Good article. I see ranks, up to a point, as simply another stamp showing basic general (on the average) competency in certain things, the same as X degree for Y institution...and beyond that, money making schemes. Much like much of education. No difference, really.
It's funny you should mention degrees actually because sometimes the way those are presented have similar problems. There are some odd degrees and questionable institutions out there. Ultimately it's up to the individual whether people respect or value those degrees or not.
Zillions, honestly. As the world has become more competitive, more unequal, and more global, I would suspect it has only increased, overall, and will continue to do so--where I live in Vancouver, Canada, there are endless amounts of sketchy/private colleges that cater to international students who have no intention of studying anything seriously, but just want to get a student visa so that they can work here, due to Canada's extremely multicultural and pro-immigration stance, overall (and I'm saying this as a generally pro immigration, pro diversity person who works in this sector, but it's the truth).
These sketchy colleges that do that kind of thing are borderline human trafficking. I've spoken to people from Nepal who know of language schools in Japan that do the same thing. Not good at all.
Yeah. It's a problem, much like money laundering and drug trafficking, but like all of them, so opaque, extensive, and bound up in transnational activities that go beyond any borders nowadays, seems really hard to stop, it's like a continual feedback loop of which there's no beginning or ending--and again, the more inequality spurred on by climate change etc. the more people are willing to take risks in desperation, and so on.
I know a Kugb 2nd Dan who has been training 40 years, and just hates grading. This person is vastly superior in skill etc than his Dan Grade. I know another man, 7th Dan, who was in Kugb. Post passing of Enoeda Sensei, this man, then a credible 3rd dan, stayed in JKA-Eng. He and another man, a decent 5th Dan, created a small number of clubs in their local area under JKAE. A further "split" occurred and they left JKAE. The 5th Dan, his wife and son, set up a new association, and all became 6th Dans. As did the other man and his son. A further split occurred. And the father and son set up their own local association and are now 7th Dan. Without wishing to ve judgemental i do wonder if they all had stayed in KUGB or JKAE what grade they would be?
I didn't mention this in my article but when I was training with the Yushinkai the head of the organization (Kaichō) had no grade. He considered himself outside the grading system. In Ashihara I don't think Kanchō has a grade and people who become shihan no longer have dan bars on their belts. I kind of like that system. If you are at the top of the system you are in charge of the grading system and therefore you don't need to have a grade. It's wild that organizations splitting in the UK end up producing higher and higher dan grades.
Interesting. Yes i agree. They may very well be worthy of such gradez, i dont know. Another topic is grading agenda. Example Kugh nidan kihon is far more difficult and longer than JKA-Eng nidan syllabus. So is it easier? Its all so relative and position bias. I just train under one excellent Godan and Rokudan grade 3 times a week.
Probably the best answer I've seen to the question of rank.
When you brought up the Zimbabwean dollar analogy over instant messaging a while ago it struck me initially as a roundabout way of saying "some ranks in some styles in some dojos are just superior to others" but I better understand what you mean now.
Thank you very much. As you've seen in the article I do have a tendency to think of these things as different economies. I refer to Zimbabwean dollars sometimes because it's a bit of a meme that there is hyperinflation of that currency and it's obvious that a Zimbabwean dollar is not the same as a US dollar despite the fact that they are both called dollars. Off the top of my head I don't know the value of Singaporean dollars, Hong Kong dollars, or Australian dollars off the top of my head. So when someone tells me they are a rank in a style they are telling me units I don't know off the top of my head. I know if I'm going to spar a 4th dan in Ashihara with NIKO that I'm likely to end up injured if I don't take it seriously, but a 4th dan in another system is anyone's guess. They could be strong, they could be weak. I don't know and it isn't my business. It's just a representation of where they are in their system.
Thank you very much for reading and commenting. Osu!
I like your analogy 'not my monkeys not my circus'. It solves the problem because a 5 year-old Taekwondo child's dan-grade doesn't devalue your various karate dan ranks (of course).
