Kata-Based Ranking

They say that the black belt isn't the end.  They say that it isn't the summit of the mountain.  They say that it is the base of the mountain.  They say that all of the previous belts have only led you to the base of that mountain.  They say that the black belt is only the beginning.

The black belt is indeed not the end, but nor is it the beginning.  The beginning of the journey is that first step you take into that first training hall.

Rank is a myth.  Rank means absolutely nothing outside of the specific organization or school that gave the rank.  What is black belt for one school is mid-kyu in skill for another and midway up the dan ranks in a third, and having the ability to physically defeat any certain individual or group of individuals means nothing. Otherwise, when a person becomes too elderly to defeat those younger than them, they should be demoted to a rank lower than the person who defeated them.

In our style, we have altered the ranking system.  Not in the colors we use or their basic ordering, but in the focus of each rank, and black belt is indeed the "end", because the student has demonstrated that they have learned the curriculum taught by our school.  If they go on to learn other techniques taught by other arts, that is great, but it has no bearing on what they know of our system.

The reason this is so, is because our curriculum is kata-based.  You must know specific applications for each movement and group of movements in a kata in order to pass to the next rank.  Walking back and forth across a gym floor doing one-step and three-step sparring drills that look like long distance unarmed kendo is not what our art is about, nor what we test.  We want to prepare our students to use the techniques we teach practically, and from day ONE.

There is no possible way to teach a person *every* application for a technique, because there is no possible way for anyone to *know* every possible application for every technique.  That is the beauty of the art.  It can change, adapt to and be modified for any situation.

We believe that a person should have a good three or four applications for every technique in a kata built into their muscle memory.  Much more than that, and a person might freeze under the pressure of an actual situation, because their thinking, worrying mind might get in the way of an instinctual reaction, and an instinctual reaction is all that there is time for in an actual situation. That is why, once a person has received a black belt from us, it means that they have been taught what we believe to be the most high-percentage applications of our system, those most likely to be the most effective and less likely to fail under pressure.  This in no way means that they "know it all" because no one ever can.  People are free to continue to study and deepen their art for the rest of their lives.

For this reason, we study the 36 habitual acts of violence, and we teach and drill the most sensible (in our estimation) applications to those situations, using techniques from the kata.  Although we practice all 15 kata and their bunkai/oyo found in the Karate-Do Kyohan of Funakoshi Gichin Sensei, we find that the five Pinan kata, Kushanku (Kanku-Dai/Kwanku), Passai (Bassai-Dai) and Naihanchi 1-3 (Tekki) contain the vast majority of the answers we need for those situations.  From strikes to parries, from locks to throws, those few kata contain all that is really necessary to effectively defend oneself in an altercation where the goal is to escape with your life and the life of your loved ones.  Duels can be fought by duelists.  Karate is for the preservation of life while escaping a threat.

In the "good old days" not only would a master only teach just between one and three kata to students; they themselves often didn't know but between one and three kata, and they were considered masters.  That should tell us something about whether quantity or quality was emphasized then.  A person's style of karate *was* that one kata, just as Yang style Taijiquan *was* the long form, period.

A person who has internalized the applications of the core kata and "only" has a 5th kyu in our style, is better prepared for a an actual situation by a million miles than I was when I received my Shodan under the JKA/ASKF all those years ago.