High Ranking

[MJS]

This question seems to assume that the individual in question is not affiliated with any organization within the art in question, as organizational affiliation generally prevents such a scenario by its nature.

I have never heard of a panel of one's own students ranking their senior. If you run an independent school and are the head of it, I suppose that you can do whatever you want, though if people ask you who promoted you to your current rank and you tell them that your students did, be prepared for some hard questions. I think that by that point, the individual would likely have made enough connections over the years that he or she would know someone in the same art who would be willing to evaluate them and test them.

Of course, if you are independent and your students are happy with your classes and you are not taking classes from a higher ranking instructor yourself, why seek the rank?

Points taken. Of course, this goes back to a thread I started a while back in the Arnis section, on standards of a black belt. While I do see the point you're trying to make, I couldn't promote someone or even ask someone to promote me, unless I spent time training under that person. While a Parker Kenpo school in 2 different states are probably going to be teaching Parker material, each inst. will most likely vary. When I say time, I'm talking about quality time. Showing up a few times a year or flying someone in for a seminar from time to time, IMHO, isn't quality time. A regular basis would be numerous times a week, every month for at least 6mos to a year, if not longer.

Depends entirely upon the organization. Some organizations have minimum age requirements for certain dan grades. Others do not. Organizational stipulations aside, no, I don't think that it matters. A lot depends, however, on what your rank is representative of.

Usually, grades above fifth become increasingly about what one has put back into the art, rather than what one has gotten out of it. Time in grade is representative of 'years of service' at that point, but is not generally the only factor. Some orgs also have a physical test.

So long as requirements and promotions are consistent within an organization or independent school, the rest is relatively unimportant. My grade in kumdo through an independent organization is meaningless in the AUSKF, regardless of my age or years of service. And a hachidan in the AUSKF is meaningless if he or she goes into a Kukki taekwondo school. A paldan in Kukki taekwondo carries no weight at a Gracie Jiujitsu school. And so on.

But within the schools of the organzition that issued my kumdo rank, http://www.koreankumdofederation.com/, my grade is recognized. Partly because of my time in grade. Partly because I know the hyung, hanbon kyorugi, and overall curriculum associated with the organiztion. Partly because I have taken all of the required tests for my current grade and have passed them. I'm not at such a lofty grade that my age of 43 would be an issue, but within our org, there are no ages associated with any of the grades, and GM Kim does not look particularly elderly. I have an instructor's certificate that is only of value with my parent org. I have it because I took the instructor's course and passed the test.

Rank is only meaningful within a given organization or school. Each organiztion or school attaches their own meaning to it. For some, rank represents skill. For others time in service. For others, responsibility. For others administrative roles. And any combination of those is used in any number of organiztions or schools.

Outside of that organization or school, one should not expect their rank to be recognized. If another school or organization is willing to recognize it, I'd consider it a bonus.

The only real issue with rank comes up when it is misused. The awarding of rank in order to justify another fee is a misuse. Rapid promoting of students to increase one's black belt count is a misuse. Shopping orgs for an easy 8th is a misuse. Falsification of credentials in order to obtain rank is a misuse. The common denomenator of these misuses is the use of rank to make money, either by making money from the awarding of rank or by unscrupulous attaining of rank in order to bolster one's portfolio so as to make money. Ego plays into it as well, but for the most part, I see greed as the driving factor.

Daniel

You're correct, it will vary from org to org. Again, IMHO, I can't picture a 30yo 7th or 8th degree. Thats crazy, but again, just my opinion. I think its safe to say that today, the value of rank isn't as high on the pedestal as it used to be. Fortunately there are some 'old school' schools around that uphold that value.

 

[Kacey]

I'm a little new to this. So a question. How much real skill difference is there between a 3rd dan and a 7th dan? Would it be fair to say that at least to an extant high dan rankings are sort of like life time achievement awards? Higher dan rankings have more to do with spirit and knowledge and less to do with physical skills?

I missed this post earlier - in addition to the responses already given, in most arts it takes longer to go from 3rd Dan to 7th Dan than from white belt to 3rd Dan - and the differences in technique and understanding of technical details should be correspondingly great.

Points taken. Of course, this goes back to a thread I started a while back in the Arnis section, on standards of a black belt. While I do see the point you're trying to make, I couldn't promote someone or even ask someone to promote me, unless I spent time training under that person. While a Parker Kenpo school in 2 different states are probably going to be teaching Parker material, each inst. will most likely vary. When I say time, I'm talking about quality time. Showing up a few times a year or flying someone in for a seminar from time to time, IMHO, isn't quality time. A regular basis would be numerous times a week, every month for at least 6mos to a year, if not longer.

