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Jennifer Yabut wrote:
Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Ledyard. There is much about Aikido and its ranking system that I still don't understand yet.
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hi Jennifer,
First thing to understand is that it is not monolithic. As in "aikido and it's ranking system" doesn't make much sense. There are too many different organizations, styles, teachers, dojo for it to make sense.
I tend to think of rank as a sign of an individual's connection to the specific instructor who granted it, and to a lesser degree, the lineage represented by that instructor's training history.
So I might take an unaffiliated rank very seriously, even though the actual lineage is rather dubious or hard to verify.
And someone's rank that is completely "legitimate" in terms of one of the major organizations, I might not take so seriously. After all, as Mike Sigman has occasionally noted, not every student that get's rank under an excellent instructor is excellent themselves.
Best,
Ron