Ascending the Ladder

It has recently been brought to my attention by friends in both the aikido and mugairyu communities that there are a surprising number of individuals who prioritize rank to some degree. While I feel that this is to be expected, a part of me finds this problem to be alarming. To make my point easier to understand, I'll divide this into two posts. First aikido.

To clear up an often debated topic, I'll make this clear from the start. NO MEMBER OF THE UESHIBA FAMILY HAS EVER HELD RANK OF ANY KIND. There are a lot of ignorant morons out there who debate this issue into the ground. Was Osensei ninth dan? Tenth dan? NO DAN! He FOUNDED THE FREAKING STYLE! Because he's the founder (and the first doshu...yet another heated debate among non-Japanese aikidoists), he gets no rank. Because his children and his children's children are his successors, they also get no rank. Just look at the aikikai website under the "instructors" tab. You will see that Ueshiba Mitsuteru, 25 years old and one of Hombu dojo's newest deshi, is at the top of the list above Tada sensei and Okumura sensei (both 9th dan respectively).

The dan system was introduced to aikido for commercial reasons to mark students' progress. It worked for judo, so someone early on thought it would work for aikido too. But think about it. Osensei is the closest thing the 20th century ever had to a shugyosha. A shugyosha is a samurai who runs around in the woods and mountains for months at a time, training to the point of collapse and living off the land everyday (think Musashi). If you put yourself through this kind of intensive training almost daily for decades, then burn all of your bridges with other styles in order to make your own style, would your sense of value change? Would a piece of paper with a number on it make any difference to you personally? Would it make any difference to prospective students? That last question, while seemingly the most ambiguous, is probably the easier question to answer. Osensei's sense of awareness and the intensity that radiated from the depths of his being is what attracted students to him. No one ever had to ask, "What are your credentials?" He would look at them, they would poop their pants, debate over.

Aikido today is an unorganized mess when it comes to rank. The average American aikidoist trains somewhere between six to eight years before attaining shodan. Japanese college aikidoists typically start when they are freshmen, train under their upperclassmen five days a week for two years, get shodan before they enter their junior year, and usually graduate with nidan. Are they any good compared to American shodans and nidans? Absolutely not. Japanese college aikidoists are a disgrace to the art. Bad posture, bad etiquette, and they don't even know how to clean the dojo. Does rank have anything to do with anything? Nope. Some college clubs even insist that lifting weights helps. As soon as they graduate, they stop aikido, put "aikido nidan" on their resume, get a job, and join the rest of the sheep working in Japanese companies. For them, "aikido nidan" has value. But if they reentered the aikido community, would they be outstanding aikidoists? Clearly not.

A very dear aikido sensei of mine once told me when I was but a wee highschool kid, "I never prepare for tests. You can either do what is required of you, or you can't. I won't let you test if I don't think you're ready." My interpretation? Rank is something that will come if you just continue training on a daily basis. Aiming for it will only make your training superficial. If you're making the time to train daily, shouldn't you value that more than a flamable piece of paper? The next time you find yourself counting how many days you've trained since your last test, just stop. I don't care who you are, just stop. You're better than that, I promise.