View Single Post
Old 11-25-2007, 12:53 PM   #101
G DiPierro
Location: Ohio
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 365
United_States
Offline
Re: significance to testing/belt rank?

Quote:
Amir Krause wrote: View Post
Thus, if you respect the giver, you should also respect the recipient. If you do not respect the giver, you can not learn from him, so go someplace else and leave him be (there is no point in trying to educate others who chose a different way to act based on your understandings).
I'm not interested in responding to your other points but in the dojos I have trained at rank is awarded by a big organization. Although the dojo-cho typically tests for kyu ranks, he does so (or is supposed to do so) according to the rules of the organization. Dan tests are done at seminars by a more senior teacher.

In any case, I don't buy the argument that you can't get something out of training with someone unless you have absolute respect for everything about that person. It's perfectly reasonable -- in fact, I would say it is and should be the norm -- to not like certain things about someone but still find it useful to train with that person. I think anyone who doesn't see things they don't like about where they are training probably is drinking a little too much kool-aid.

Quote:
John Riggs wrote: View Post
Also to me knowing a set of techniques is knowing a set of techniques whether you practice them one at a time or practice all of them as you go. I'm not sure if anyone has ever studied it to see which approach gives the best quality-if that can be measured.
The point is that in koryu the structure of the art is the sequence in which the techniques are learned. The licensing system follows naturally from the sequence by formally acknowledging where a person is in the sequence. In aikido, all the techniques are learned in a haphazard fashion. Thus, there is no inherent structure to the art. The type of ranking system used in aikido are an attempt to impose some sort of structure where there is none. Since this structure is artificial, rather than a natural outgrowth of the pedagogy of the art, it often ends up being an arbitrary reflection of stylistic preferences and politics more so than anything that actually has to do with the art itself.