I agree wholeheartedly - we have a few students like this; we call them "tourist black belts". One of our testing requirements is regular training with an instructor of an appropriate rank. "Regular" varies based on rank and geographic details - a friend of mine lives in Montana, and his instructor lives in New Mexico, but he's a 5th Dan and can do a lot by sending videos to his instructor for feedback and working out with him several times a year; for most students 3rd Dan and down, it means training with an instructor of a higher rank at least weekly, and with the local technical director (usually a 6th Dan or higher) at least monthly.

You're correct, it will vary from org to org. Again, IMHO, I can't picture a 30yo 7th or 8th degree. Thats crazy, but again, just my opinion. I think its safe to say that today, the value of rank isn't as high on the pedestal as it used to be. Fortunately there are some 'old school' schools around that uphold that value.

Along those same lines, I have problems with 1st degrees who have to hold Mommy's hand to cross the parking lot.... which is the other end of the same problem. I met a 12 year-old 3rd degree once, who was preparing for his 4th degree test a few months later - which means (by our time lines, anyway), that he started in utero and never missed a single testing cycle. Physically, he was pretty good - but as far as his understanding of technique he had almost nothing, and we expect 4th degrees and up to be able to train other black belts - you can't teach what you don't know, and at that rank, physical ability begins to become much less important compared to in-depth technical understanding.

 

[Supra Vijai]

I know someone who said something like to me. She found a "Koryu" TKD school where her cousin was one of the instructors for the juniors/newbies. She (the instructor) is 14 and a 2nd Dan black belt. This person got really offended and never understood why I started laughing in her face....

 

[Carol]

A few things come to mind, but the most dominant concept is that of age. Not just time spent continuously training, but also time spent on this earth.

I would expect a high dan rank to be far enough along in life to have a good understanding (including some personal experience) of how the body's raw physical prowess starts to gradually decline, and have the insight to guide a student to maximize their abilities regardless.

Also, LEOs, bouncers, military, prizefighters, and other folks that actually use combatives for a living do not make up the majority of martial artists. The majority of folks are a combination of minor children and adults that don't have a combative occupation. That doesn't make martial rigor any less important -- but it also means that many people look to apply lessons and values from martial arts in other parts of their lives, such as the discipline to manage one's temper. The input from a 50 year old who has been there done that is simply not going to be the same as the 30 year old that has never moved out of his parents house, but still boasts 25 years in the arts.

 

[chinto]

ok, first if they hold a 7th or 8th dan or higher, i expect that they are not under 40. they have extensive and complete knowledge of the arts system. they are competent and very very dangerous... and will be.
This does not mean that they do say some of the very flashy techniques that a man of say 22 can as well, but if you choose to attack this individual.. your dead or crippled. ( the few i have met that are 4th and 5th dan and higher are this way by the way. ) but most of all I expect the knowledge and ability to teach that such a person should have.
But by that rank they have years and years of teaching, and more years of study, and service to the art, and should understand the system inside and out.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Points taken. Of course, this goes back to a thread I started a while back in the Arnis section, on standards of a black belt. While I do see the point you're trying to make, I couldn't promote someone or even ask someone to promote me, unless I spent time training under that person. While a Parker Kenpo school in 2 different states are probably going to be teaching Parker material, each inst. will most likely vary. When I say time, I'm talking about quality time. Showing up a few times a year or flying someone in for a seminar from time to time, IMHO, isn't quality time. A regular basis would be numerous times a week, every month for at least 6mos to a year, if not longer.

Absolutely, though within the same art, there should be enough commonality between orgs and instructors that an 8th dan should be able to recognize a sixth or seventh dan with regards to quality and knowledge without having trained with them for years. If the goal of those above 5th dan is the spread of the art, it would seem even desireable to aid another teacher in the same art in this way.

If rank is unimportant, then the teacher should simply teach and not worry about acruing additional rank. "My rank is school owner" should be all that he or she needs, particularly if they are not affiliated with an organization.

You're correct, it will vary from org to org. Again, IMHO, I can't picture a 30yo 7th or 8th degree. Thats crazy, but again, just my opinion. I think its safe to say that today, the value of rank isn't as high on the pedestal as it used to be. Fortunately there are some 'old school' schools around that uphold that value.

The question then becomes this: what value did really rank have back in the day? Funakoshi was only fifth, and as I understand, grades above fifth were relatively uncommon in JMA at that time.

In KMA, outside of judo or kendo, nobody had rank of any sort; the kyu/dan system wasn't used prior to the occupation, no KMA were being created or openly practiced during the the occupation, and at the end, a group of men who held no substantial grades in anything opened schools teaching essentially karate or judo or jujutsu with Korean pronunciations. They essentially self promoted in the process of these arts becoming taekwondo and hapkido. A lot of these men simply trained in Japan and came home to open their own schools after the war. They had skills and people were interested in learning these skills. Nobody cared what grade the kwanjang of the Chung Do Kwan was. They cared that he could teach and was obviously proficient in what he was teaching.

