Shodan in Japan

[johnsoul]

This ones probably been done before but i cant find any real anwers anywhere. i was thinking when its time for getting my Shodan with the permission of sensei, how hard is it to obtain in Japan.
What are the procedures?, do you have to do the written in japanese?, and how to you find out if gradings are taking place and where. ect,ect.

If anyone can give me further information it would be much appr.


Cheers

John

[Hai_hai]

Why Japan? Any IKF affiliated federation can perform tests for shodan.

[ben]

Briefly, there are two ways:

1) You train (hard) in Japan for a year as a high school exchange student and they give you shodan as a "graduation" present before you leave. This is totally at the discretion of your host sensei/club/school. Many people have started kendo this way.

2) You go to Japan with some indication of your current grade (recognised grading card or certificate) and an introduction to a dojo. It would be advisable to train locally for a little while to make sure you're up to speed. You also need the AJKF/IKF application form which requires a signature and approval by your sensei and also by a representative of your state or national governing body. Once there you can enquire about when the next local grading will be held. You can then enquire about written exam requirements.

Some local renmei will exempt foreigners from writing in Japanese. Some also exempt their own students if they attend remedial kata lessons in the lead-up to the grading. It varies.

Sho-dan in Japan is a relatively junior grade. You would probably be grading with around 200 junior high school kids.

The best and most direct way would be to ask your sensei or one of your sempai. In Melbourne there is no shortage of information about training and grading in Japan: many, many people have done it before. It is not secret information and should be freely available to you.

b

[johnsoul]

Thanks for the replys. can do the high school one way to old for that, but i will make more enquirys as my shodan gets closer. Thanks good guide for what needs to happen.


Cheers

John

[Twobitmage]

your sig is kind of long...could you shorten it? its a bit of a bother. Esp for such a tiny message

[Paikea]

Lotsa new lines after the sig - probably from cut-and-paste from Word.

[Wark 1978]

i have just taken and passed my shodan in japan just over a week ago. i had been training at a 3 local clubs for the past year and from when i first showed up my senseis were telling me that we were practicing for 1kyu. when i passed that the first thing one of them said after "congratulations" was "now we begin shodan training" and the first thing he said after "congratulations" when i told him i passed shodan was "now we beigin nidan training".

it is actually the club secretary who informs all the club members about the upcoming gradings and whether we want to enter them. i never asked for permission as such but when you hear your senseis saying "no problem" i decided to enter. i'm glad i didn't let them down.

as for the written test, my club secretary contacted the local renmei who said that it would be ok for me to do the written in english. there was another foreigner there who did his in japanese. my girlfriend was at the grading and she said that when i handed my paper in, the examiner looked at it and laughed. he then passed it to the next one who laughed even more when he saw that i had written 2 sides and eventually all 5 examiners were having a good laugh. i thought that having been given permission to write in english there might be someone there to translate but apparently not.

there were many junior high school kids there but there were also several adults. the adults only fight adults and this was the same in my 1kyu test.

all the best for shodan!

[Nishi]

Nice work...congratulations.

I do agree with HaiHai that any IKF country can perform the test and is just as valid, however, who would pass up such a chance to be in the Kendo motherland, training where it all began..(Japan, not Korea...lol).