Aslan wrote:
Thank you very much for your reply. And how it looks from the outside, when a person does not pass dan grading examination, but he handed dan on the recommendation? It is written in the certificate or something else?
And what about the JKF? Is it necessary to pass the exam there or you can get the dan for useful activity?
If I understand your question correctly...
In Japan most people know who got their dan grade by recommendation or by the practical (technical) test.
The certificate is the same for both recommended and practical. But in the official dan registry that is kept at the headquarters the information is very clearly written.
Wadokai has chosen to be a technical organization. it prides itself in that manner. At the most recent Instructor's seminar the chairman of the Technical committee declared that the 1st kyu instructor's exam is now more difficult than the 8th dan examination. He said that 1st kyu instructors are expected to be as close to perfect as possible (whatever that means) while 8th dans are allowed more wiggle room for individuality. I guess they want technical clones as instructors but 8th dans can be more expressive? I guess I kind of get it. If you are teaching it has to come from some sort of template so all top instructors need to be on the same technical page. No individual quirks allowed since you are responsible for teaching what is considered the techniques of the Wadokai.
The last two people who passed the 8th dan exam were Kiyomi Sasaki and Chiaki Shimamoto and that was about 5 or 6 years ago? And I was told that there really isn't anyone in the current pool of candidates that are really capable of passing the 8th dan test. Something about we don't train hard enough...lol.
No one has passed the top level instructor exam in several years either and now that the Technical committee has decided to up the difficulty factor it might be a long dry spell.
So how to solve this problem of the lack of top level quality? More instruction. More quality training.
Perhaps the current pool of 7th dans aren't good enough because there wasn't a high level of quality control when they were promoted?
So the Technical committee decided to resolve this issue by staging the 7th dan exam and 8th dan exam on the same day with the same examiners. That way the candidates are being evaluated by the same examiners with the same criteria. In the past you could slip by if you took your exam away from Tokyo. It was an unwritten rule that higher dan exams were easier to pass outside of Tokyo because of regional favoritism and certain regional examiners were not as strict. Tokyo always had the top examiners who had higher standards so the failure rate was significantly higher for high level dan exams held in Tokyo. Now the playing field has been leveled. Testing can only be done in Tokyo for 7th dan and it is now merged with the 8th dan test.
The logic is that not everyone should/can acquire a high level dan grade no matter how hard they try. If you aren't good enough you aren't good enough.
Not everyone can play in the NBA no matter how hard they try.
Wadokai just had their 7th and 8th dan test last weekend. Hopefully someone practiced hard enough to pass.
So given that it is so hard to get a 7th or 8th dan the reality is that it is out of the reach for most people. But some people want the dan grade for different reasons. One guy I know wanted to publish a video and felt it would sell more if he had an 8th dan so he petitioned for one and got one. To each his own.
I was talking to a friend of mine who passed the top level instructor exam a few years ago and who recently attempted and failed the 8th dan test.
His feeling about this whole thing mirrors mine. If you keep throwing yourself into the fire you may or may not pass. If you pass then you just accept it as a 'I just happened by chance to pass this time' sort of thing. The bigger thing for him is that by repeatedly throwing himself into the fire he is getting better and better. You can't help it. It just happens because you are forced to train hard, you are forced to think about your failures and shortcoming and forced to confront them so you can have a better chance of passing next time or perhaps the next time after that or the time after that. All the while you are getting better. I had a chat with a another fellow who has failed his 8th dan 6 times already. He says he will keep trying because this is what motivates him to improve.
This system might not work for everyone but it works for me perhaps because I am inherently lazy and won't practice unless there was some sort of motivation.