The Value Of Testing

In the A.T.F. Tang Soo Do system each student should be qualified to test every four months. These tests take place during the months of April, August and December and are necessary for the student to advance in rank. Some schools do not have a mandatory schedule of testing as a requirement for promotion, and the students of these schools are promoted at the discretion of the instructor. It is the belief of the instructors of the A.T.F. System that formal testing not only allows the instructors to view their student's progress to that point, but it also provides the student with valuable training in several areas of development. Testing provides the Instructor with valuable training in several areas of development. Testing provides the Instructor with a gauge of each student's progress and an opportunity to review and monitor the progress of every member of the class. If students have been trained properly, an instructor should be able to look at a class of mixed ranks and basing a decision on the color of a individual's belt, know exactly what each student should and should not know. Perhaps most important, it gives the student a continuing experience of functioning under pressure, for he/she, to be promoted, must come before a board of peers every four months and demonstrate the requirements of the next higher rank. It quietly but effectively establishes leadership and promotes a feeling of unity, and camaraderie among the students that they seldom find anywhere else. It teaches them patience and the value of waiting their turn and when called upon, to respond with their best effort. The conditions of testing teaches the student to know and to assume the personal responsibility for learning the requirements necessary for being promoted. This is a valuable life's lesson that every young person will eventually need to learn.