Japanese model of testing and grading.

A commentary on the documentary, ‘Kendo’s Gruelling Challenge’.

Some time in the mid 1990’s National Geographic made a documentary about the twice-yearly Japanese Kendo 8^th Dan examination in Kyoto and Tokyo. The full documentary is available on YouTube.

This is worth exploring because it throws considerable light on the current Japanese social and structural approach to the martial arts.

But it’s bigger than that, as it supplies considerable insight into the older deeper cultural Japanese mindset. And, beyond that, it clearly has implications on how we in the West have somehow inherited (or lost) valuable functional models; in this case related to testing, standardising and the trials associated with such endeavours.

Some facts from the documentary.

I’m not going to spoil it for you but these basic facts and statistics may whet your appetite and encourage you to watch the whole thing – you won’t be disappointed.

·       The 8^th Dan test has an incredible 1% pass rate.

·       At the time of the making of the documentary there were two million practitioners of kendo.

·       Of that huge number less than 400 have passed the test (That’s one in five thousand!)

·       This complex test can last up to twelve hours and includes tests on form, sparring, and written elements.

·       The youngest you can take it is 46 years old, but you have to have held your 7^th Dan for eight years before you are eligible.

·       90% of the candidates fail the first test (the contest bit – see below). So it’s all over for them before it’s really even started.

·       Eligible candidates who fail, stoically, come back year after year, and are never put off by the continual knock-back, a sign of their dedication and devotion to their art and an example to every kendo practitioner (and every martial artist), as well as being an indicator of their trust in the system.

There is a neat description in the commentary which describes the grading as ‘passing through the narrowest gate’, very poetic in a typical Japanese way.

The first test – the fighting.

Remember, this is two 7^th Dan practitioners (so assumably of equal skill) facing each other off, shinai on shinai. The bout is within the standard rules of kendo, but, there is no real scoring of points. They fight for two rounds to display their superior skills within a timeframe of 120 seconds, that, in itself, is a big ask.

There is a panel of the most senior kendo masters who have to decide, not on who wins or loses, but on the technical competence on display. Apparently ‘unplanned attacks’ don’t count. The narrator of the documentary says that they are looking for the ‘spiritually perfect strike’; what does that even mean? To wrestle with that point is to get straight to the heart of the pinnacle of supreme skill that can be achieved through kendo, or any martial art.

Remember, 90% are eliminated in these very short encounters, the tension must be excruciating.

I was talking with a kendo practitioner about the 8^th Dan test. He said that within kendo circles there is an urban myth about two candidates who faced off against each other and never moved; thus, neither of them provoked or supplied an opening. When time was up the judges decided that each of them displayed perfect spirit and perfect focus, and as such, they both passed. How true this is I have no idea; maybe it is just a bit of a folk legend.

I also took the opportunity to ask him to clarify what was meant by the ‘unplanned attacks’. These are where one side almost falls into the other side’s mistake and just happens to touch with what appears to be a scoring technique. He said that at this level an error of this kind shouldn’t be a feature of what happens between combatants.

Looked at through the karate lens.

From what I understand of kendo there is only one format for fighting, with little variation, whereas in karate there are multiple forms where competitive exchanges can happen. Like kendo, these forms took years to evolve and in karate, with it being the new kid on the block, they are still being refined; whether what the dominant forms seem to be morphing into is a positive thing for karate I am not sure, but that’s not the discussion here.

Despite what people think, the kendo competitive format is not the same as fighting with swords. The implements (the shinai) do not have the weight and characteristic of a real sword and even with the armour the targets are prescribed and limited. But still, within the 8^th Dan exam format there is enough of the essence of strategic skill and timing and spirited engagement to create scope to foster the higher qualities of the older generation swordsmen.

Karate is a different fish, as karateka cannot reach back into the past for a model to hold up as a pure and iconic example. Nobody can say that they witnessed a 19^th century (or earlier) dust up between two Okinawan karate masters and say, ‘that’s how it’s done’. But for that matter, neither do the kendo people; but they do have a more solid continued tradition, within kenjutsu and associated Japanese Budo systems. It is possible that in kendo the spirit is still there; the flame has not been allowed to be extinguished. Karate has just gone through too many evolutionary changes, and don’t forget, the early karate pioneers were reluctant to even consider a free-sparring format, let alone competitions with rules, despite what everyone around them was doing (Aikido resisted it totally – with the one small exception of Tomiki Aikido). With kendo, they crossed that bridge very early on, as the development of bokken and shinai, padding and armour created the opportunity for something that was workable.

But with karate, when the horse finally bolted from the stable all manner of creative approaches to punching and kicking each other were developed; full contact, semi-contact, leathering into each other with padded gear, the list goes on. Where it goes next I have no idea.

A similar Wado karate initiative?

But here’s a thing.

I don’t think that it’s any secret that the third grandmaster of Wado karate, Otsuka Hironori III Sensei has ideas of his own, that could be argued to be akin to the kendo 8^th Dan process. He actually introduced a trio of new categories for the Japanese championships one of which seemed to echo the very qualities found in the first section of the kendo 8^th Dan test. But this was for championship, not grading.

The fighting category, equivalent of the kendo format, was a one-minute bout instead of kendo’s two minutes. The contestants must be experienced Wado practitioners, over 40 years of age and Nidan or above. Like the kendo event, no ‘scoring’ as such, more a demonstration of advanced core principles found in the Wado system. The result was decided by a panel of judges experienced enough to be able to identify the desired qualities.

However, these ‘desired qualities’ and not explicitly ‘scoring’ techniques in free exchange, do appear in some Wado group’s grading expectations for higher grades. Although, I suspect it is not ubiquitous, and some groups just stick with the Shiai (contest) model.

I don’t think the third grandmaster ‘borrowed’ it from the kendo format, and I am aware of other methods of examining and testing found in some Japanese systems that in a similar vein, and, to a greater or lesser degree, echo the kendo model.

Conclusion.

I don’t think I needed to issue ‘spoiler alerts’ for this documentary, because there is so much more in it, as it follows the story of kendoka who are courageously throwing themselves into the lion’s den and the back-story behind these individuals.

For anyone interested in martial arts, this documentary is for you.

Image credit: Photo from "The Foundations of Japan: Notes Made During Journeys Of 6,000 Miles In The Rural Districts As A Basis For A Sounder Knowledge Of The Japanese People", by J.W. Robertson Scott, published 1922.