Nope, no tests or ranking. They do test for officials though. You have to take a written & performance test. The officials are rated as 'R', 'J' & 'O'. I am a 'J' rated official. Thats why, much as I hate to admit it, we need some kind of governing body to keep out the phony rip-off artists & keep it real.

Thanks,

Sensei Tom

Thanks for sharing, Tom.

wow! this was posted way back when... I wonder what brought it back up?

anyways, its a great story.

lol when i first started taking karate i wanted to be "the best" student and my dojo and was often frustrated with myself because i was comparing everything i did to the higher ranks. then 1 day i realized that as long as i had intentions to be "the best" i would never be a black belt, so that's when i trained to be the best i could be without doubts or 2nd guesses. i had to trust myself and strength and in time i became more powerful now than when i first started. lol i know i'm a bit different from everyone else in the dojo (i'm the only african american in the higher rank class), but i was asked to help out someone when they got stuck. it's my nature to help and i never once said no, remembering when i needed help...anyways now that i'm a brown belt, my sensei has me help out the younger kids and in iai-do i guess cause i give pretty good explantions and i pay attention to what id being taught. getting my black belt has always driven me and kept me from quitting karate and iaido and i'm thankful i didn't 'cause now i'm only 2 more borwn belt away from getting my black belt. even more than that is to protect people and try to stop voilence before it starts, i broke up a fight in once school and everyone thouight i lost my mind, but i was thinking that martial arts teaches to talk out our problems before striking and doing something we'll later regret. lol i didn't mean to get this deep into the topic....

Interesting thread nice one Steve!

The strange thing is, wen i started out in karate it was purely to do 'something' and its a useful sport in that it can be applied to protect yourself and others. After a while i guess you can stop in that you have pretty much got the hang of the basics and that is enough (i know you have to keep training but just for arguments sake). The weird thing is, and i don't know if anyone else feels this but you just have to keep going. For me i don't think it is the social interaction or anything else, i fact i dont know what it is but if you miss a class the guilt just eats you. I know this is really random and if anyone could throw some comments on this that would be great.

When I don't train, I can't stop thinking about it. I train because I can't not train.