How old before you are a 10th degree black belt?

[bignick]

i thought 10th dan was awarded as an honary title in tkd...not something you could earn...but could be bestowed upon you

the wtf website lists the number of each dan's in korea and overseas

and they list 5 10th dans in korea
http://www.kukkiwon.or.kr/eng/promotion/yudanja.asp?div=5

 

[terryl965]

i thought 10th dan was awarded as an honary title in tkd...not something you could earn...but could be bestowed upon you

the wtf website lists the number of each dan's in korea and overseas

and they list 5 10th dans in korea
http://www.kukkiwon.or.kr/eng/promotion/yudanja.asp?div=5

That is true to a point they list only 5 but in actuallity there are houndreds from the US alone. See here in the good old Art of TKD you can buy that rank for alot of money and never get it register through the Kukkiwon, people will buy anything these days for the right price, that is why TKD is so water down everywhere. Not saying that is the case everwhere but for my own experiences it can be done with little or no problem. I have had people tell me they could promote me to Grand Master for $10,000.00 dollars and I've refuse for the rank has no meaning for me anymore. I train for the love of the Art not for the pubilicies some people need in life.. REMEMBER MY OPION ONLY. so please do not bash me about what I've said... GOD BLESS AMERICA

 

[Chicago Green Dragon]

Interesting question esp since there are a lot of people out there under 40 who are 10th deg. If we looked at it in 3 years gap between degrees and a person started at 10. We would get 40 years old. If they started at 20 they would be 50 years old.
I guess a person can wear any rank they want but what will really determine if the stripes are real is when push comes to shove and they have to show what they know.
I am one of those people who is a white belt with many shades of gray.
I picked up that great saying from the Doc.

Chicago Green Dragon

:asian:

 

[Brother John]

I think that too much attention is given to rank.

I say let people wear what they want, I'll judge them in my own mind...
white belt w/one stripe
or
Black Belt w/ten

Your Brother
John

 

[DeLamar.J]

Every system is different when promoting someone to 10th dan. My master is a 10th dan and holds high ranks in many othe styles. He is a 7th deg in judo, 4th in aikido, 9th in ju jitsu, and a few others I belive. Im not sure how old he is but he has been in the arts for all his life, so I think that qualifies him to hold a 10th dan. By the way here is his credentials http://www.usjujitsu.net/bio/mcclanahan/, his ranks are all certified by well know organizations, so they are valid. Alot of people try to tell me I train at a mc dojo when I tell them about the ranks my master holds. I guess there are so many wanna be fakes out there that people just assume the worst.

 

[GAB]

Hello Brother John,

I have to agree with you, I have always believed it and still support the very idea. But when in the various schools it is nice to be able to give some one a feeling of getting something for their money.

I feel people are not as secure in the assessment of this as you and I are, it comes with age. Or a not give a care attitiude.
To many Mc Dojos and not enough investigation into the art that some want to get into, nor for the right reasons.
One of the best places to get a fast education is the local Gym (boxing) lots of information in those smelly little out of the way spots.

Regards, Gary

 

[Shurikan]

Ranks should only be considered with in its own organization. As in ours you must be 18 to recieve a Sho-Dan(1st degree black belt) and we have strict requirements all the way thru our Dan ranks. I would never compare a 4th Dan to a 4th Dan in another system as we require a different curiculum then any other orgnaization. As for 10th Dan in our system that rank is held for the leader of our system and until he dies there will not be another one, regardless of age, time in the system, or any other instances.

 

[Brother John]

Hello Brother John,
I have to agree with you, I have always believed it and still support the very idea. But when in the various schools it is nice to be able to give some one a feeling of getting something for their money.
I feel people are not as secure in the assessment of this as you and I are, it comes with age. Or a not give a care attitiude.
To many Mc Dojos and not enough investigation into the art that some want to get into, nor for the right reasons.
One of the best places to get a fast education is the local Gym (boxing) lots of information in those smelly little out of the way spots.
Regards, Gary

Hey Gary, What's up??
Please understand, I feel that rank plays an important roll in the martial arts... but NOT the central one that most people make it play. In my school...I'm VERY strict about what a person of a certain rank must know/be able to do/and understand. In my association I'm proud of their standards.
Outside of these two venue...I'll judge by what I see. Character first, ability and understanding second. The belt color should give you a decent guess at these...but I hate 'guessing'.

I especially liked what you last sentence there had to say!! I've always thought that I should judge a person as a martial artist not by belt, nor by trophy ...but by how long, how frequently and how dilegently they pour their sweat onto the gym floor.
If I can't lift your DNA from your dojo floor....yer a "McDojo".
Or you've got some GREAT antiseptic cleaner that you use religiously. ((in which case...hook a brother up))
Your Brother
John

 

[gyaku-zuki queen]

i cant see anyone getting their 10th dan before they are at least 60 years old. 5th dan untill they are at least 30-40 and have been training their whole life.

