I am a 10th Dan? Soke??

There are thousands of martial arts associations, organizations, federations, etc. worldwide.  Many of them are legitimate, good groups, but there are just as many fakes, frauds, phonies and charlatans out there.  I was once told, half in jest (but there are those who live by this idea), anyone can open a dojo.  If you have two or more dojos, you have an Organization.  If you can get any other school to link up with you, you have an Association.  If the school is in any other state, you have a National Association.  If you can get some school just over the border in Canada or Mexico to join with you, you now have an International Federation.  Here is a true story of how easy it is to set up a martial arts organization:

A martial artist whose name is omitted to protect the innocent (or is it the guilty?) befriended me in the late 1980s.  He headed one of those United … International … some sort of Association who accepted members from all styles worldwide.  He liked the way I taught, judged at tournaments, my students’ and my skills and techniques, and my attitude to the martial arts.  I’d often be asked to sit on his examination board for his students’ tests.  In the early 1990s, he presented me with a lifetime membership to his Association, gave me a rank certificate, an instructor’s certificate, a dojo license, and made me NY State Director of his association.  I should be honored because all this certification (which I had no use for) would normally cost an applicant thousands of dollars.  Notice I never joined his group; he joined me to his group.

He knew how I felt about rogues and self-taught martial artists.  These individuals came to his Association for ‘accreditation’ or rank promotion.  He assured me that he did thorough background checks on all applicants’ training and rank certificates.  He showed me samples of paperwork submitted - hand-drawn certificates, crayon, typewriter, and computer-generated (in those days computer graphics and print was dot matrix and heavily pixilated).  Keep in mind that this was before YouTube and convenient video files.  He would often grant rank based on paperwork submitted and never actually see the applicant in action.  I told him I’d bring in some paperwork the next time we met.

On my next visit, I said to him, “You know I hold a black belt in Shotokan.”  He said yes.  “And you know I hold a black belt in Tae Kwon Do.”  He said yes.  “Did you ever hear of the style Shotokan-Tae Kwon Do?”  He said there is no such style.  I said, “There is now.  I just created it.  I decided it goes up to 10^th Degree, and since I’m the founder, I guess that makes me…”  He grumbled, “10^th Degree.”  I reminded him of my black belt students whom he admired many times in the past and asked if he recognized their worthiness of their black belt ranks.  He said, “Of course.”  Well, recognizing their 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd Dan ranks added credibility to my 10^th Dan-ness as the one who trained them.  I then handed him two papers, beautiful ‘cut and paste’ certificates with ornate phoenix borders.  One was a ‘formal’ charter establishing the style ‘Shotokan-Tae Kwon Do’ with me as the Soke (founder/headmaster), and the other was my 10^th Dan ‘diploma’.  He noted that both certificates were signed by three people, adding authenticity to the documents.  I showed him that one signature was mine.  I used to be a traveling salesman and southerners didn’t like Jewish-sounding names but loved initial-type names, so on my swing thru Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, etc. I took my name (Steven Wayne Gottwirt) and called myself G.W. Stevens. For the third signature, I wanted an Asian name; it was signed by ‘Yeh Mi Tu’.  So the three signatures were me, me again, and yeah, me too.  He was annoyed, because this phony paperwork would have probably passed his ‘screening’ process, and finally said he couldn't accept my rank.  I said that's OK, everyone in 'my association' knows and accepts my rank, in fact, my association wouldn't recognize his rank.  Stalemate?

Be careful with organizations.  The school might be a ‘McDojo’, but make sure the head representative is not a clown.