Martial art 'belt' equivalencies?

[Bugaboo]

I know there's no simple comparison between fencing skill levels and other martial arts 'belt' student systems, but it's still something to wonder about.

What would be your best estimate on belt color parallels for fencers, in terms of USFA ratings or years of fencing experience?

[neevel]

I'm not going to take a stab at a comparison, but will point out an added difficulty due to the fact that there's often a lot of inconsistency between just what a belt/dan/etc. means depending on where it was awarded. In any city you're likely to have a few "Master Shan's Martial Arts Emporium: Your Source for Discount Black Belts" type places out there that have relatively lenient standards for awarding belts as a way of keeping the kids involved and their parents paying membership dues and lesson fees.

The same thing applies to USFA ratings. The 'D' rating in particular is a very ill-defined thing (in terms of skill level), reperesenting anything from having won a 15-person novice tournament to having made the top 8 in an 60-particpant Group A1 tournament with a dozen A and B fencers.

Even if you leave out the 'belt factories' and just assume that you're considering places that award ranks based on rigorous, accepted standards, MA ranks and competitive ratings don't measure the same thing. Most MA ranks are based on demonstrating mastery of a prescribed set of skills for each level, whereas USFA ratings are soley based on competitive performance. Everyone who's been involved in fencing for a time can probably think of cases (especially at the novice level) of a fencer whose basic skills (stance, footwork, blade handling) are lacking peforming better in a competitive environment than other novices with much more sound technical skills due to some other factors: maybe just a confusing, sloppy style that the other novices don't know how to deal with, maybe a good sense of tactics or timing that makes up for the poor basic skills. Under a typical MA rank systems, it is the novices with the sounder fundamentals who would earn a low-level rank, rather than the sloppy-looking novice tournament winner. So being able to assign a 'skill-level-equivalency' between an E-rating and a low level MA rank is all the more difficult.

-Dave Neevel

[Moonitic]

I'll tell you this much: I've beaten every E rated fencer (in a tournament) in the state, but I'm still unclassified. And, I've been fencing for 6 (almost 7) years. (ps...if someone feels the need to bash my skill, don't even bother...I know I'm a good fencer). In our state, it's very hard for a woman to get a rating. Usually it's because there aren't enough women to go around, but that's changing, & things are improving.

[darius]

Moon...if there aren't enough women to generate ratings, you should be holding mixed tournaments. Kick the guys' butts, and git yerself a letter.

darius

[Christopher J Umbs]

Excellent points Dave,

I have always loved the 'Your black belt in one year or your money back' kind of places. What does it say when these are the most popular?

Chris

[cleghmor]

Hi

I don't know about equivalence. However a local Martial Arts Instructor did take me up on an introductory set of epee lessons and onto the strip he went. He was as awkward as any other rookie. Actually he was more "rigid" in his movements than many other rookies. Fencing was not his bag and he did not continue.

clegh

[HilandDoug]

Leave it to Neevel to come up with an excellent explaination. I like the "D" analogy, Dave. I feel that comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges. Can't really be done.

And I think Moonitic has beaten a few D's, as well.

[Matt_Bailey]

Yes, it is kind of an apples to apples comparasion. Competitive ratings and martial art belt ranking systems just aren't the same thing. Also, you have to ask yourself whether this is going to be a sport or martial arts rating.

[Pinky]

Hey, why use those old, outdated ratings? Let's make our OWN up. I say a white belt is equivalent to a novice fencer before a first competition. I did take karate in my youth and made it only to a yellow belt before getting bored. A yellow belt is equivalent to a novice fencer after a few competitions. Ratings for fencers are so arbitrary, as Moonitic has commented upon. I have an E rating and my daughter fences better than I do and is unrated. Place, time, and opponents are the hurdles to overcome towards a rating, but I watched a young woman win first place at the NAC (foil) in Greensboro who, I believe, was unrated. But since fencing is considered a martial art, perhaps we should make up some 'different' belt colors equivalent to fencing ratings...chartreuse, magenta, cobalt blue...the we could wear them as arm bands instead of belts. E fencers could wear one color, D's another, etc. Unrated fencers would have a color, too, and when you moved up, you could just add the colored arm band to your arm, creating a rainbow effect for those of us shooting for an A What do you think? Think the USFA would go for it?

[Nous]

Why bother making up belt colors for fencing just use the old titles scholar free scholar provost and master. Belts are an arbitrary creation of the twentieth century anyway. The only downside to this is that it isn't really applicable to competitive coaches, I'm not knocking their skills but competitive fencers focus on different things than cf/hf. The only significant thing that a rating should tell someone is whether or not they are qualified to teach.
Nous

[Moonitic]

Sorry darius, but the men in my division seem to think it's fun not to FENCE the women, but to hurt them. I don't fence people like that anymore. I'm already dealing with a stress fracture in my leg...I have no interest in hurting other body parts.

What we need is more women. And we're getting them slowly.