I think that the value of rank was really not all that great until martial arts became popular in western culture. Then those magic airplanes matricized third dan instructors during the trip, allowing them to step off of the plane with sixth or higher dan grades. Terms like grandmaster became popular, and all of the sudden, grades that didn't exist in many arts five to ten years previously became commonplace among the higher eschelons of the arts, most, if not all, of whom did not have the age that we expect those grade holders to have today.

And that's okay. But I don't know that lofty dan grades were ever really as valuable as we remember them. Just my opinion.

Daniel

 

[MJS]

Absolutely, though within the same art, there should be enough commonality between orgs and instructors that an 8th dan should be able to recognize a sixth or seventh dan with regards to quality and knowledge without having trained with them for years. If the goal of those above 5th dan is the spread of the art, it would seem even desireable to aid another teacher in the same art in this way.

If rank is unimportant, then the teacher should simply teach and not worry about acruing additional rank. "My rank is school owner" should be all that he or she needs, particularly if they are not affiliated with an organization.

As an example:
http://www.jinenkan.com/ennew/about.html

The testing process is strict and everyone, regardless of rank or experience in other organizations, must start at the begining and work their way up. We are pleased with the slow steady growth of the Jinenkan and our ability to maintain quality in the instruction we offer our students.

Interestingly enough, Mr. Manaka, was I believe, one of Hatsumis original students. I'm not a member of either group, so I dont know the differences, but given the Jinenkan is an offshoot, I can't imagine it being so foreign, that if a high ranking Bujinkan student, walked into a Jinenkan school, that they'd be totally like a fish out of water. IMHO, I dont think that the time frame that I listed, 6mos-1yr is too much to ask of someone, so as to get familiar with the way the new inst teaches the material.

I transitioned from from Parker Kenpo to Tracy Kenpo. I found the similarities of material very easy to pick up. Yet I still trained with my teacher for quite some time, learning their way of doing techs, katas, their terminology, etc. before I tested.

The question then becomes this: what value did really rank have back in the day? Funakoshi was only fifth, and as I understand, grades above fifth were relatively uncommon in JMA at that time.

If I had to wager a guess, I'd probably say it had little value. I doubt they had half of the colorful belts that we see today. I'd guess there was probably no rush and when you got it you got it.

In KMA, outside of judo or kendo, nobody had rank of any sort; the kyu/dan system wasn't used prior to the occupation, no KMA were being created or openly practiced during the the occupation, and at the end, a group of men who held no substantial grades in anything opened schools teaching essentially karate or judo or jujutsu with Korean pronunciations. They essentially self promoted in the process of these arts becoming taekwondo and hapkido. A lot of these men simply trained in Japan and came home to open their own schools after the war. They had skills and people were interested in learning these skills. Nobody cared what grade the kwanjang of the Chung Do Kwan was. They cared that he could teach and was obviously proficient in what he was teaching.

I think that the value of rank was really not all that great until martial arts became popular in western culture. Then those magic airplanes matricized third dan instructors during the trip, allowing them to step off of the plane with sixth or higher dan grades. Terms like grandmaster became popular, and all of the sudden, grades that didn't exist in many arts five to ten years previously became commonplace among the higher eschelons of the arts, most, if not all, of whom did not have the age that we expect those grade holders to have today.

And that's okay. But I don't know that lofty dan grades were ever really as valuable as we remember them. Just my opinion.

Daniel

 

[chrispillertkd]

Along those same lines, I have problems with 1st degrees who have to hold Mommy's hand to cross the parking lot.... which is the other end of the same problem. I met a 12 year-old 3rd degree once, who was preparing for his 4th degree test a few months later - which means (by our time lines, anyway), that he started in utero and never missed a single testing cycle. Physically, he was pretty good - but as far as his understanding of technique he had almost nothing, and we expect 4th degrees and up to be able to train other black belts - you can't teach what you don't know, and at that rank, physical ability begins to become much less important compared to in-depth technical understanding.

Oh, for the love of Pete. I thought it was bad when I saw a 17 year old 4th dan back in the 1990's. He was technically good (and he knew it) and the student of a pretty well known Taekwon-Doin (and he knew it). But the fact that he acted like a 17 year old kind of took away from his rank, IMNSHO. Rank is supposed to be a reflection not just on one's physical ability, and this kid was very athletic, but also on one's mental maturity. In other words, it should reflect to some extent how much they've internalized the "Do" of the martial art they've studied. I am sorry to say that despite his physical prowess I was completely underwhelmed by this gentleman as a martial artist.

Of course, in 25 years I have seen a total of one person who was promoted to black belt under the age of 15 that I thought "He's a yudanja," when I saw him. And he was a 1st dan and was probably going to be that rank for some time before his 2nd dan promotion. Not a fan of promoting kiddies to the big league, but that's just me.

