Your promotion ceremony...

[Shorinryu Sensei]

Well, as I've stated a number of times on various threads, we don't make a big deal and production out of rank advancement.

[Zeke]

We stand facing the instructor. The instructor calls out your name and you walk to the side of the classroom and then to the front. You face him, and bow, and take your certificate. You face the class, take off your belt and the instructor ties the new one on. You face the instructor, bow, turn to the class, bow, everyone claps and you return to your seat.

Thats pretty much what we do.. we do all of the above except are instructors read out the rank and then we get the belt. you shake their hands then bow. then you run behind the lines and sit down and tie your belt on.

[UsagiYojimbo]

Our school is pretty much like Shorin Ryuu Sensei's, from what I've seen. (I've only been to one "promotion", my own, last week.) The previous class, myself and the other white belt in our class were called to the front of the room; the other students lined up on either side. We didn't know about it in advance. We had to perform our kata and training technique that we had learned for orange belt. At the end of the class, our sensei announced we had both passed, and everyone clapped and congratulated us. Our sensei gave us the actual belts the next class; he announced that we had achieved rank again at the beginning of class, and handed us our belts. We bowed, then I got out of line-up to put it on. Maybe simple ceremonies are a shorin-ryu thing.

[parkerlineage]

I'm kind of torn as to which I like better - I think a simple ceremony rather follows the humble ways that karate should, but a showy type thing is also good for memories, pics, and parents. Plus, I really like the kick as a wright of passage - it's basically nothing at the beginning, but when I got kicked for my BB, I went back about seven or eight feet. It was awesome...thank God for leg-lifts and situps!

[sweetpea0525]

Ours is similar to most others. we go to the front of the room bow, remove obi when necessary, recieve certificates, go down the line and bow to all the higher ranks in the front of the room. Continue like that until all those being promoted have been called up, we then take pictures, we then gear up for sparring. Your promotion night you get your own ring for the whole night, and everyone gives you a special promotional beating. Nothing too terrible, just wears you out and pushes you a little bit more than we did before.

The only time there is a difference in the routine is for BB promotions. There is no sparring, and all black belts from our system are invited and most of the students of the school come and it is a great big ceremony with lots of bowing. But it doesn't happen very often, so we do make it special when it comes around.

[fallen_milkman]

Yikes. Seems like mine is least traditional, at least for low ranks. We do the test, then the instructors (should be at least 2, maybe 3) discuss it and tell you if you passed or not. At the end of class, everyone bows to the new ranked person first, then we do our normal bow out. You have to sow your own sashes in our school, so he doesn't give you one. You have to go home and attach the new color.

[parkerlineage]

Attach the new color? So your belts are all rainbow and stuff when you get high ranked, or am I confused?

[Sam]

mines just like zekes....

that idea about making ur own sashes sounds interesting....

[fallen_milkman]

Attach the new color? So your belts are all rainbow and stuff when you get high ranked, or am I confused?

Haha, bad description on my part. I should have went into more detail I guess. When we join, we wear no sash. The six month-marker is our first advancement test. If we pass, we go buy a plain black sash, and some white acetate(sp?) fabric. It is basically fake silk. We then sow a 5 inch wide band of white on both ends of the sash. When we make it to yellow sash, we remove the white and replace it with the yellow ends. This goes up through the ranks until master rankings, which replace the entire black sash with a red one.

[Aodhan]

Ours is pretty cool, IMO. It's done in a darkened room, and there is a central large candle that is lit. The school owner comes in, lights his candle (Slightly smaller) from the big one. All the high ranks come in order of rank, and light their candles from the owner. Then, one by one, the new black belt candidates come up and have their votive candles lit by their primary instructor. There's a history tape playing, and explanations, symbolism and other things, it's a really cool ceremony.

Aodhan