Black Belt ceremonies

[BDPulver]

Blinkin Flip!

I hope your black belt presentation ceremony was up to matching the exam.

Did you sacrifice some virgins or something lol!

Yeah, to eleborate on how we do ours. My teacher doesnt believe in promoting kids to black belt. A maturity thing. During the entire testing we have to ask permission to speak. If granted it has to be quick and to the point unless you have to use the bathroom which we just started pointing to the port a potty he would rent for the weekend.

Depending on how many are being tested for black belt, one of the higher dan's would wear there belt during the whole testing. Sort of a ritual thing.

Now during this time, each person being tested will be pulled to the side by there mentor. Tell them whats going on, what is expected and so forth.

I was leaving for the army so this was special to me (boot camp was a joke compared to what my sensei put us through ).

At the end, we would do a kata drill and a made up routine drill with 1 to 5 oppenents. Made it interesting since we still could not talk. Once that was done with we would then be ask to perform our favorite kata.

We'd line up, go into kneeling position (or try too) in front of all the black belts. He'd go through each of our accomplishments, what we needed to work on, how long we been studying and so forth. Our mentor Dan's would then perform the tieing on the black belt ceremony while we sat there. We'd do our bow and my sensei's wife would then pass out the sake and we'd do a few toasts and then it was BBQ time since it was at his farm.

[Uechi Kid]

Ours are given right after the Black Belt test. "Here you go, great job". After the test we useualy go out for pizza.

[marie curie]

My old judo school would have everyone in attendance throw the one being tested.

[Throwdown0850]

my Kodokan instructor handed me my black belt. there wasn't any ceremony haven't worn it since. I wear my brown one.. or my white one..

[NievesOSK]

No, it's not unique. It's actually used a lot more than you think. I was told it has it's basis in eastern cultures (Japan/China). Not just for rank certificates either. For official documents, correspondence and the like. Yes, we use it in our system. It legitimizes the rank and confirms "lineage".

Osu.

Although not so much a long the ceremonial lines, my Daito school has something pretty nice.

Dan grade certificates are made out of hand made paper and are hand written / painted by Shihan himself.

Here's the cool bit though. The certificate is in two halves. Prior to tearing (not cutting) the certificate in two, the "Shihan" puts his unique stamp across the tear line. Then the certificate is torn in two, ending up with half a stamp mark on each part.

The successful candidate gets his half and School's Shihan keeps the other. The theory being that if anyone should bring into question your training and qualification, they can offer it up to the school's "official" copy and the Shihan stamp will become complete (tear and all).

Nice touch me thinks.

Wow, that's unique.