The Dan-i System: Why is it Important?

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When you read this article I bet you are going to say, “I know all this crap,” but, truthfully, it isn’t always that obvious until you get it out in the open and you also won’t believe just how many out there today have no clue. 

Why it is such an important system in martial arts? There is going to be a longer answer here as readers will already expect and yet I will give you the short answer first, "Status!"

Status is necessary for group dynamics, group dynamics are necessary for tribal, clan and societies survival. 

Survival is about the survival of our selves, our families, our tribe, and our social collective. Survival is in our DNA and is driven by nature, our nature as a species and our species survival needs and requirements.

In a dojo we are a group and we gather together to learn, understand and experience our true nature's as a species. The nature of a dojo and its system/style of teachings is what attracts us and binds us as a group.

Our dojo training and practices trigger our natural instinctual nature as animalistic violence driven animals - of a perceived higher order and that is also driven by our natural connection to, "Status."

Considering our nature and our drives there is no way to remove the Dan-i systems from martial arts. Even when some arts remove most of the belts you will still find some other symbolic system to set status in that group.

How many people in and out of the martial arts community provide a ‘resume’ and isn’t that also a symbolic way to provide others information as to your expertise, knowledge, understanding and experiences? When I think of group dynamics I think control and hierarchal controls, i.e., ranks, statuses, expertise and contributions all work along with other stuff to determine who, why and what for type answers to place that person, if of value to the group, into an appropriate position of said group with emphasis on contributions and actions that will let that said group - survive. 

One martial art discipline that actually speaks out about how ranks are not productive to their practice yet at some level there is a black belt awarded and a change in the uniform worn both signifying status, value, contributions and progress in that system or art. Whether a ranking system has one belt, two or twenty; those belts serve a natural need of individuals and groups - status and value to the group. 

The Dan-i system may have been created as a means of readily perceiving a person or students level but to my mind that is a direct result of the effort to put marital disciplines into the educational systems where those practitioners lose the sensei to deshi ratio, i.e., maximum of one sensei to three,maybe four, practitioners/students. The larger groups diminish the group dynamics that trigger our connection to nature and our nature as a species. In order to control and teach you have to implement such systems or control is lost and lost control means non-survivability of the group. 

You may have read some historical materials on Okinawan karate dojo, sensei and practitioners where until introduced sometime in the early 1900’s the belt system didn’t exist and most Okinawan dojo had a hand full of students with senpai at various levels used to keep the teacher-to-student rations manageable and beneficial overall. 

Add in that martial disciplines have become a means of survival regarding income, etc., along with that need to have larger and larger student bodies and sources you have a group dynamic in need of methods and symbols that will control the masses and you have to deal with a diminishing of teaching content to meet the needs of the students gratifications regarding expense-to-benefit ratios. This in and of itself also triggers our nature toward survival, i.e., the need for income to exchange for the needs of the sensei toward survival by food, security, homes, families and so on. 

The inter-connectedness of such things speaks to the human nature of our species and that is survival and our innate nature toward conflict and violence. Since we also want to survive conflict and especially violence our efforts need and want a more realty-based training and practice that mimics actual combative violence even in our modern times. 

Think of it as a complex group of multi-dimensional threads all connecting to the very center of nature, the survival instincts. All other things are just window dressings except in that one fundamental principal of human species - survival. 

Ok, mindless meanderings over now, all said and done and hope it makes sense for I do tend to go on tirades from time to time. Even I still have issues with letting go of ranking systems and other instinctual survival based status egoistic needs but I am working on it!

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“In order for any life to matter, we all have to matter.” - Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal (ret)

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