I was watching lots of martial arts YouTubers around the time I was thinking about launching my substack. And whenever rank was discussed people would say "Your rank is meaningless, the black belt means nothing". I think a better way of putting it is that it cannot be invoked as *proof* of anything to other practitioners from other, to borrow your analogy, 'economies' and should not be misconstrued as a guarantee that the holder of dan rank is some kind of fearsome sword saint.
I felt like pushing back against the notion that rank means nothing at some point, because if I feel rank in my style/school is truly meaningless, then why am I pursuing my style with my Sensei at all? The individual budoka must evaluate whether the skills he is learning are worth years of dedication. Then again this is probably very difficult to do in practice - compared to non-budo sports - if all you have direct experience of is your style, and your school (my Sensei would probably come to my house wielding the shinai if he found out I was attending and grading at multiple shotokan schools).
I’ve had a few opportunities to sort of try out different schools/styles. But I was already a well established martial artist at this point.
Grades didn’t matter to me when I was ‘shopping around’ because I already had the level that mattered to me and I was simply looking for a new place to train.
There was one school I went to for one session where the basics were a really good workout but no one knew how to spar at all. I didn’t end up training there because I was told (after leathering some of their black belts) that I’d need to start at white again and re-learn all these traditional kata I had no interest in. It felt very much like “We don’t care how good you are. You need to relearn everything starting from basic kata...but our way.”
When I found my current school I was told I needed to start at white again as well but the people at this school could actually fight and the instructor respected the fact that I also knew what I was doing. All the kata are totally different from stuff I studied before so it felt reasonable to climb the ladder again. (Much more respect in Ashihara).
I absolutely don’t mind putting on a white belt and starting again. The colour of my belt doesn’t mean that much to me. But I’m not going to reestablish myself in a system if I don’t value the system.
I should probably amend my comment a little, there's of course no issue with trying multiple martial arts schools, of different styles or the same style when starting out. But in Shotokan, training at multiple different Shotokan schools concurrently is seen as a sign of bad faith. Same goes from just hopping from dojo to dojo and being loyal to none. ("Hitotsu! Makoto no michi wo mamoru koto")
I understood what you meant. In my organization visiting other NIKO schools is seen as a good thing. I’m pretty sure there’s a dojo I could go to in most places in Japan now.
What would be less ok would be to train Ashihara one day and Shotokan another on a regular basis. There’s too much overlap and it might be a good way to pick up bad habits.
Though training in multiple, completely different styles is fine. Like I do with karate and iaidō.
Thank you very much. A lot of people get really irritated when looking at ranks held by other people. I get somewhat irritated on a macro level as well when I see people who obviously don't have any ability with a black belt on. But in reality I really should only be worrying about what is going on more locally. That not my monkeys, not my circus attitude is really important. I'll master it one day. ;)
One of my other seasonal jobs is to act as a senior examiner with one of the UK exam boards. A battle that seems to be fought almost every year is grade inflation, similar with university degrees, where everyone seems to insist on getting a first - when I did my degree 1st class honours were as rare as hen's teeth and I was very proud of my (Polytechnic) 2:1 degree. Also, although university degrees seemed to have more capital, in actual fact the polytechnic degrees had more value because, unlike the universities, the polytechnics didn't mark their own homework. We all knew what was going on.
This grade inflation seems to be a widespread problem. I'm not sure what the answer is other than maintaining standards and holding the line as much as possible.
I'd say it depends on the system. I've seen some systems out there that have regular grades and junior grades. In general for junior grades (in striking systems) they can get to shodan and when they come of age their grade immediately becomes a 1st kyu. They are eligible to take the adult shodan immediately but it needs to be taken at the adult standard.
I like this system because it eliminates people saying "I'm a black belt" when what they mean is they got a McDojo black belt when they were 10 and stopped training.
