Dan Rank/Level/Grade Testing Criteria

Testing is an convoluted topic and you will find differences in every dojo you attend even in the same system, style and/or branch of martial art. Testing did not exist until the move to place martial arts training and practice into the school systems where it then assumed many of the concepts that schools use to test and grade students.

In the ancient times one practiced and trained. The only method of testing was to challenge and defeat adversaries. Most adversaries were other dojo where it was thought that to defeat the dojo's best practitioner was a way to validate and achieve greater understanding of their own martial prowess. Sensei spent efforts in training in conjunction with a critical eye for evaluation. It was expected that the disciple would have the focus and observational skills to "perceive" what was necessary to gain higher levels of proficiency in martial arts. This was a cultural essence that still drives many more classical or traditional Asian trainings.

There was no "criteria" for what one needed to reach a higher level within the martial arts. One simply trained and practiced continuously, diligently and with an eye set on Sensei for those brief and sporadic indications things were going in the right direction. Then came the test by fire. Challenges between rival dojo, rival villages and rival adversaries.

There were no ranks, no belt colors and only one "certificate" if you will when one left the dojo and went out into the world with the Sensei's blessings to practice and teach the system, style or branch.

Tests today have caused the creation of obstacles to this once ancient system of advancement in the arts. In order to "test" one has to specify what it is to be tested. In a more classical and traditional form of martial arts this is not possible. It is impossible and improbable that any criteria could be set that makes things easy to test.

Testing tends to lump humans, the uniqueness of the individual, into one category that hinders expression and dynamic applications of martial arts. It tends to take away the individual and places them in grouping where individuality is not possible without breaking the "testing system." One person's application is going to be "different, not wrong" compared to another person in the same training hall.

Placing specifics as to test criteria smothers the ability to be creative and locks the mind into "one thing" that when added to "other things" for uniformity in testing a system in lieu of a person that leaves efforts on the named items and passes over the unnamed items that are more important.

It is a bit like the difference, fundamentally, between a budo system and a sport system. The "rules" of the sport tend to ignore and invalidate the budo creativity necessary for combat, fighting and violence in general.

Testing has become merely a method of control and a means by which social activities to build camaraderie between dojo participants which is good, beneficial and important but the testing criteria and its limitations, much like sport rules, tends to move focus toward the social club and leaves important aspects of violent encounters under a heading of combative sports, etc.

This leaves the question then how does one ensure that another meets what is perceived by an individual as what constitutes a black belt or dan grade? You cannot answer this adequately with testing where the objective is to solidify the group dynamic that achieves greater solidarity toward the more economic goals of a dojo today. This is validated by the many conversations, threads, on how much did you spend to achieve a black belt vs. what experience have you gone through to achieve the level of marital proficiency you have today which by the way can not be expressed in  words but needs to be demonstrated by actions, deeds and beliefs.

My personal experience in practicing martial arts, karate goshin-jutsu-do, for about thirty-six years is I would have missed out on a great deal of knowledge that would have contributed to my overall understanding in this discipline if I had adhered to someone else's idea's on what constitutes a black belt or proficiency in martial arts and all that it encompasses regarding budo. In my experience when a societal group or martial arts club becomes the group dynamic then when true budo is displayed their cultural belief system instinctually resists causing the "other" to either adhere to the group or remain solitary and alone. Something to think about.