So some of the people who've posted on this thread are implying that rank is very much an American thing. In particular there has been reference to martial arts from China and about how such arts historically did not have a ranking system and such arts only started incorporating ranking systems once they were brought to the USA. As it is my knowledge in Chinese martial arts is very limited so I don't know much about the history of such arts and if and when they did start using ranking systems so I will take people's words for it who claim that historically rank did not exist in such arts.
Anyway, my point isn't about whether or not Chinese arts had rank but about rank being an American thing. If rank is an American thing than how would you explain sports such as American boxing and American wrestling not having rank? Boxing and wrestling both have long histories in the USA and they don't and never did have rank, if rank is such an American thing it would stand to reason that boxing and wrestling would both have rank.
Also, the USA isn't the only country where martial arts have rank, Im not sure about China but other countries such as Japan, Korea, Brazil, ect. have rank in their martial arts if you do them on those countries so that would mean rank is not just an entirely American thing.
