How important is time in rank?

[Nidan Melbourne]

On 10/19/2024 at 1:47 AM, sensei8 said:

We held Kyu Testing Cycles every 3 months in all dojo's including our Hombu. Whether a Testing Cycle candidates Petition to Test was granted or not depended on several things but the one thing that stands out is class attendance. Kyu students were required to attend a minimum of 3 classes a week. Anything less than that was an immediate rejection of their Petition to Test. Every dojo submitted copies of every student's Hard Card to the Hombu, and one of the things that was on a student's Hard Card, which was kept at the Dojo and at the Hombu, was attendance.

We train for a reason, and not just for a season.

Out of curiousity to the bolded part in the quote: Do you have many students that for whatever reason unable to regularly train 3 classes/week? 

So they would automatically be discounted for being considered for promotion? 

Like when I run my own classes (so not via my shihan's club), I do look at their account; what I do look at is that they are consistently training each week. 

[sensei8]

Quote

 

sensei8 said:

We held Kyu Testing Cycles every 3 months in all dojo's including our Hombu. Whether a Testing Cycle candidates Petition to Test was granted or not depended on several things but the one thing that stands out is class attendance. Kyu students were required to attend a minimum of 3 classes a week. Anything less than that was an immediate rejection of their Petition to Test. Every dojo submitted copies of every student's Hard Card to the Hombu, and one of the things that was on a student's Hard Card, which was kept at the Dojo and at the Hombu, was attendance.

We train for a reason, and not just for a season.

Nidan Melbourne said: 

Out of curiousity to the bolded part in the quote: Do you have many students that for whatever reason unable to regularly train 3 classes/week? 

So they would automatically be discounted for being considered for promotion? 

Like when I run my own classes (so not via my shihan's club), I do look at their account; what I do look at is that they are consistently training each week. 

 

From time to time, things happen. That's what our By-Laws state. However, By-Laws aren't bullet-proof because compromising can make the impossible possible. CI's have a ton of saying whenever their students are involved. Make a case for their student to the higher hierarchy, follow the chain of command all the way up the Kancho [Presdent]. The Kancho will look into TOR from another angle...How many total hours, not days, have said student accrued during those 3 months, and more importantly, what were the mitigating circumstances involved. And like you said, is said student training consistently?!? Never say never.

[RJCKarate]

On 10/18/2024 at 10:11 PM, Nidan Melbourne said:

 

Is it a fairly uniform policy for classes for all Kyu Grades? or does it scale upwards as they progress through the Kyu Grades? 

Our students have a similar thing; where they have to have a minimum of 30 class credits to be eligible. Yet students often do in excess of 40-50 before attending their next grading. Yet our 1st Kyu's may have well over 100 class credits attributed to them.

The class requirement scales up for each grade. 0?8Kyu 20 classes, 2>1Kyu 48. We have a minimum attendance policy of attending twice per week, so it's really based around this. 40 classes would be at least two terms, which is on average, how people progress.

[bushido_man96]

I think time in rank is pretty important.  I honestly think our school should have more time between gradings than we currently do.  However, there's nothing wrong with having a student wait two cycles to make sure they are ready to test.

[sensei8]

20 hours ago, bushido_man96 said:

I think time in rank is pretty important.  I honestly think our school should have more time between gradings than we currently do.  However, there's nothing wrong with having a student wait two cycles to make sure they are ready to test.

I agree. As a kid MAist, I thought that conducting the Testing Cycle every 3 months was a great thing because, for a kid, every 3 months is awesome. Then, as a JBB there were no Testing Cycles because of our ages; no student under 18 can earn a Shodan, which meant one very long time in rank. As an adult student I quickly understood why the Dan ranks' time in rank were the they that they were. 

My time of rank was waived by our Soke for my Nidan to Sandan because I was more than ready for that Testing Cycle due to my being a JBB for 5 long years. Instead of the minimum time of rank being a 2 year wait, I only served 1 year. Ater earning my Sandan, my time of rank was strictly adhered to without any reservation.

[KarateKen]

On 10/17/2024 at 12:43 AM, Montana said:

We used time between belt tests as a "minimum amount of time" between tests.

For the first 3 belts (10 total) it was a MINIMUM of 2 months between tests.

Next 3 belts was a MINIMUM of 3 months.

Last 3 colored belts was MINIMUM of 4 months.

This doesn't account for them knowing that next levels requirements. 

This is how it was in Hapkido.  White to yellow was min 3 months, yellow to green min 6 months, and then it continued with six months until red, and I think it was min 9 months in red before testing for black stripe, or whatever it was, who can remember.  Master also told us that if we are testing for green and we perform the techniques at red belt level, he would then promote us to a red belt.  He immediately assured us "that has never happened, and it never will happen, but in theory I would." 

[aurik]

12 hours ago, sensei8 said:

I agree. As a kid MAist, I thought that conducting the Testing Cycle every 3 months was a great thing because, for a kid, every 3 months is awesome. Then, as a JBB there were no Testing Cycles because of our ages; no student under 18 can earn a Shodan, which meant one very long time in rank. As an adult student I quickly understood why the Dan ranks' time in rank were the they that they were. 

My time of rank was waived by our Soke for my Nidan to Sandan because I was more than ready for that Testing Cycle due to my being a JBB for 5 long years. Instead of the minimum time of rank being a 2 year wait, I only served 1 year. Ater earning my Sandan, my time of rank was strictly adhered to without any reservation.

I understand what you're saying.  By the time Zach is able to test for his (adult, full) shodan, he will have been a shodan-sho for 4 1/2 years, and a total of almost 10 years training in Uechi-Ryu.   Assuming he continues training, he'll be running into the minimum age requirements instead of the TIG requirements.  I think for our organization, it's 15 years for shodan, 17 for nidan, and I'm not sure what the minimum age for sandan is.

[aurik]

On 10/22/2024 at 6:59 PM, sensei8 said:

I agree. As a kid MAist, I thought that conducting the Testing Cycle every 3 months was a great thing because, for a kid, every 3 months is awesome. Then, as a JBB there were no Testing Cycles because of our ages; no student under 18 can earn a Shodan, which meant one very long time in rank. As an adult student I quickly understood why the Dan ranks' time in rank were the they that they were. 

We actually have one student who will be testing for her sandan-sho (she is an adult nidan) this Testing Cycle, because she is too young to test for full sandan.  However, she has been training and teaching for years (she runs several classes at one of our rec centers).  She has enough TIG as a nidan-sho to test for a sandan-sho, and as a sandan-sho, she can apply for a Shidoin's license, which would allow her to open her own school if she wanted to.

[KorroddyDude]

I think time in grade serves three useful purposes:

1.  It eliminates any perception of bias or favoritism among the students.
2.  It communicates a hard minimum timeline to the students, which eliminates awkward conversations about "when can I test?"
3.  It aligns with how education systems typically work.  A five year-old in kindergarten knows that he or she has twelve years (minimum) of education ahead of them.  You don't see kids asking their teachers when they're going to graduate.  They know that, as long as they're meeting the academic requirements, what year they're going to get their high school diploma.

At the end of the day, every instructor is free to run their school how they see fit (particularly if they're unaffiliated), but if potential students are aware of the various promotion systems among martial arts schools, that may very well affect the school that they choose.

[bushido_man96]

Something our Aikido dojo does is keep track of the number of hours trained during the time-in-grade.  So being the rank for certain amount of time is one requirement, but also hitting the appropriate number of classes is taken into consideration.  I guess you could say it's a combination of time-in-grade and activity-in-grade.