When another student, who is already a dan, comes knocking

Over the years I was approached by others with dan training in other arts to join my program.

I never was interested in acquiring students with a different background than my program.

 

But there was a wide variety of reasons for those requests. At times they were newly moved into the area looking for a place to train. At times they had become dissatisfied with the training from their original system. At times they simply wanted to specify what they wanted for their own purposes.

 

And many had  shared with me, freely, so in part I felt some obligation to be nice.

 

I always counseled they should start their own program. That was the only way they could obtain the training they were comfortable with. Often they declined.

 

So then I would invite them to join in with an adult class. I always ran my adult program using the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, where no two classes were ever alike,.There always was a structure but no student could discern from a class, as often the structure was on a 6 month cycle or more. The purpose of doing that was always to keep everyone on their toes, so they never anticipate what was coming next.

 

The reality was that many of the instructors I trained with the classes I experienced were often just as unstructured with their senior students. So in part I was participating in a tradition I had experienced.

 

On those nights with a visitor I was offer most random as to what was happening.

 

Should the visitor find too unlike what there were looking for. I was ok with that.

 

Should they be interested they were welcome to join the training. But they also had to understand I only taught one way from the ground up. It wasn’t about the belt they held, I could care less about that. I made it clear they should wear the highest rank they had attained.

 

But everyone started at the same place. With their prior experience they should learn faster, but everyone had the same core material, That and they would not move past that prior rank without knowing all the material well for such a promotion.

 

As it turned out within the dojo we only recognized 3 levels of dan training. And the basic qualification for instructor was a minimum time of 15 years training with us and then spending at least 5 years in the instructor mentorship program to qualify. Everyone never talked about rank, everyone knew what everyone else was working on.

Being an instructor was not the equivalent of dan rank, but all who entered the instructorship program had reached 3 dan.

 

I had those who turned away. I had those who remained and trained.

It all was good.