Pax,

Chris

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Rank is supposed to be a reflection not just on one's physical ability, and this kid was very athletic, but also on one's mental maturity.

Where is this explicitly stated?

Not disagreeing with you, but frankly, I think that the way that rank is built up to mean bags of technical ability along with coming of age, the manners of Emily post and the wisdom of Solomon is pretty artificial.

A lot of our expectations of rank are based upon what we think high rankholders should be rather than what may actually be. We have the same problem with athletes. We want them to be paragons of virtue so that our youth will have role models to look up to, but in reality, all these guys have ever learned to do is to throw a ball.

MA schools spend hours drilling physical skills and little to no time drilling the non-martial aspects that are supposedly such a necessity for dan grades. Unless the art is part of an established religion, such as Buddhism, the rest is cultural window dressing. No matter what art or school you're dealing with, with very few exceptions, a student who pays his or her testing fee, who is up to date with their tuition, and who shows up and passes the test will not be denied rank on the basis of maturity unless they go out of their way to be disrespectful to a point that it interferes with class.

The school owner will pass the student because the student met the objective requirements and because they know that the they will likely lose the student's tuition if they do not allow them to test when they are physically ready. Also, the test usually carries a fee.

Additionally, subjective requirements need to be addressed from the very beginning. At most schools,the subjective requirements are limited to behaving in class, bowing and using cultural specific terminology and titles when appropriate, and maybe memorizing a school code.

If a school owner has allowed a student to get one grade away from first dan and suddenly springs on them that their subjective failings will prevent them from testing, then the owner has essentially profited from the student for two to five years and promoted them all along, collected any testing fees along the way. He'd have no grounds to deny the student testing should they meet all of the time in grade and objective requirements.

Daniel

 

[Aiki Lee]

daniel makes a good point. No matter what we WANT a high ranking individual to be, the fact that they only need to meet the requirements set for them in their particular style to hold rank in their organization.

I agree with chrispillertkd on the grounds that mental maturity should be taken into consideration. But that again depends on what organization you belong to and what they care about before granting rank.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

Personally, I think that the issue is due to what dan grade means being fairly ambiguous. Another thread talks about senior students teaching. If someone is going to teach, their dan grade is relatively unimportant apart from their knowledge of the system.

The seventeen year old that Chris mentioned, for example, knows material up to fourth dan. Problem is that he can open his own school and sign dan certs too.

Most arts have no real mechanism in place to make sure that those who are able to sign off on certifications are also qualified to teach students. In the same way that a high school graduate is not ready to teach high school freshmen even though he's been learning the educational system since he was like five, that seventeen year old fourth dan is not ready to teach even though he may have been learning since childhood.

In fact, learning from an early age is held up as a qualification by many in their school write ups (grand master such and such has been training since 3). Nothing wrong with that, and yes, it is helpful, but an eighteen year old who has fifteen years of training is probably less ready to teach classes than thirty five year old who started at twenty. Both are fourth dan.

At an organizational level, there should be a requirement to take an instructor's course before dan grades can be issued. Now your dan grade reflects your time in grade and knowledge of the system. Want to teach without supervision? Take the instructor's course. Want to open your own school? Take an advanced instructor's course.

Instructor's courses are one thing that could be done online as well. The candidate could be required to log a minimum of hours as an assisstant instructor in class, with his own instructor then logging on and signing off on the student's hours. Require candidates to be twenty five and at least fourth dan. Passing the test confers the title of sensei or your art's equivallent. This would allow the individual to teach classes without supervision and to issue dan grades up to one or two dan grades below their own, depending on the art and/or org. If the sensei would like to open her own school, then she may take an advanced instructor's class. It may require that the sensei be at least fifth dan, and have been a sensei for at least two years. Passing of the test confers the title of shihan, sabeom, or your arts equivalent.

Now, you can just train like a demon and test at the appropriate intervals if that's all you want to do. Place the emphasis on the role and take it away from the dan grade.

Daniel

 

[yorkshirelad]

I know someone who said something like to me. She found a "Koryu" TKD school where her cousin was one of the instructors for the juniors/newbies. She (the instructor) is 14 and a 2nd Dan black belt. This person got really offended and never understood why I started laughing in her face....

Brian McCarthy began training in the Bujinkan by attending a seminar with Stephen Hayes in Ohio in 1981. He returned to Dublin, Ireland with a shodan. He then travelled to Japan and took the Sakki test under Hatsumi afetr one week's training. I believe this was in 1985. By 1987 McCarthy was Hachidan in Bujinkan. At this point he had trained under Hatsumi a grand total of 3 times, over three weeks. Six years to Hachidan from nothing, (except a forged shodan in Wado supposedly signed by Don Cassisdy, a Fred Villari yondan).
In the early 90s, McCarthy left the Bujinkan. Some of his students left him to be personaly students of Hatsumi. Now some of their students are 15 Dan. Why 15th Dan? To answer my rhetorical question, it was because Hatsumi realized that he promoted too many people too fast to Judan, so claimed that he designed the Bujinkan to have 15 dan grades all along and that the last five dans were actually just levels of Judan........By the way Mr. Vijai, what lineage do you belong to?

