{"id":307,"date":"2019-04-10T06:34:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T05:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/remoteaikidodojo.com\/?p=307"},"modified":"2021-06-04T07:38:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T06:38:34","slug":"grade-inflation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/remoteaikidodojo.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/10\/grade-inflation\/","title":{"rendered":"Is grade inflation a problem in aikido?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have previously<\/a> alluded to a consequence of having high standards in our gradings. Standards that are higher than what they should actually be. That consequence is grade inflation. I\u2019m not referring to people obtaining a higher grade than the one they should have, I\u2019m actually referring to the opposite. Many people have a grade much lower than they should have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"inflation<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The unfortunate thing for these people is that the keys to unlock the door to the one they should be are always held by someone else. You need a higher grade to promote you to the next one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now grades shouldn\u2019t matter. In many ways the grading system that we have is not a good one. In others it really is. This post isn\u2019t about the merits of how ranking works in aikido, it\u2019s more about some unintended outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Geographical Split<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As was mentioned in February\u2019s post<\/a> the standards seen for grades in Japan are much lower than they are elsewhere. I have no empirical evidence for this other than the first hand accounts of people who\u2019ve gone and trained there, and the impression I\u2019ve formed of aikidoka that I\u2019ve met that have graded there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the sake of argument let\u2019s accept the premise that grades in Japan (specifically shodan, because that\u2019s what most people care about) are a lower standard than elsewhere. That means that non-japanese aikidoka have inflated the standard of the grade. What we\u2019re dealing with now are shodans that should be nidans( or sandans). First kyus (and lower) that should be wearing a black belt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately this inflation is not universal. One person\u2019s first kyu is another person\u2019s second kyu. A large part of this stems from the problem that there are no actual standards to the grading system. There is no list of things that must be accomplished at each grade. Every organisation has a grading syllabus, but I\u2019ve never seen a description of what that entails. It might say that shomen uchi ikkyo omote must be demonstrated, but that\u2019s all. There are no notes that indicate collapsing the arms would result in a fail for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opinions Galore<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Without pass\/fail criteria the test essentially becomes an opinion poll. Very few people can give you actual specifics of what they would consider a pass and a fail for any given grade. That wouldn\u2019t be a bad thing if there were less aikidoka. In a smaller pond it\u2019s harder to hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The argument goes that you stand on your skill level, people can tell what grade you are by how well you do things. I don\u2019t place much faith in that argument though<\/a>. Sometimes it\u2019s really obvious but often times it\u2019s not. Especially if you are training with people from a different style. It doesn\u2019t even have to be much of a different style. Aikido is a beautiful art to watch, it flows incredibly well and with good ukes it really is like watching a dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stylistic Clash<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When you have to merge with your uke on the fly though it gets messy. It\u2019s not as neat and clean as we expect it to be. This happens all the time at courses. It\u2019s not unusual. If you\u2019re watching a nage as they do this then you probably lower your opinion of their expected grade. All because they\u2019re from a different style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was nidan I went to a dojo near my new house. There were several and I was trying them out. I trained in this one for about a month but eventually stopped and went elsewhere. Their style was different enough it felt like I was back at 2nd<\/sup> Kyu level. I had a choice to make, radically alter my style to theirs and keep training there, or find somewhere else. If I were a kyu grade I\u2019d just have changed my style, but I wasn\u2019t so I took option b. That\u2019s not grade inflation though, that\u2019s just stylistic differences showing the myth that you can tell a persons skill level by looking at them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the issues caused by stylistic differences are mitigated enormously for me. I have many more years training under my belt and can adapt much easier to a different style. There may still be the odd stutter on the first attempt though, because it\u2019s a different focus, something new, but it\u2019s never as pronounced as it was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Higher Standard<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Without a defined set of criteria that is universal there is a tendency to insist on a higher standard because you don\u2019t want to be thought of poorly when your students go somewhere else. Unfortunately everybody seems to think that so everybody inflates their standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a bizarre contradiction. If you remember from the previous post<\/a> there is a disconnect in how long it takes to get a black belt and what it\u2019s supposed to mean. This is where that contradiction becomes incredibly apparent. As I understand it, in Japan a shodan genuinely is a beginner level, outside Japan it is not. The grade inflation we encounter illuminates the lie that, \u2018shodan is a beginner belt, it doesn\u2019t mean anything\u2019, because the standard to get one has become very high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Why?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I can think of several reasons for this to have occurred. The simplest being that students travel. They go to courses, they visit other dojos, they train in other places. Most instructors are quite happy for them to do that. Subconsciously, or even consciously, there is a desire to have both your students and yourself well thought of. The students essentially represent the instructor, and everybody wants to be well thought of. Having a higher standard for a grade will automatically promote that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a student tells people that they are a 2nd<\/sup> kyu and when you observe them you think they should really be a 1st<\/sup> dan then you automatically consider the standards in their home dojo to be high. The opposite is also true, if the 2nd<\/sup> kyu would only be considered 4th<\/sup> kyu in your dojo then you consider the standards at their home dojo to be low. This is just human nature. We make direct comparisons. The fact that there is a grading system really doesn\u2019t help here. It promotes an automatic referencing and therefore hierarchy that we can observe. As social animals we need to establish where new people fit into our \u2018tribe\u2019 and this is a really simple way to make a fast judgement on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opinions Last<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

As an example one of my students moved away and went to a new dojo. They explained that they had trained before, and where. They were greeted with looks of scepticism but nobody said anything. After some time and some training it transpired prior to my taking over several students had previously come to train at this dojo. Those students had not performed well and essentially needed to be taught everything from scratch. My student had performed quite differently to that. The point is that an opinion had been formed and had been applied to my student before anyone had seen them train. Reputations carry and nobody wants a bad one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"black<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

They Don’t Mean It<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A second reason is that people are lying when they say grades don\u2019t matter. It\u2019s rather like a Netflix queue. We all have films in there that we have aspirations of watching. Some arthouse film or similar that we keep telling ourselves we\u2019ll watch, right after we\u2019ve seen the latest MCU movie. We tell ourselves one thing, but we actually do another. Secretly, most of us believe grades actually do matter, we just don\u2019t want to admit it out loud. I\u2019m quite happy to. I\u2019m quite willing to openly admit that achieving shodan is a really big deal for my students. It\u2019s a big one for me too when they get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another possible cause is the old adage of what goes around comes around. The person awarding the grade had to go through a lot and be a high standard when they received their grade, therefore you have to go through it and be a high standard as well. I really hope this one isn\u2019t true though I\u2019m certain that for a large number of people it is. This is a really unfortunate one because it means a cycle is being perpetuated without anyone considering that it\u2019s time to get off the merry-go-round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Way Out?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The most tragic thing is that there is virtually nothing that can be done about grade inflation. You could ignore it and award students grades based on a lower, more realistic standard. If they ever go anywhere else their grades will be discounted and they\u2019ll be made to grade to a lower level than they are. Alternatively you could inflate your grades so that you can disregard those of anyone that comes to your dojo while forcing them to accept your students at their grade. That\u2019s an incredibly petty act though which is entirely self serving and just feeds into the system. The logical outcome of that is even higher grade inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think there may be a way to at least alleviate the problem and I\u2019ll detail that in the next post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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consider donating some brain fuel!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Also, if you enjoyed this post you can find further insights in this book.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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