Belt to Red Belt (instructor status) and finally Black Belt after 1-3 years of experience.  All other belt ranks and rewards have been removed. The following information describes why we have made this decision:

SELF-POWER
The purpose of training in the Martial Science (or Martial Arts) is to encourage individual thinking, self-actualization, and an opportunity for each student to maximize his/her potential as a free-thinking person. Let's review that list again:

1. Individual thinking
2. Self-actualization
3. Maximize potential as a free-thinking person

In most schools (whether martial or academic) students that display any creative or free-thinking qualities, are perceived as threats and usually silenced. Few instructors or teachers can stand a student who has input and variation. Most systems already have a certain way of doing things. Dojo rewards are handed out to those who conform the best, to those who please their teachers or do their kata exactly as it was handed down.  

"It reminds me of being at the diner table when I was a kid - if you didn't like the left-overs you would go without eating."

Why are students punished for their desire to expand, create, enhance the training and share their independent thinking? A student who is truly independent, who shows no signs of guilt or anxiety about it, is considered a troublemaker. A student who refuses to be just like everybody else is singled out and asked to feel guilty and repent. Yet these qualities of being guilt-free, independent, and free thinking are what society labels as no-limit or self-actualized behaviors. Most institutions for student development state one thing as a developmental objective and yet do exactly the opposite. At CMS we are going against the grain and striving for individual self-powered excellence.

But don't students need to be disciplined first so that they can later make free, independent judgments?

Isn't that why we stress doing it right, or the "teacher's way?"

Don't students want their instructors to hold their hands during the process?

Believe it or not, all of the above actually limits a students ability to understand and develop. 

How can a student learn to be a free thinker when he/she is being trained for the opposite. A class-room in which students are all busily pursuing individual objectives isn't necessarily a chaotic one. It could be one in which there's excitement, instead of the apathy or robotic unity in virtually every dojo on the planet. Individuals could be helping each other. They could have busy, creative arenas, a miniature real world if you will, for exploring all subjects. Instead, students are told to stand with a group and quietly do as they're told. This leads straight to incorrect, neurotic thinking.

Take the typical group training as an example - it simply is not a learning environment. Each person is unique and special. How can you tap that uniqueness when each student is treated the same way?

On Monday an instructor introduces a new subject, forward rolls, say. The instructor gives the same material to every student. They are all exposed to the same lecture and demonstration, they all read the same manuals, they all do the same exercise, and on Friday they are all given the same test. The students who perform best on the test are given a new rank, while the others fail. There are no provisions for those individual differences that are an integral part of our reality. Why is it assumed that everyone will assimilate such information at the same rate? Some students may need two weeks to learn the material. What about the students who need only a day to master a punch but need fifteen days for learning a kick?

Stress is one of the largest blocks for human advancement. Do you think that stress is being placed on a student when s/he is racing to keep up with the group?  Instructors use step by step goal setting rewards an excuse to literally stunt a students growth.

Students are taught all the same way, in the same amount of time, and those who can learn exactly that way the fastest, are labeled the smartest. Being able to assimilate something faster than someone else has to do with one thing, speed. Our educational logic guarantees there will always be average and below average students.

Why insist that everyone conform to a standard norm?
Why teach everyone to think and act alike?
What do we have to offer if we are just like everybody else?

We insure this through the insane pursuit of grades, belt ranks, trophies and tangible rewards, those educational merit badges we dispense on report cards and transcripts. This seems to be the real obsession of instructors and educators - not knowledge and self-discovery, but the pursuit of those external rewards called ranks and degrees. Moreover, these so called "grades" that we've elevated to this almighty status have absolutely nothing to do with being educated in reality.

So, what's wrong with providing rewards in the form of grades for educational excellence?

Grades and knowledge are mutually exclusive ideas. In fact, grades actually serve to lower motivation for knowledge. A grade whether a color belt or a large A on a piece of paper is still just an external mark. It signifies for an individual that s/he has participated in the game of education.

Knowledge is an inner mark. It is reflected in:

1. How you feel about what you've learned
2. How it aids you in pursuing your ideals 
3. What you as a person can do with that knowledge.

Knowledge breeds self-awareness: grades breed self-deception. A belt on a uniform has nothing to do with reality. It is a symbol of having conformed. Nobody looks for your belt in a reality based situation, and certainly you wouldn't want to assess a grownup person's ability on the basis of a colored fabric. The person who passed a blue belts test only a year ago might fail every one of those same examinations today. It is in the doing, it is in the now. 

What you eat today is what will keep you alive, regardless of how much food you ate last week. 

In order to be able to stand on your own two feet, you have to step out of your instructors shoes and take the responsibility of being a self-taught Total Warrior.

It's how well you currently produce that earns you respect and personal advancement. Oftentimes those who can play the game well are actually ill equipped to participate in the real world. And on the other hand, many who refuse to pursue grades neurotically turn out to be more reality oriented and hence much more successful at virtually everything they do.

Most traditional systems actually detract from human motivation. When you place a person in a system in which the reward (the grade or the belt) is unrelated to the actual learning activity, motivation is lowered. For example, if you give an orange belt for completing fifty push-ups, a yellow belt for forty push-ups, and so on down the line, who do you think will ever want to do a thousand push-ups? Almost no one, that's who. That system says, strive for the reward and work only when you are being rewarded. Since the reward of colored belt has nothing to do in reality with push-ups, then motivation will cease when the reward is achieved.