 

[Aiki Lee]

Daniel:
Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.

With that exact mindset our organization has teaching classes for instructors and coaches, not only to make sure we all know how get the information across to others, but so that the students are getting the same quality of instruction from everyone.

 

[chrispillertkd]

Where is this explicitly stated?

"Personal morality, sincerity, as well as technique should be taken into consideration upon awarding higher ranks." Gen. Choi, Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do, vol. 1, p. 62.

I used the term "mental maturity" in lieu of personal morality and sincerity but I think they are pretty close as to make little if any difference.

But implicitly, and perhaps more importantly, the concept can be seen in the fact that people don't award 9th dans to 15 year olds. Heck, there was a thread on MT not too long ago about a newspaper article that listed a young man as having an 8th dan. People couldn't believe it, although I think it was probably a typo.

Not disagreeing with you, but frankly, I think that the way that rank is built up to mean bags of technical ability along with coming of age, the manners of Emily post and the wisdom of Solomon is pretty artificial.

No one is suggesting that a Grand Master be a living saint. But it's not too much to ask for people to actually have demonstrated some character development since martial arts are ostensibly about developing one's character.

People often say rank is unimportant. Then they complain when someone with a high rank demonstrates his ability to be a complete and utter boor. If it really is true that having manners and a certain mental maturity (what I take to be what you mean by "the wisdom of Solomon") has no bearing on rank then we should tell those complainers to shut up instead of agreeing with them when Grand Master Smith has yet again shown he can bilk his students out of their money. The same goes for complaining about "belt mills." Who cares who is giving out rank to whom and for what? It's irrelevant.

Unless it's not.

A lot of our expectations of rank are based upon what we think high rankholders should be rather than what may actually be. We have the same problem with athletes. We want them to be paragons of virtue so that our youth will have role models to look up to, but in reality, all these guys have ever learned to do is to throw a ball.

A lot sure. But not all. There are, I think, legitimate expectations one can expect from senior ranking martial artists and that doesn't mean expecting them to be saints. It means expecting them to at least be trying to act a certain way.

MA schools spend hours drilling physical skills and little to no time drilling the non-martial aspects that are supposedly such a necessity for dan grades. Unless the art is part of an established religion, such as Buddhism, the rest is cultural window dressing.

If by "window dressing" you mean something unimportant or tangential or even irrelevant I cannot agree. The problem, IMNSHO, is that many people don't take the lessons they learn in the physical training and apply them to life outside the Dojang. Likewise, there's also the willingness to dismiss the culturally specific behaviors that often go along with MA training as simply people's desire to "play at being Asian." But me shaking hands with my seniors a certain way, or turning my head away from my seniors when drinking, or even bowing aren't done simply for the sake of doing them. They're done to ingraine a specific lesson.

No matter what art or school you're dealing with, with very few exceptions, a student who pays his or her testing fee, who is up to date with their tuition, and who shows up and passes the test will not be denied rank on the basis of maturity unless they go out of their way to be disrespectful to a point that it interferes with class.

The school owner will pass the student because the student met the objective requirements and because they know that the they will likely lose the student's tuition if they do not allow them to test when they are physically ready. Also, the test usually carries a fee.

In my experience there are more than a few schools that will simply not allow a student to test if they don't warrant their next rank. A testing fee won't even be collected if the instructor thinks they aren't ready to test for any reason. YMMV, of course.

Additionally, subjective requirements need to be addressed from the very beginning. At most schools,the subjective requirements are limited to behaving in class, bowing and using cultural specific terminology and titles when appropriate, and maybe memorizing a school code.

I'd be interested in knowing how you come to conclusions about "most schools" and whether you mean "most schools" in the world or simply in your neck of the woods.

If a school owner has allowed a student to get one grade away from first dan and suddenly springs on them that their subjective failings will prevent them from testing, then the owner has essentially profited from the student for two to five years and promoted them all along, collected any testing fees along the way. He'd have no grounds to deny the student testing should they meet all of the time in grade and objective requirements.

Daniel

And if rank isn't important who cares what he would do? And that applies to either promoting them or holding them back.

But if rank is important then the best thing he can do is hold them back and make it clear to them as to why he is doing so. You saying he'd have no grounds to do so is simply your opinion. he'd have the same grounds for holding them back at any rank. It would just be a matter of him setting right a previous wrong (in this case it's his own failing).