Good article. I see ranks, up to a point, as simply another stamp showing basic general (on the average) competency in certain things, the same as X degree for Y institution...and beyond that, money making schemes. Much like much of education. No difference, really.
It's funny you should mention degrees actually because sometimes the way those are presented have similar problems. There are some odd degrees and questionable institutions out there. Ultimately it's up to the individual whether people respect or value those degrees or not.
Zillions, honestly. As the world has become more competitive, more unequal, and more global, I would suspect it has only increased, overall, and will continue to do so--where I live in Vancouver, Canada, there are endless amounts of sketchy/private colleges that cater to international students who have no intention of studying anything seriously, but just want to get a student visa so that they can work here, due to Canada's extremely multicultural and pro-immigration stance, overall (and I'm saying this as a generally pro immigration, pro diversity person who works in this sector, but it's the truth).
These sketchy colleges that do that kind of thing are borderline human trafficking. I've spoken to people from Nepal who know of language schools in Japan that do the same thing. Not good at all.
Yeah. It's a problem, much like money laundering and drug trafficking, but like all of them, so opaque, extensive, and bound up in transnational activities that go beyond any borders nowadays, seems really hard to stop, it's like a continual feedback loop of which there's no beginning or ending--and again, the more inequality spurred on by climate change etc. the more people are willing to take risks in desperation, and so on.
I know a Kugb 2nd Dan who has been training 40 years, and just hates grading. This person is vastly superior in skill etc than his Dan Grade. I know another man, 7th Dan, who was in Kugb. Post passing of Enoeda Sensei, this man, then a credible 3rd dan, stayed in JKA-Eng. He and another man, a decent 5th Dan, created a small number of clubs in their local area under JKAE. A further "split" occurred and they left JKAE. The 5th Dan, his wife and son, set up a new association, and all became 6th Dans. As did the other man and his son. A further split occurred. And the father and son set up their own local association and are now 7th Dan. Without wishing to ve judgemental i do wonder if they all had stayed in KUGB or JKAE what grade they would be?
I didn't mention this in my article but when I was training with the Yushinkai the head of the organization (Kaichō) had no grade. He considered himself outside the grading system. In Ashihara I don't think Kanchō has a grade and people who become shihan no longer have dan bars on their belts. I kind of like that system. If you are at the top of the system you are in charge of the grading system and therefore you don't need to have a grade. It's wild that organizations splitting in the UK end up producing higher and higher dan grades.
Interesting. Yes i agree. They may very well be worthy of such gradez, i dont know. Another topic is grading agenda. Example Kugh nidan kihon is far more difficult and longer than JKA-Eng nidan syllabus. So is it easier? Its all so relative and position bias. I just train under one excellent Godan and Rokudan grade 3 times a week.
Probably the best answer I've seen to the question of rank.
When you brought up the Zimbabwean dollar analogy over instant messaging a while ago it struck me initially as a roundabout way of saying "some ranks in some styles in some dojos are just superior to others" but I better understand what you mean now.
Osu!
Thank you very much. As you've seen in the article I do have a tendency to think of these things as different economies. I refer to Zimbabwean dollars sometimes because it's a bit of a meme that there is hyperinflation of that currency and it's obvious that a Zimbabwean dollar is not the same as a US dollar despite the fact that they are both called dollars. Off the top of my head I don't know the value of Singaporean dollars, Hong Kong dollars, or Australian dollars off the top of my head. So when someone tells me they are a rank in a style they are telling me units I don't know off the top of my head. I know if I'm going to spar a 4th dan in Ashihara with NIKO that I'm likely to end up injured if I don't take it seriously, but a 4th dan in another system is anyone's guess. They could be strong, they could be weak. I don't know and it isn't my business. It's just a representation of where they are in their system.
Thank you very much for reading and commenting. Osu!
I like your analogy 'not my monkeys not my circus'. It solves the problem because a 5 year-old Taekwondo child's dan-grade doesn't devalue your various karate dan ranks (of course).