So how is this changed? First, the rewards for learning must be aligned with the actual activity of learning. The reward for training is not located around your waist, it's within. It's the joy of being able to develop your skills, the thrill of performing at your best or discovering and applying a new idea; the freedom one achieves by being able to experience what others have created; the inner glow and self -satisfaction of training for personal growth. These are the rewards of training. Similarly, the personal sense of accomplishment one feels when s/he is in top physical condition, the glorious feeling that comes from being physically fit, the ability to climb stairs without pausing to catch your breath, to run without feeling exhausted, to eat and sleep peacefully, to bask in your own self-pride at being superbly healthy - these are the rewards. When you begin to align your rewards in training with the actual activity, motivation will increase and apathy will decline, and not one moment before.

No one can teach you anything. Each student makes a decision to learn. When a student who has decided not to know something, no amount of "teaching" is going to get that knowledge across. Conversely, when a student decides to learn, no amount of teacher interference will alter that decision. It seems that we all have the inner capacity to learn anything either with the aid of, or in spite of, instructors. Truly great teachers understand this, and deliberately go about their business of providing a unique environment for individuals to make choices to learn.

They emphasize learning for mastery, rather than striving for grades.

How long it takes is quite irrelevant. It means that individuals take tests when they are ready to see how much they have mastered, rather than on a test day set aside for everyone to earn a new color. Mastery means no punishment for being slower or faster at mastering a subject. Mastery means that when you acquire knowledge, you get inner satisfaction. The results are personal satisfaction and inner pride, and one receives a grade of Mastery (such as Black Belt) when he demonstrates mastery of the material. In a mastery system, people want to help each other, rather than compete for the few trophies that are made available in the form of grades, belts, and the like. Students have freedom to develop in areas of personal interest and explore challenging subjects without fear of failing. Cooperation rather than competition is the style of learning.

But aren't color belts good for goal setting?
I know it is hard to accept this two letter word, but I am going to say it anyway: "NO." Unless you are an old oak tree or your goal is to wear a yellow ribbon around your trunk - colored belts have nothing to do with goals. Your goal is to learn a certain skill such as a spinning back kick. The only realistic purpose of a colored belt is to segregate people from the rest of the group. I think this is just a childish egotistical response to accepting yourself as who you are. In our system you are either a student (gray belt) an instructor (red belt) or a life stylist (black belt ). Students don't need a rainbow of colors to get them to master the subject of martial arts. In fact, the minute you remove the limitation of colored ranks the students skill level improves dramaticaly. No longer is s/he worried about comparisons or fitting in. They can focus on training, sharing knowledge and development. 

In a world of individuals, comparing students to each other using ranks is a senseless activity.

If a student were in a self-system that prized knowledge, they would soon learn cooperation rather than competition. The entire world is composed of people competing against each other. While competition without scorn on a playground is fun and healthy, in the real world it breeds antagonisms, hatreds, nationalism, and theories of racial superiority. There shouldn't be any stultifying group examinations or comparison of results. These are replaced by a healthy atmosphere of cooperation and helping.

Students confronted with a rigid, authoritarian teacher will perform only in the presence of that authoritarian figure. As is true in business, when the authoritarian teacher leaves the room, students abandon the pretense. The fact is that when formal schooling is complete, the teachers are permanently out of the room. Students who have been exposed to rigid training for long periods of time dally for the rest of their lives. They soon despise all learning activities because they are associated with rigid authoritarian thinking. Teachers in a reality-only system of mastery learning are educating young people to become their own teachers. The presence of the authority figure has nothing to do with the individual pursuit of knowledge and excellence.

It's simply a matter of becoming more reality based. Knowledge is internal. Acquisitions are external. We say we're concerned about knowledge and the inner person, yet all our energy is channeled to externals such as ranks, grades, test scores, diplomas, degrees, and titles. Students should emerge from their training experiences excited about the prospects of being knowledgeable for the pure joy it brings, as well as the limitless opportunities available to a person of knowledge. But too often students emerge from the traditional maze like one of the flock, looking, thinking and bleating just like everyone else.

If all of this is true why do so many schools use colored ranks? 
Because a dojo is also a business and you improve student retentiion when you have things to entice them to return. Once a student reaches yellow - they can focus on orange. Since the majority of students quit within the first year, colorful belts help get them to stay longer. The problem is that students end up focusing on the belt and the power of each rank rather than their internal skills and development . When you don't have the fruit loopy selection of belts you force a student to commit to mastering the system or at least thinking about it. If you explain this process to a student they will understand. You simply need to ask:

Do you want to MASTER the system or do you want to get a few colored belts and quit. 

This will quickly help place focus on the importance of true GOAL setting - which is to go all the way. Having too many belts is like kicking a soccer ball half way down the field and yelling GOAL. If a person really wants to score it is important for them to learn what that really means. A colored belt is only necessary when it is important to distinguish the members - such as students or instructors. This type of system is easier for us at Tew Ryu Martial Science to implement because we don't limit advance training to advanced students. In a typical class a student will learn any number of skills ranging from self-defense, weapons, tumbling and mind control . While most other systems limit a students development by teaching in blocks - you are only a yellow belt and must do yellow belt stuff. This is absurd if a person is ever to excell in the arts. All of this is still up to the instructor to implement and since most systems are still having students line up and throw joint damaging punches in the air - things probably won't change. Which is why the Martial Science exists.

Leaders can only provide a healthy environment in which students can attain their own truths. Here at CMS we have created this environment, one that supports Self-Power. Students have a year to develop individual thinking, self-actualization, and an opportunity for each student to maximize his/her potential as a free-thinking person. Each student is in charge of their own success.

As a student you can Master the subject or you can attempt to squeeze the hand of your instructor. 

You too can get the most from this concept if you take the first step towards personal power and development. You have to leave the nest so that you can fly.  Do not cling to others when you already have the ability and the context for learning and growing.  If you fully learn and develop what I am saying, you will be enlightened and truly in control of your own destiny.

As with all your training - good luck, have fun and keep it real.