BillC wrote: NBK wrote:Was reading an old thread about gido taiso, OP from Ippero, and he linked to this interesting paper (Japanese only):
Historical study of Gido Taiso
On pg 20, there's a table derived from Oimatsu sensei's history of judo.
The top right column noted 'Meiji 43' (which is 1910) notes
New students entered this fiscal year: 844
Total students: 11,407
Yudansha (judo sho dan rank and above holders): 1,150
If I read it correctly, the chart indicates there were no yudansha before 1910; I thought it was quite a bit earlier than that.
But think of the administrative requirements to produce paperwork for over 1,000 people scattered around Japan, as everything was centralized in the Kodokan then.
So, it starts with about 10% of judoka having dan ranks, but by Showa 8 / 1933, the last entry, over half of the 76,823 registered judoka have dan rank.
This speaks to the question earlier of what a shodan means in Kodokan judo - a serious beginner only, not a master.
NBK
Mr. Natural,
A couple of things you might be able to comment ... or speculate ... about.
- Of the 11,000 students, how many were children, how many adults? Would you guess it was a youthful bunch at least?
- If one assumes that yudansha leave the planet at a rate slower than the rate at which they are produced ... the proportion of dan grades should increase.
For the purpose of arguing with local leadership about expenditure and allocation ... I charted the members of our yudanshakai ... kyu and dan grades ... and found that there were as many or more adults enrolled at any given time as there were kids. This I would not have guessed at first glance. But if you think about it, the proportion of "lifers" might be small, but they persist in judo for the duration ... we just said goodbye to http://www.pacificsouthwestjudo.com/?p=604 yesterday for example, he was pushing 80.
- I've noticed, as many people have, that there is a tendency for people to reach shodan and quit. It does not happen very often that a nidan, sandan, etc. who put in their time and their paperwork take to the couch entirely. They may get caught up in life for a few years, they may only show up once or twice a week, but they do come back. No data just something I observe to be true.
As to what a shodan means in Kodokan Judo ...
- What does it mean in other martial arts? In shodou for that matter?
- When were those ranks first awarded?
Cheers.
Bill
I expect that many if not most of the first tranche of promoted were adults, but surely children followed pretty quickly; you'd have to know the history of the names, or have direct access to Kodokan records (which is now not available, I am told, because of privacy concerns; the data would provide an interesting history paper - I will suggest it to some judo researchers).
One of the few early child dan holders that I know of direct evidence was Tomiki sensei, born 1900, who moved to Tokyo to attend Waseda University after graduating high school (in Akita IIRC) as a 17 yr old judo 2dan, circa 1917. So, there is evidence that children were promoted to dan rank / 'black belts' early on. (I just talked to a US business colleague who attended his two high school kids' _3dan_ taekwondo promotion test.... I shoulda practiced a bit longer....)
If anything early Kodokan promotions at the lower ranks were faster than today. Postwar there are some serious minimum time in grade requirements that slow things down after 2, 3 dan, above that things slow down a lot. (This summer one of the Kodokan instructors mentioned a famous judoka and said, it's too bad he's so young... [he's near 70] as he'll never reach Xdan, can't meet the minimum time in grade requirements...)
In other arts, in my experience, shodan / 1dan only means 'serious beginner who put up with this stuff pretty consistently for a couple of years, can demonstrate a number of throws and won't hurt himself when he falls down'. And I'm talking about jujutsu, jodo, kyudo, kendo. I met a businessman who is a 3dan in Heiki ryu kyudo - after 3-4 years of practice in college.
And shodo, too.
AFAIK all other colored belt promotion systems postdate judo's. Kano shihan set the precedence, everyone else followed.
Later he dresses it up a bit to say it was for motivation, recognition, etc., but his writings indicate that it was at first a practical matter, as the dojo attendees grew to the point that they could not provide direct instructor / practice with new students. The black belts allowed the instructors to glance around the dojo and tell when the newbies were grouped or had a senior student at hand with whom to practice. Until then the belts tended to be simple, pretty short fabric belts to hold the keikogi together - after that they began to be more fancy material. I can't anyone that knows when there was a change to the multi-fold thick versions of today.
NBK
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