Now set that aside and consider rank. In a very structured society (such as that of older Japan) everyone knew there place, sure and nobody ever rolled up on anyone else..... except Japanese history shows everyone knew their place, except for those who were going to change things.
The Okinawan arts moving into Japan in the 1920's saw one aspect of Japanese society and choose to create structures that parallelled what they saw, in the universities, in the military, and society in general.
What they experienced was it really didn't work, the new karate organizations kept breaking apart, splitting off and new ranking situations/structures came into existence (long before the rest of the world would catch on to what was going to happen).
The stark devastation of WWII on Okinawa, the reality that the United States was going to return Okinawan to Japan in 1972 must have had an impact on Okinawan thinking about their newly regenerated martial practices. They were aware of the changes to their arts in Japan and likely thought it advantageous to follow the same.
They forgot their own history, when multiple instructors tried getting together it didn't last. So they created associations, ruling bodies, rank structures and awarded rank. And there were no rules, each group worked them up as they went, some similar to others, some dissimilar.
The only reason to look at history is to fully understand rank was a modern invention as were organizations.
How to pull all of the issue together? It helps to have a structural framework of how things work, myself I prefer Alfred Korzybski's "Ladder of Abstraction".
In karate it works something like this.
First rung, the event level which are actual people and their actions.
then the first level of abstraction.
Second rung, the dojo or actual people engaged in training and teaching. Everyone knows everyone, rank is unnecessary except as a group practice for all know who's in change, who can or can't do what, etc.
then the next level of abstraction.
Third rung, the organization, where instructors from the dojo form a 2nd dojo and keep strong links to their original group. Rank from the original dojo still applies as they're following the same standards.
Fourth rung, a larger organization with groups outside of the original training partners. The new groups train together and find a common understanding of what rank means between their different practices. This new organization has no organic quality, but exists because even without long association the group wants it to happen.
Fifth rung, a new organization is created, totally breaking away from the original one and rank is awarded for thier own needs, which has no relation to the original groups ranking structure, execept the names sound alike.
Sixth rung, a umbrella organization comes into existence, one that seriously tests and awards rank to all the sub-organizations, following a large group standard.
Seventh rung, a umbrella organization comes into existence, that awards rank with no testing.
The concept of the ladder, shows as you climb further and further away from reality, people (the event level) training together (the dojo), the meanings behind things are more abstract, but those meanings take on reality of their own, that have nothing to do with the event level.
BTW all of this follows Korbybski's 3 rules which can be stated:
1. The rank is not the person.
2. The rank is not the whole person.
3. The rank can be self reflexive (or becomes an event unto itself which has nothing to do with the person)
In a military structure rank has evolved as a necessity, to structure events which are on the person level unthinkable, in a way to work for success.
The martial arts world is not a military structure.
Nobody, myself or any of you, are your rank, I'm me and you're you.
When rank serves a purpose, to help guide our formal progress in study, it is worthy for it's working on the event, person level.
When rank serves a purpose, to honor individuals efforts in a group where all are working together, that abstraction is useful.
When rank serves someone's desire to be in charge, it's vaporware, as a real organization beyond the event or person level.
It means what you want it to mean.
As a rational individual I will call anyone whatever rank they wish to be called, because I know the rank is not the person, the rank is not all the person, and that they may want their rank to be a reality, but their want doesn't control my event level.
But I don't respect an abstraction that is not reality.
When the event involved becomes 'shite', I call it what the reality is!
for a quick overview of Korzybski's science of general semantics check out
http://www.generalsemantics.org/index.php/gslc/online-library/199.html
victor smith
bushi no te isshinryu
derry, nh usa
I only hold rank from my original instructors for the last 50+ years but consider it personal. If you want to find it out feel free to ask Tom Lewis or Charles Murray, my rank is their responsibility after all.
My karate takes place on the dojo floor.
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