Buying Martial Art Rank.

Buying Rank

“This auction is for a Karate certificate. This is meant to REPLACE your existing certificate, or provide one if your school does not give them out. These are professionally done and will be on parchment card stock 11x14. We can also use your school name instead of the one on the certificate if need be. Also, we can sign and place the appropriate stamps. Additionally, we offer certificates in Japanese, Chinese or Korean.

 Get the rank you deserve! “

I found this gem on eBay. From time to time I check for rare martial arts books being sold cheap. Occasionally I come across these wonderful additions to the karate culture (insert sarcasm).  Due to the fact there is no requirement to provide any proof of rank, I don’t see what stops anyone from ordering. Maybe that’s the point?

These pseudo karate certificates range from $20.00 for a single certificate to $250.00 for multiple certificates with a DVD training program.  Combine this with the few organizations that hand out ranks, and the damage done to our industry is priceless.

So, sure we may have monthly tuition charges for our martial arts training, but assuming we train with a genuine source (i.e. a qualified instructor with good standing in a legitimate organization) this is like a gym membership; it helps keep the facility up and running.  We can even look at collegiate institutions: the classes cost money; but the learning, time, and teachers are what you pay for. If you do poorly, rest assured you will not receive a diploma. I don’t see these being sold on eBay.

Now, we also have testing fees that are applicable in some dojos for kyu ranks, and almost all styles have a charge for Dan ranks.  Generally, the fee should reflect the cost of the certificate and belt.  Sometimes these fees can increase slightly per rank; does this mean you’re buying your rank? I don’t think so. With next week’s Blog post we will look at the break down of charges in the average traditional dojo, at which point these testing fees become pretty insignificant.

So what does all this mean? It means it’s not about the paper. To a true martial artist, it’s nice to have, but not needed.  If someone lost all their rank diplomas in a fire tomorrow, it doesn’t erase what is in their memory; what they know. And in the same turn, for someone who suffered a traumatic head injury resulting in severe memory loss, those certificates would do nothing to restore any ability lost by the damage.

There are plenty of organizations out there that sell rank.  When we say “sell” we don’t just mean monetary exchange either. It could be giving you a very high rank certificate just to make you to feel beholden to them and to make you stick around. Sometimes they hand out rank just to have more teachers; although, how much can you really teach if you haven’t spent years learning these techniques yourself?  In these cases, you purchase the rank with your integrity and honor.

I have never understood the pride displayed by individuals who receive their rank in this way. How can you be boastful about something you didn’t earn? You would necessarily lack the knowledge and ability to display the understanding that the given rank suggests you should posses.

Now rather than slog through all the buts, what ifs, and excepts -- I will say this:  there is a reason it should take a certain amount of time; it should be difficult and require sacrifice worth more than a few days’ pay. Your rank should include time, effort, and dedication.

I have always joked with my students by asking if they would want to go into major surgery with an attending surgeon who had studied for 6, 8 ,or 12  years before being a lead surgeon? Although that is a bit extreme: consider how long an educator needs to go to school to teach the different grade levels.  They can make a teaching certificate on their computer at home, but I doubt that would get them the job.  As an industry we need to be more critical of things like this. It waters down the value of even the most qualified martial arts instructor.  

Insiders can easily tell if someone really knows what they are doing, but the general public cannot. And, if only for the sake of not seeing a promising young student get taken in by a “used car” Karate salesmen, we should at the very least give a nod of disapproval to these Cyber-Samurai.

It would be nice to have an advisory committee of some sort that could issue a bare minimum degree for martial arts instructors --  something similar to a personal training certificate. That would, to some degree, guarantee that students are learning something physical healthy, and at the very least, hold the instructors liable for what they are teaching.  However, even I can admit that this sort of thing might end up creating more problems than it would solve.

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