Pax,

Chris

 

[Supra Vijai]

Brian McCarthy began training in the Bujinkan by attending a seminar with Stephen Hayes in Ohio in 1981. He returned to Dublin, Ireland with a shodan. He then travelled to Japan and took the Sakki test under Hatsumi afetr one week's training. I believe this was in 1985. By 1987 McCarthy was Hachidan in Bujinkan. At this point he had trained under Hatsumi a grand total of 3 times, over three weeks. Six years to Hachidan from nothing, (except a forged shodan in Wado supposedly signed by Don Cassisdy, a Fred Villari yondan).
In the early 90s, McCarthy left the Bujinkan. Some of his students left him to be personaly students of Hatsumi. Now some of their students are 15 Dan. Why 15th Dan? To answer my rhetorical question, it was because Hatsumi realized that he promoted too many people too fast to Judan, so claimed that he designed the Bujinkan to have 15 dan grades all along and that the last five dans were actually just levels of Judan........By the way Mr. Vijai, what lineage do you belong to?

Good post! I don't belong to any of the Kans so don't worry not going to get offended by any comments against them. I train as part of a split away org, with Jyuku Tatsu Dojo, under Chris Parker who is my direct instructor.

 

[Yondanchris]

MA schools spend hours drilling physical skills and little to no time drilling the non-martial aspects that are supposedly such a necessity for dan grades. Unless the art is part of an established religion, such as Buddhism, the rest is cultural window dressing. No matter what art or school you're dealing with, with very few exceptions, a student who pays his or her testing fee, who is up to date with their tuition, and who shows up and passes the test will not be denied rank on the basis of maturity unless they go out of their way to be disrespectful to a point that it interferes with class.

The school owner will pass the student because the student met the objective requirements and because they know that the they will likely lose the student's tuition if they do not allow them to test when they are physically ready. Also, the test usually carries a fee.

Additionally, subjective requirements need to be addressed from the very beginning. At most schools,the subjective requirements are limited to behaving in class, bowing and using cultural specific terminology and titles when appropriate, and maybe memorizing a school code.

If a school owner has allowed a student to get one grade away from first dan and suddenly springs on them that their subjective failings will prevent them from testing, then the owner has essentially profited from the student for two to five years and promoted them all along, collected any testing fees along the way. He'd have no grounds to deny the student testing should they meet all of the time in grade and objective requirements.

Daniel

Thanks for your post Daniel,

I agree that the immaterial "essence" of martial arts is in most part "lost", especially with the advent of McDojo's. My personal philosophy is that a person can't just train in a martial arts with his body and expect to be a true "black belt" or in the case of this thread a "Master or Grandmaster". Martial arts training has always been the whole person Body/Mind/Spirit. That is why I have been so happy teaching Christian MA because it addresses the issue of the Mind-Spirit training that was missing. Now one could place any sort of philosophy in this slot. I personally expect all of my students to grow in Body/Mind/Spirit and have measurable and quantifiable growth before someone becomes a "Christian Black Belt", perhaps I will start a new thread on this discussion.

 

[yorkshirelad]

Good post! I don't belong to any of the Kans so don't worry not going to get offended by any comments against them. I train as part of a split away org, with Jyuku Tatsu Dojo, under Chris Parker who is my direct instructor.

Ok, you don't belong to any of the kans, but what is your lineage? I just think it's in bad taste to embarras a young 4th dan by laughing in her face. Surely you should've laughed at the guy who gave her the grade.
Would you have laughed at Tanemura Sensei when he recieve his first Menkyo Kaiden at age 15. A certificate of full transmission at such a young age. I believe Hatsumi was forty when he was given eight Koryu by Takamatsu. Would you have laughed at him then. I believe that before this action by Takamatsu, he already had menkyo Kaiden in some arts and high ranking dan ranks in Judo, Aikido and a few other gendai arts. Manaka was Hatsumi's youngest student at one time. I wonder what rank he was at the age of 18 or 20.
Your lineage is frought with people who have attained extremely high rank at a young age. Of course most of these ranks are mekyo Kaiden and not dan ranks as most gendai arts use including Bujinkan, but a certificate that bestows full transmission means that you can begin your own branch of the art. As far as I'm concerned a menkyo kaiden in a kory art is the equivalent to a 10th Dan in a gendai art. it's a little hypocritical to laugh at a young girl for having a fourth Dan, when most of the people in your direct lineage have had higher ranks at a younger age.

 

[Chris Parker]

Hi Yorkshirelad,

Our lineage comes from the Bujinkan, we split from Japan in 2001. Ranking was part of the reason for that, for the record, but I'm not getting into all that here. Our Chief Instructor is 6th Dan, so the highest rank in our schools attainable is 5th.

