How does the aikido grading system works?

how many belt are there? and whats a kyu?|||This webpage is from the world Aikido HQ site.





http://www.aikikai.or.jp/eng/gradingsyst...





What%26#039;s described in the %26quot;contents%26quot; section is the moves you have to demonstrate during your tests, which are available to be taken 2 or 3 times a year. They%26#039;re demonstrations - not competitions like judo.





If you do your maths you can see it takes a minimum of 300 lessons to get 1st dan (black belt) (maybe twice a week for 3 years)... These are minimums..





There are only 2 belts: black and white. When you get black belt you can wear a hakama (black, baggy, traditional Japanese trousers).|||You can down load the test requirements for the US Aikido federation here: http://www.2rivers.org/usaftest.pdf





You can see that the number of hours to make shodan greatly exceeds those of the Hombu.





A kyu is a rank before Shodan, with first kyu being the highest. No colored belts are awarded, because O-Sensei felt that the colored belt grading system lent a system of hierarchy that made it difficult for the higher ranked students to accept that might be able to learn something when training with a lower ranked student. When you reach Shodan, you begin to wear the black hakama, which shows that you are practicing Aikido, not just preparing to practice Aikido. Different schools have different rules about Hakama. Some allow 1st kyu to wear it, others allow anyone to wear it, some allow female sankyus to wear it.





Promotion is by examination by an accredited instructor. I don%26#039;t know about other schools, but if you are allowed to test in our dojo, you have already passed. The test is more a formality, a rite of passage.|||This vary from school to school. Some schools only have white and black belt. That is very traditional. At one time other martial arts were like that too. I believe it was Dr. Jigoro Kano the creator of Judo came up with color belt rank system. You have some school that use the color belts, how many belts again varies depending on the school or organization.





A kyu is any rank below black belt. A Dan is any rank for a black belt.|||Most systems have just white belts and black belts. A very few have White, Yellow, Green, Blue, Brown (w/some kyu) and then black (varying dan). The one I encountered cross trained with Karate, is why.