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Old 12-27-2005, 07:30 AM   #27
Ed Shockley
Dojo: aikikai of Philadelphia
Location: philadelphia
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 84
United_States
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Re: Skipping grades?

Just to affirm add to the comment by Willi Brix, I do know of a shodan who was promoted to san dan without a test after returning to Japan following a long college stay in America. He was simply asking his sensei if he should test there in Japan or at his new American home. His Sensei called the doshu and was willing to make him as high as a yo dan had he not refused. Meanwhile, the Aikidoka in question is probably the best practitioner I have encountered who is not a shihan. He was head of a college club and required from his first day to return from morning classes with a host of shihan then teach the same techniques to his college confederates. Add to that innate physical gifts of balance and travel that has taken him for extended periods of study with shihan and shidoin on both coasts of America and I have no reason to doubt the wisdom of his Sensei. Ultimately everyone's rank is their private concern. I know of one person who quit his dojo because of political elevations. This seems ill advised. I suggest that my focus should be on Aikido and my own rank as a reflection of my understanding of the teaching I am receiving. Someone else's advance, other than as an opportunity to buy them a drink, means nothing in my life.
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