 

[bignick]

my friend and i often joke about how we're gonna start our own art...and declare ourselves to be 38th degree black belts...we'll wear black belts...and obviously, people need to know about us...so we have to wear our degree stripes on our belts...like an inch of black and then just an insane number of stripes...that should be impressive enough

 

[willjones282000]

I met gentle man who is 32 years old and he is a 10th Dan. But also he has his own style I'm guessing if your creating your own art that makes you automatic 10th Dan

 

[Tony Dismukes]

As has been said many times here before, rank only has meaning within the system/school that it applies to. In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu there are no living 10th degree black belts. In Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu there are a zillion of them (and 10th dan isn't even the highest rank.) Does that mean that BJJ is better than BBT or vice-versa? No, it just means that the rank means something very different in the two arts.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I met gentle man who is 32 years old and he is a 10th Dan. But also he has his own style I'm guessing if your creating your own art that makes you automatic 10th Dan

Not quite. If you create your own style, you get to decide what rules apply to rank. You could decree that as the founder you are a 537th dan or you could decree that you are a white belt. It's up to you.

 

[tshadowchaser]

If you are the first to call your self a 10th Dan then you most certainly are not one. If other in the arts call you a tenth dan then they consider that you are one. if others are using that term for your rank and you are asked I would think it ok to say you are that rank or maybe just to say you are the head instructor for the system.
I think 60 would be a starting point for a person to be called a 10th dan.

 

[Mauthos]

This is quite interesting to me as I currently only hold a 2nd degree in Kenpo and I will hopefully be going for my third next year, I will be 37 then and will have spent 12 years studying and teaching this style. I avoided my 2nd degree for a long time (spent 6 years as a 1st degree) and have never really thought much about obtaining my next rank.

I know in my organisation it is laid out that it will take a minimum of 25 years to reach 6th degree as we grade for each of those and then 7 - 10th are awarded when you are deemed ready for them. At that rate I know that it is very unlikely that I will ever become a 10th degree and quite honestly it doesn't concern me.

On the subject of age though, my instructor has been told he should be awarded his 9th degree in 2015 which will make him 65 and the two seniors in our art, one of them recieved their 10th degree at 63 and the other will recieve his next year at 61. Seems about right.

Like I said though if I keep going the way I am going I will be 52 before I can grade for my 6th degree, so the likelyhood of receiving another 4 grades by the time I am 60 is incredibly minimal lol.

 

[Daniel Sullivan]

If you are the first to call your self a 10th Dan then you most certainly are not one.

Your statement assumes uniformity between arts regarding what a 'dan' is. But while my sympathies lie with your sentiment, intellecutally, I cannot agree with this.

If a person creates their own system, determines the ranking system, and is the highest ranking person in the system, then they have every right to call themselves by that rank. Just as anyone who owns a business can call themselves the owner, CEO, or president and actually be the owner, CEO, or president.

If you develop your own system and get ranking through an organization, such as the World Blackbelt Bureau, people call you a fraud. If you develop your own system and are awarded your rank by your students, people call you a fraud. If you develop your own system and award yourself your rank, people a fraud. If you get people in other arts to award you your rank, people call you a fraud.

So no matter what you do, people call you a fraud. So long as you don't make a big point of going around questioning everyone else's legitimacy, I don't really care how you get your grade. Your system and your ability will be readily apparent, and you and your system will either fade away inside of a century or you will establish a lasting legacy. History will judge you, but I have better things to do in the mean time.

 

[Hyoho]

Who actually grades a Judan, his juniors?

 

[Hyoho]

I met gentle man who is 32 years old and he is a 10th Dan. But also he has his own style I'm guessing if your creating your own art that makes you automatic 10th Dan

Any idiot can create their own and call themselves whatever they like, but will have little credibility.

The yudansha system it relatively new applying to the more moden arts. In a lifetimes practice a simple licence was more than sufficient.

After near 50 years study and teaching I had around 27 certificates, the majority taken in Japan by the time I was 42. It's just 'pieces of paper'. The chairman of the Kendo association encouraged me to try for more saying, "Your students will be very proud". But its the heart and spirit taught us by our teachers that counts the most.

Yagyu handed a Yagyuryu certificate to the Lord Hosokawa. Its contained all the teachings of the Ryu on paper......It was blank!

 

[Balrog]

IF I remember correctly 10th Dan is an honorary title given to those that either founded a system or have at least 30 years or more in the Martial Arts in a paticular system. 10th Dan is usually given by a group of peers aka Black Belts for reconginition of acheivements within your system of MA. Or at the order of the Founder of a system in order to perserve the purity of the Art names a successor upon his or her death will be given the rank of 10th Dan.

I think honestly there should only be a single 10th Dan in any system meaning the head of that Art the final decision maker and the embodiment of that Art. You can have all the 9th Dans you want but only one 10th Dan the Living Senior Grand Master.

ATA kinda did that. GM H. U. Lee, the founder of the organization, was posthumously promoted to 10th Degree and given the title of Eternal Grandmaster. ATA will never award another 10th Degree. We currently have two living 9th Degrees: our current Grandmaster and the Grandmaster Emeritus, who retired a couple of years ago. He's still active in the ATA, but he's not the captain of the ship any more, so to speak.

 

[chinto]

in Okinawan Karate, and many other arts, there is one hanchi judan ( 10th degree/dan) perhaps 2 or so 9th dan, and all others are UNDER that level of rank.