Everybody wants a black belt AND every black belt wants to be a sensei …
There is a reason why there are ten levels or grades in the black belt system, do you know why?
First and foremost, in my mind, the ten levels of kyu’s and the ten levels of dan’s is based on a military system of rankings and most Japanese dan-i systems were derived from a grade system developed in a game system.
The ranking system was critical to the early American practitioners because they were exposed to said system while on active duty stationed on the islands of Japan and Okinawa. We military knew, understood and lived the military rank system that if placed beside the dan-i martial art grade system will look awfully similar.
Kyu’s -n- Enlisted: Dan’s -n- Officers!
You also have to consider that prior to WWII, an effort was made to put martial arts into the educational system to prepare their youth for serving as soldiers when they triggered participation in WWII.
Of course, when you line up the ten grades of black belt over the ten officer grades they will line up similar to the above.
When I first started karate, it was an Okinawan system and the Okinawans had no karate-gi nor a belt system. Then the military got involved so they adopted the judo uniforms and belts. The only ranks at that time were “white: green: black” then a bit later, “white: green: brown: black.”
As for belts, and with a strong American influence, the belts grew to what they are today.
Sensei [先生], is a title adopted from the Japanese social concept to be used to designate a person of a professional discipline. A teacher: a doctor: and other professionals can be called sensei. It is NOT exclusive to karate or martial arts but simply carried over to the dojo.
It has come to be believed that one who achieves sho-dan is qualified to teach. We tend to overlook that teaching is a full fledged discipline with its own criteria to qualify a person as a teacher or Sensei. Remember as previously stated, sensei is one with experience, knowledge and understanding with a whole other set of skills and methodologies that must be met to be allowed to teach per social, educational and experience-wise so just becoming a black belt DOES NOT MEAN one should teach. Just achieving the knowledge to be a black belt is not justification to open a dojo and to teach.
In truth, one must be supervised by a qualified martial teacher till all prerequisites are earned, validated and certified. As a guide, sho-dan through san-dan is that period of guidance, dedication and experiences as minimal to teach on their own.
From where I speak 🗣️, or write ✍🏼, I was trained and qualified as a Marine Instructor and the spent five plus years instructing ang training Marines in their MOS. I went on to assist, my then First Sergeant, teaching Marines and their dependents in the martial arts, specifically Isshinryu Karate, beginning at Camp Hansen MWR facilities, Okinawa, Japan 🇯🇵. I earned my sho-dan and went on, under the First Sergeant, later Sergeants Major, guidance at Camp LeJeune MWR till my discharge where I continued as a civilian civil servant, retired GS-11 Physical Security Specialist/Officer.
Regardless, as time passed it retired from running my own backyard dojo simply because my ongoing experiences led me to believe I needed more to fully qualify as a true sensei.
When I get inquiries I tend to provide information on what it takes to find a qualified and competent “teacher” of karate/martial disciplines AND I narrow down what the person truly wants, and NEEDS, in their perspective dojo’s. As example, do they want to compete OR is it a more self-help philosophical way OR is it about self-defense (emphasis in my dojo SD) because all of these are TRULY SEPARATE AND DISTINCT concepts and disciplines as there are no true dojo that can adequately provide all aspects of a martial discipline.
Don’t get me wrong, I know of a few who can differentiate and teach but those are exceptions to my rule on this.
My perspective is, if a governing body were to evaluate every karate dojo, most would be shut down. But, that is just an opinion!
The saving grace is that in our modern society most in a self-defense model never have to apply their systems in self-defense so as LUCK would have it this concept of mine rarely gets tested by true asocial violence. One, of many, reasons why commercialized dojo get away teaching, if you will, what they believe is self-defense.
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