chadbanister

I am fairly new to Aikido, with just eight months of training. I have tested and passed my first two kyu grades and am looking to take a third test in a month or two. My wife and I just moved down to NC from Grand Rapids MI. I trained at a AAA dojo up their and have been training at a USAF dojo down here with a great sensei. My questions relate to the differences in requirements between the two dojos. At AAA the minimums have you testing for shodan in three years, while the USAF have you testing for the same rank in over five years if you train five days a week. My new sensei said to me after just a week of training at the new dojo that I seem to have a natural ability for the art and he see's me advancing very quickly with this dojo. I was also told similar things from my previous dojo.

Now I am not a belt chaser or an ego-maniac, before people start going crazy about that. But I do like consistant motivation in the art. It seems that the black belt in our western society has been given the view of "Man, I'm a black belt in blah, blah, blah, I am a master of my art." This is horse#@!$. It is just the start, If we want the train in traditional Aikido, then we need to stop tacking on years and years of training for a beginning level shodan.

For someone who is training hard and consistantly and seems to pick things up very quickly, can the sensei override the testing minimum time requirements?