Blade Edge

Transposed from Gaiiden’s Scroll

Soooo I got my orange belt presented to me today, I had tested on Sunday. I’ve been a yellow belt for the past (dare I say it) 5 years, due to the fact that I’ve missed tests due to scheduling conflicts, taken hiatuses from the dojo months at a time, and just not being consistent in my training. However the past few months I’ve gotten back into the regimen, and finally made it to a testing last Sunday. Now I can finally retire my yellow belt.

In our system orange belt is the third belt, or 6th Kyu. You start at white, then move up to 7th Kyu yellow. 5th kyu is green, 4th kyu is purple, 3rd kyu is brown, 2nd kyu is brown with a white stripe, 1st kyu is brown with a black stripe, and then comes shodan, which is a 1st dan black belt, which also entitles you to be called “mister” or “missus”. Nidan is a 2nd dan black belt (denoted by two red tips on the end of the belt), which gives you the honorific of Sempai. Sandan is a 3rd dan black belt (three red tips) and carries the honorific of Sensei. I forget the “dan” names after that but for 4th and 5th dan call people of that rank Master. 6th dan is Renshi, 7th dan is Kyoshi, 8th and 9th dan is Hanshi and 10th dan is Shihan (Grand Master).

My style, Beikoku Karate-Do Goyukai (BKG), was founded by my uncle’s father, Grand Master Issac Henry, Jr. and George Chalian at Governer’s Island (NY) in 1959. As founder, Issac Henry is also entitled “Soke”. The style is derived from WADO (Way of Peace and Harmony – developed by Grand Master Gichin Funakoshi) blended with Japanese jui jitsu with great emphasis on combat. This system was passed down through Funakoshi’s pupil Grand Master Hironori Otsuka, his pupil Grand Master Michio Nozumi to his pupil Grand Master Issac Henry.

So there’s something for my fellow martial arts buffs out there. Who else trains? I know you’re out there – seen you in martial arts threads in the forums

I’m going to test for green as soon as the next testing rolls around and then take my time getting to purple.