What is a mon kyu grade?

[jcvamp]

I was reading the wikipedia article on karate belts, and it mentions 'mon kyu' grades. I have looked online and haven't found any information about them. What are they?

[bushido_man96]

I haven't heard that term, but I have heard of "Menkyo Kaiden," which is a certificate of transmission. Is this what you are asking about?

[moriniuk]

I've only ever heard of 'mon' grades being used in Judo. They're only for juniors and each mon grade further breaks down the kyu grades into 3 parts.

1 kyu = 3 mon

Each mon is signified with another stripe on the belt.

[Dobbersky]

I've only ever heard of 'mon' grades being used in Judo. They're only for juniors and each mon grade further breaks down the kyu grades into 3 parts.

1 kyu = 3 mon

Each mon is signified with another stripe on the belt.

Agreed, I've only heard of these gradings in Judo

[pittbullJudoka]

So in reality if you school uses stripes in between belts it's a mon Kyu rank. Or this is my take on it.

[jcvamp]

Thanks for the replies.

I hadn't heard of it before the Wikipedia article. I did a search for 'mon grade' instead of 'mon kyu' and found a Wado-Kai Karate-Do page where it talks about mon grades (http://www.englandwadokai.org/cadetgrading) and the class the juniors as cadets.

[Dobbersky]

Are these actual gradings where one has to "Pay" to grade?

If so it seems similar to Choi Kwang Do where they have 18 levels before Black belt Degree level

[jcvamp]

Are these actual gradings where one has to "Pay" to grade?

If so it seems similar to Choi Kwang Do where they have 18 levels before Black belt Degree level

I have no clue. Like I said, I saw the article on belts on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate_belt), it listed 'mon kyu' level belts, I didn't know what it meant. After someone mentioned that they had mon grades in Judo, I looked up just 'mon grade' in relation to karate, and it gave me a page of a karate club that seems to use them.

Maybe it's not very widespread, but if that's the case, the Wikipedia article isn't representative of most dojos.

[Zaine]

My schools had these for the children's class, although it wasn't pay (to be fair, we weren't charged for regular tested anyway). For my instructor they served two purposes. First, they kept the kids happy in that they knew that they were progressing. Second, it helped my instructor remember which ones were getting closer to the next level, so they acted as a halfway point.

[darksoul]

I've heard of mon ranks, but was never in a dojo that used it. My knowledge of them are that they are basically "junior" ranks.