I am in agreement with you regarding laughing at someone's rank (it was a 14 year old 2nd Dan, rather than a 4th Dan, by the way), and have had an email communication with Supra about ranking in various martial arts, organisations, systems etc, basically my take is that the only real way to compare any rank is within the same organisation itself. A 14 year old 2nd Dan comes across to me as a 2nd Poom rather than a full Dan, as for the "koryu" aspect, that is most likely a misrepresentation of "Koryo", rather than a Japanese Koryu.

I feel that perhaps Supra got hold of a few aspects, they didn't add up in his mind, and that is where the laughter came from. But still, I agree that laughing at them is not the right approach.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

"Personal morality, sincerity, as well as technique should be taken into consideration upon awarding higher ranks." Gen. Choi, Encyclopedia of Taekwon-Do, vol. 1, p. 62.

Cool. Is there an objective guide as to how an instructor is supposed to consider personal morality and sincerity? And by its very nature, personal morality is personal. My personal morality may be different from yours. Or it may not be, but it may be different than my instructor's.

Now, what if you're not ITF? What if you don't practice taekwondo? Do all arts have such statements of moral behavior?

Character expectations may be considered unspoken, unwritten, or implicit, but there does not seem to be a universally agreed upon standard for the character, or even technical ability, or high ranking practitioners.

I used the term "mental maturity" in lieu of personal morality and sincerity but I think they are pretty close as to make little if any difference.

But implicitly, and perhaps more importantly, the concept can be seen in the fact that people don't award 9th dans to 15 year olds. Heck, there was a thread on MT not too long ago about a newspaper article that listed a young man as having an 8th dan. People couldn't believe it, although I think it was probably a typo.

Mental maturity is probably easier to evaluate than personal morality or sincerity. It is less subjective and while morality and sincerity are hard to evaluate if you do not know the individual outside of your place of business, maturity is should be evident in how one conducts themselves during class.

If it is the thread that I am thinking of, the article was not a typo, but it was a bit of a zinger; the student in question was a senior student of Jigoro Kano and the promotion occurred before 1940.

No one is suggesting that a Grand Master be a living saint. But it's not too much to ask for people to actually have demonstrated some character development since martial arts are ostensibly about developing one's character.

While I agree, I never made any allusions to living saints with regards to grandmasters.

People often say rank is unimportant. Then they complain when someone with a high rank demonstrates his ability to be a complete and utter boor. If it really is true that having manners and a certain mental maturity (what I take to be what you mean by "the wisdom of Solomon") has no bearing on rank then we should tell those complainers to shut up instead of agreeing with them when Grand Master Smith has yet again shown he can bilk his students out of their money. The same goes for complaining about "belt mills." Who cares who is giving out rank to whom and for what? It's irrelevant.

Unless it's not.

I don't personally complain about behavior of someone due to their rank. I complain about bad behavior simply because it is bad behavior.

When I said 'wisdom of Solomon' I meant wisdom, not manners. I addressed manners in saying 'manners of Emily Post.' I have seen many, many threads where instructors who do things that may be socially acceptable, such as drinking or smoking, are criticized, not for engaging in these activities, but because they are a seventh or eighth dan engaging in them. Or threads about how a high dan should never be overweight because they should essentially be too wise to allow themselves to get that way.

Master Smith's bilking of students and the proliferation of belt mills are unrelated to rank: they are unethical because they involve gouging customers and offering a generally low level of instruction, not because of the rank of the school owner.

A lot sure. But not all. There are, I think, legitimate expectations one can expect from senior ranking martial artists and that doesn't mean expecting them to be saints. It means expecting them to at least be trying to act a certain way.

You keep mentioning saintliness. I never said anything about saintliness. Please reread my post. I said "along with coming of age, the manners of Emily post and the wisdom of Solomon" And I was speaking with a degree of hyperbole.

I likened our expectations of high ranking MA practitioners to the dynamic of our culture having an expectation that athletes be paragons of virtue and role models for kids, when their training really only prepares them to throw a ball and cunduct themselves in a 'sportsman-like way' while on the field. Yet, should some jock sleep around or act like an idiot off the field, we get upset, not because of the behavior itself, but because "our kids look up to them" and we say things like, 'what kind of role model are you?/he's a lousy role model.'

If by "window dressing" you mean something unimportant or tangential or even irrelevant I cannot agree.

No, that is not what I mean. By window dressing, I mean that it is attached to something unrelated. The teaching and learning of the skill to fight is not inherently tied to morality or character. If you learn 'Shaolin kung fu', religion and philosophy is now directly related. It would be the equivalent of saying that you are learning 'Templar martial arts.'

The problem, IMNSHO, is that many people don't take the lessons they learn in the physical training and apply them to life outside the Dojang.

And what would those lessons be? And how do you as an instructor evaluate the degree to which a student applies these things? And how do you tie it into pomotions and rank?