(Doug, yes...I have beaten a couple D's)

[Zeke]

Why not have a numerical rating system similar to competitive chess? Some people call fencing physical chess, so its an obvious connection. I'm not a chess player, but I believe the way it works is when you beat someone, your rating goes up by an amount related to your rating, their rating, and the difference between them. When you lose, it works the other way. So, say a person A with a rating of 1500 faces a person B with a rating of 2000. This is a big diff, so if if A wins, his rating goes up by say 100. And B's goes down by say 50. If B wins, his rating would go up by a small amount like say 5. And A's would go down by say 3. So basically if there is an upset the ratings change more than if the higher rated fencer wins. Remember, these numbers are totally made up. Any competitive chess players wanna jump in with an explanation?

[neevel]

George Masin developed just such a system a few years back (there was an American Fencing article describing the proposal), based not on individual encounters but on one's placing in competition in comparison to where one would be expected to place (relative to the ratings of all the entrants in the competition). It was shelved due to the much greater amount of work involved in adminstering it relative to the small size of the (already busy) national office staff and volunteers-with-(usually)-real-lives-to-look-after nature of divisional officers.

The current system is 'good enough' for its primary task of providing a quick, easy way for tournament organizers to get a reasonably accurate initial seeding while minimizing administrative overhead. Bear in mind that national competitions are seeded first on the basis of national points earned-- the top X (32 for Div.1, 24 for Jr., 16 for Cadet) fencers on the points list are seeded ahead of all other fencers, regardless of rating.

-Dave Neevel

[MikeHarm]

I saw that in some of the European schools they had levels with testing, are those similar?

Also, I'm in favor of having more mixed tournaments, and more women fencers in our division as well. I think success is more based on how you train rather than if you're a woman or a man both in fencing as well as many martial and sport arts such as karate.

Also, re dealing with the guys who want to play Conan, I'd recommend talking to some of the older veteran fencers, they can teach you a lot about how to turn the tables on people playing the kamikaze routine.

Mike

[swordsen]

We seem to be leaving the topic behind but in my divison alomst all competitions are mixed. Adn teh women hurt more people than the men do. they can be scary......

[Zelda]

hmmm, we start our juniors off with Musketeer level I,II nad III for thier first 3 lessons. then they can start on thier Bronze/silver and gold certificates. If they stay for all of those they are generally hooked. As for mixed comps umm not counting national comps I have fenced a sum total of about 3 single sex competitions. There are people who hurt (alot) and make me lose my temper, but I look on it as good mental training more then anything!!! Moon if I ever get to teh states, I'll come help make up numbers at a comp so you can get your rating k?

[Lumberg]

Someone else already stated most of my thoughts so I won't repeat but I will add that your USFA classification is dependent on the region you fence in, the number of fencers in your region, and your ability to travel to tournaments in other regions. You can always travel out of state to boost your classification.

[Pinky]

Durn, it looks like nobody likes my armband idea. Well, I'll trash that one..... I belong to a club where there are few women, mostly men. I had a lot of trouble at the beginning getting beat up by the other beginner fencers! I would blame my bruises on them until I realized I usually parried their blade into my own leg. I still get those counterattck bruises that last for a long time above and below my breastplate (thank God for those) but I have fenced in only one same-sex tournament and thought some women were equally as aggressive. Moonitic, perhaps those guys are intimidated by you and feel like they have to overpower you or make up for lack of skill with aggression.

[Gav]

As already mentioned a chess system will not work because no-one has the time (ot inclination?) to tun it. Seeding should be determined on the day by your initial seeding rounds before you move onto DE (I am assuming that tourneys are run in the USA the same way we do it in the UK).

Back to topic.

Over here we do have rating system (if the coach is a member of the BAF). It consists of 5 stars for each weapon. To gain each star you must be able to demonstrate your ability to perform a set of moves. This obviously gets harder and more technical as you move up grades.

Coaches also have a rating system. This consists of 3 grades basic, intermediate and advanced. To gain each of these you have to able to demonstrate your competency at teaching the individual and class in front of a panel of judges. If you attain all 3 grades for each weapon you also gain a degree in fencing.

As far as my own rating is concerned I am only a level 1 epeeist officially. However I do beat other epeeist of a "higher" grade. You can, however, tell how good a coach is based on his rating.

It seems to me that the panel system works better as you are not just pleasing your own coach but a panel of other coaches (typically strangers), and this is probably more difficult and more reliable.

[neevel]

The idea of the USFA letter rating system is to provide a way of making an initial seeding of the pools at the very start of the tournament so that you have some kind of even distribution of the talent among the pools (i.e, no killer pools with all the best entrants beating up on each other, and no 'bunny pools' where someone comes out with an inflated standing in the DE seed because their pool-mates were all rank novices). That is how it's done in international and most countries' elite-level national tournaments, based on point standings. The letter ratings are a tool to accomplish the same thing at local or regional tournaments where many (if not all) of the participants aren't on the national points list. The fact that it provides a set of achievment markers for individual fencers is bonus.

-Dave Neevel