Thinking of going rogue

[devil dog]

I would be happy to share my similar experience with you devil dog!

I'd love to hear about it. It my lend resolve to my decision.

[Nidan Melbourne]

The interesting thing I see in what you said (original post) is the legitimacy of your rank. why doesn't your hombu give you a copy of the certificate signifying your rank?

At my dojo, my sensei keeps a record of all students and their rank, but not through keep certificates but through martial arts program and each file has all their information (name, DOB, rank, address, emergency contacts etc) and a photo of that person.

He does this for insurance, membership purposes and a million other reasons. Especially if the Australian tax office comes knocking for information

[sensei8]

In my opinion,

Your Hombu has no valid reason(s) to not provide you a copy of your rank certificate. To me, it's an absurd absolute because it's YOURS, and not the Hombu's. Yes, the Hombu is the governing body and it does "manage" all important documents, but the word "manage" doesn't mean "ownership" of said documents.

Not at our Hombu!! Yes, there's a very small administrative fee that accompanies said request, but a rank certificate isn't the property of our Hombu.

For me, it's low and cold to refuse said request. Our Legal Team would be all over this, and quick!

[devil dog]

Sorry gentleman I didn't realize that anyone had posted to this in a while.

To clarify... We keep our certificates. When we test Dan ranks we send them with our signature to the main hombu and a board member or Soke himself signs off on them and sends them back. We keep our certificates.

I think the misunderstanding was my use of the word legitimacy. What I meant by that was if I left, my students testing for Dan would only have my signature on them. In most Okinawan and Japanese arts Dan certificates require three signatures. My sensei and me are two and the hombu provides a high ranking third.

The reason I said legitimacy is anyone from another similar style would see this as at the very least uncommon and question the legitimacy of the rank. Our kyu certificates only require the instructors signature.

Every style I have taken had no less than three signatures as a minimum. Unfortunately we have no other high ranking instructors beside myself and my instructor. So this is the basis of my original post.

I'm not sure if it is absolutely required as I have seen other styles certificates with one or two but it's tradition for us atleast and I want to make sure that Dan's do not have a rough way to go should they ever leave and join another style or open their own dojo and have their ranks legitimacy questioned. That and after leaving you would no longer have the backing of the organization.

To be clear the hombu does not keep our certificates. They are sent back and a copy is made and kept on file and the original is given to the student.

Just like e-mails, sometimes it is hard to get your meaning through on a post. Hopefully this has cleared things up. Sorry for the confusion.

[tamaro]

Sorry, didn't notice this was a really old thread.

Admin: Feel free to delete my post.

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There are two main things you need to consider:

1) Insurance - This is the easy part. I think you can easily negotiate with an insurance company, something for your students.

2) Your relation to the organisations that governs the art. Who will teach you? How will your students have access to competitions and gatherings?

I think no one should consider being a one man island. Others have a lot to teach us, always. If we stop communicating, your school may eventually get frozen in time.

Belonging to an association is always good. Notice that 20% extra on their fees may actually be less that the deal you'll get for a new insurance. Insurance companies tend to make discounts for larger number of individuals. So, even if 2) doesn't concern you, careful because 1) can backfire on you. If that happens, you'll not only lose your students anyway, but also your relationship with the organisation.

Also, you can consider simply switching organisation. But be careful in this whole process because relations can sour quite quickly.

Think in the long run, perhaps the benefits of saving those 20% are nothing compared to the problems and difficulties that might arise from the lack of support of a well established organisation.

To me 20% doesn't seem an unreasonable rise, specially if fees have been constant for some years.