Likewise, there's also the willingness to dismiss the culturally specific behaviors that often go along with MA training as simply people's desire to "play at being Asian." But me shaking hands with my seniors a certain way, or turning my head away from my seniors when drinking, or even bowing aren't done simply for the sake of doing them. They're done to ingraine a specific lesson.

Presumabley, you are doing those things to express politeness to those seniors who happen to be Asian. Those things to fall into the category of cultural etiquette.

In my experience there are more than a few schools that will simply not allow a student to test if they don't warrant their next rank. A testing fee won't even be collected if the instructor thinks they aren't ready to test for any reason. YMMV, of course.

I'd be interested in knowing how you come to conclusions about "most schools" and whether you mean "most schools" in the world or simply in your neck of the woods.

Combination of my neck of the woods, what I've observed outside of my neck of the woods, and feedback from people in other parts of the country/world. The whole belt factory/kiddie black belt thing is a pretty common theme on MT and other MA websites. The problem of promoting immature people seems pretty pervasive. If it wasn't, the general MA section would lose about a quarter to a third of its threads and sites like B-shido probably couldn't exist in their present form.

And if rank isn't important who cares what he would do? And that applies to either promoting them or holding them back.

But if rank is important then the best thing he can do is hold them back and make it clear to them as to why he is doing so.

Rank is unimportant, but not meaningless. But rank and belts are very important in the minds of many students. Martial arts instructors have made darned sure of that. I have no problem with the idea of telling students that a black belt is something to aspire towards. But if moral and ethical factors are a part of earning that belt, then that needs to be made a part of promotion requirements from the start and those lessons need to be part of the class.

That is really all that I am saying: teach the moral/ethical/philosophical aspects of the art and make them part of colored belt promotions. If that is not generally done (and I do not believe that it is) then we really should not have expectations that rank should equate to maturity.

You saying he'd have no grounds to do so is simply your opinion. he'd have the same grounds for holding them back at any rank. It would just be a matter of him setting right a previous wrong (in this case it's his own failing).

It isn't a question of opinion. I said no grounds to hold him back for not meeting subjective requirements if those requirements have not been made clear from the outset. It is wrong to test people or grade them on things that you have not made a part of the class. If you have passed them along from white to brown without ever addressing these issues, you can't suddenly change your tune at black. Well, you can, but you shouldn't.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that you can't make a factor a requirement if it has either never been part of the class or if you've never denied the student promotions based on that factor.

In this case, if the student was an unethical and immoral wastrel for the last four years and you promoted him to first geub/kyu/dan-bo anyway, then suddenly tell him that he cannot test for the next belt because he's an unethical and immoral wastrel, then you have done him a disservice for the past four years in promoting him all the way up.

My point is that if personal character is part of the art, then it needs to be taught that way from the outset and not suddenly emphasized just because the individual has a piece of black cloth with more than three stripes tied around their waist.

I'm not sure if you missed the part where I said that I don't disagree with you; I don't. But I don't see the kind of mechanism in place to insure the kind of character that we all seem to feel is a requirement for dan grades, particularly those above third. There's just a general, 'he should behave thusly because he's ____ dan.' Even the quote from the TKD encyclopedia is vague. Given the accusations on some of the threads in the TKD section, some of the pioneers and organizational heads would be hard pressed to live up to the moral standards that we frequently ascribe to high ranking members of a fighting system.

Daniel

 

[yorkshirelad]

basically my take is that the only real way to compare any rank is within the same organisation itself.

Exactly, take the Korean arts for example. My instructor in Ireland is Massan Ghorbani. He is now 9th Dan under Ji han Jae. He began training in Hapkido in 1992, at the first seminar he attended, he was promoted to 4th Dan. That's nothing to 4th Dan in 8 hours. Massan is one of the most outstanding teachers I've ever had. It does help that he was an All Ireland full contact kickboxing champion, WAKO world champion and a 4th Dan in Kyokushinkan Karate before he began Sin Moo Hapkido.
If we now take a look at Do Ju Nim Joo Bang Lee's Hwarangdo, we can see that it has many similarities to Sim Moo Hapkido and for a time, Joo Bang Lee and Ji Han Jae were fellow students under Choi Yung Sul. In Hwarangdo, everyone starts at the beginning and it took Joo Bang Lee's own son Henry over 30 years to reach 8th Dan. Each practitioner also has to give up all other martial arts in order to train.
Massan is wise, extremely knowledgeable about the history and development of Hapkido, is loyal to Ji han Jae and extremely physically gifted, as far as Ji Han Jae is concerned, he is more than qualified to be 9th Dan, so who an I to question his ranking.
We live in a world full of martial arts. People can choose who they study with. If I see a 14 year old 4th Dan, I'll probably walk away. On the other hand, if a fifteen year old Japanese Menkyo Kaidan opens up shop nearby, I'd probably do the same thing and walk on, regardless of his lineage.