Poll: How meaningful do you think the ranking system is in aikido in general?
 

AikiWeb Poll for the week of August 15, 2004:

How meaningful do you think the ranking system is in aikido in general?

• I don't do aikido
• Critically meaningful
• Very meaningful
• Somewhat meaningful
• Not very meaningful
• Not at all meaningful
  

Here are the current results.

Re: Poll: How meaningful do you think the ranking system is in aikido in general?
 

I think it's meaningful. Otherwise I as a beginner would have hard time distinguishing a skilled aikidoka with whom I would like to train from the other beginner who can be first of all dangerous to train with, and next may not see gaps in my technique and tell me about them.
This is especially true when a dojo has several groups training sometimes together. As an example - my dojo has morning and evening classes. I don't know people from evening classes and on Saturdays we train all together. Even after training more than 2 month I can see new people there sometimes. And their belt gives me idea whether I can train with them or not.

Re: Poll: How meaningful do you think the ranking system is in aikido in general?
 

personally I don't think that the Kyu truly matters until you are a 1st Kyu. I have trained with many people who sometimes I just feel like I am actually teaching that are as high as 4th Kyu, while after over a year(personal preferance) I am only a 6th Kyu. so I think rank is only somewhat meaningful.