I was watching lots of martial arts YouTubers around the time I was thinking about launching my substack. And whenever rank was discussed people would say "Your rank is meaningless, the black belt means nothing". I think a better way of putting it is that it cannot be invoked as *proof* of anything to other practitioners from other, to borrow your analogy, 'economies' and should not be misconstrued as a guarantee that the holder of dan rank is some kind of fearsome sword saint.
I felt like pushing back against the notion that rank means nothing at some point, because if I feel rank in my style/school is truly meaningless, then why am I pursuing my style with my Sensei at all? The individual budoka must evaluate whether the skills he is learning are worth years of dedication. Then again this is probably very difficult to do in practice - compared to non-budo sports - if all you have direct experience of is your style, and your school (my Sensei would probably come to my house wielding the shinai if he found out I was attending and grading at multiple shotokan schools).
I’ve had a few opportunities to sort of try out different schools/styles. But I was already a well established martial artist at this point.
Grades didn’t matter to me when I was ‘shopping around’ because I already had the level that mattered to me and I was simply looking for a new place to train.
There was one school I went to for one session where the basics were a really good workout but no one knew how to spar at all. I didn’t end up training there because I was told (after leathering some of their black belts) that I’d need to start at white again and re-learn all these traditional kata I had no interest in. It felt very much like “We don’t care how good you are. You need to relearn everything starting from basic kata...but our way.”
When I found my current school I was told I needed to start at white again as well but the people at this school could actually fight and the instructor respected the fact that I also knew what I was doing. All the kata are totally different from stuff I studied before so it felt reasonable to climb the ladder again. (Much more respect in Ashihara).
I absolutely don’t mind putting on a white belt and starting again. The colour of my belt doesn’t mean that much to me. But I’m not going to reestablish myself in a system if I don’t value the system.
I should probably amend my comment a little, there's of course no issue with trying multiple martial arts schools, of different styles or the same style when starting out. But in Shotokan, training at multiple different Shotokan schools concurrently is seen as a sign of bad faith. Same goes from just hopping from dojo to dojo and being loyal to none. ("Hitotsu! Makoto no michi wo mamoru koto")
I understood what you meant. In my organization visiting other NIKO schools is seen as a good thing. I’m pretty sure there’s a dojo I could go to in most places in Japan now.
What would be less ok would be to train Ashihara one day and Shotokan another on a regular basis. There’s too much overlap and it might be a good way to pick up bad habits.
Though training in multiple, completely different styles is fine. Like I do with karate and iaidō.
Nice article. Excellent points made.
Thank you very much. A lot of people get really irritated when looking at ranks held by other people. I get somewhat irritated on a macro level as well when I see people who obviously don't have any ability with a black belt on. But in reality I really should only be worrying about what is going on more locally. That not my monkeys, not my circus attitude is really important. I'll master it one day. ;)
One of my other seasonal jobs is to act as a senior examiner with one of the UK exam boards. A battle that seems to be fought almost every year is grade inflation, similar with university degrees, where everyone seems to insist on getting a first - when I did my degree 1st class honours were as rare as hen's teeth and I was very proud of my (Polytechnic) 2:1 degree. Also, although university degrees seemed to have more capital, in actual fact the polytechnic degrees had more value because, unlike the universities, the polytechnics didn't mark their own homework. We all knew what was going on.
This grade inflation seems to be a widespread problem. I'm not sure what the answer is other than maintaining standards and holding the line as much as possible.
What is the highest grade you would expect to give to a child?
I'd say it depends on the system. I've seen some systems out there that have regular grades and junior grades. In general for junior grades (in striking systems) they can get to shodan and when they come of age their grade immediately becomes a 1st kyu. They are eligible to take the adult shodan immediately but it needs to be taken at the adult standard.
I like this system because it eliminates people saying "I'm a black belt" when what they mean is they got a McDojo black belt when they were 10 and stopped training.