Rank Greed in Aikido
Why repeated promotion junkets to Tokyo cost us all
How many Aikido Summer Camp scholarships can you fund with $20,000?
Even with the traditionally extortionate cost of the United States Aikido Federation’s summer camp, you could still help out a few dozen students.
Instead of pitching in for a scholarship fund, however, a group of USAF senior teachers decided to spend at least $20,000 this January on a junket to Tokyo with family and friends to pick up their 7th and 8th dan promotions.
Selfies on the mat at Hombu! Fancy sushi dinners! Fun at the sumo match! Another photo with a grim-faced Doshu!
A few weeks later, the USAF announced the cost of its 2025 Aikido Summer Camp: A minimum of $2,183.04 per person with tax for a full week of camp with meals and on-site lodging [2] . That doesn’t include hotel surcharges ‒ or a single cent of travel cost.
There was no mention of scholarships on the Summer Camp registration page as of February 3.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Of course some if not all of the cost of the recent USAF Japan junket was likely covered by the teachers themselves, their students and wealthy benefactors. With 7th dan promotions costing USAF members $2,000 and 8th dan likely even more expensive, those benefactors must feel pretty tapped out.
But if you look at the USAF’s most recent 990 tax forms, the non-profit organization spent $14,334 in calendar 2023 on “travel.” Since dojos hosting USAF teachers for seminars must cover that travel from their own budgets, that $14,334 likely went toward trips to Japan by senior USAF leadership. To be fair, some of that money may also have gone toward travel related to the International Aikido Federation, an organization that does nothing in the U.S. at present except justify yet more Japan junkets for third-tier USAF teachers..
Also on that tax form is a 2023 line-item expense of $45,302 entitled “certification fees/belt tests,” with that money going to Hombu. But never fear, the USAF reported $129,012 in revenue from its members for “certification and ranks,” which means it made a profit of $83,710 from its members on ranks and tests alone in 2023, according to its tax forms.
No wonder the senior leadership wants to celebrate in Tokyo.
This “nonprofit” Aikido organization also employs a full-time administrator who was paid $63,069 in 2023, despite the fact that the USAF didn’t even mount a summer camp in the U.S. in 2024. Another $49,987 went to “consultants.” A sake sommelier and/or sushi expert? The 990 doesn’t specify.
Regardless of who is paying for these promotion junkets, this “nonprofit,” seems to serve mainly as a way to funnel the hard-earned dues and fees imposed on junior students to its highest ranking teachers and administrators.
Selling out Aikido’s future
So why do I care? “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” as the saying goes -- I’m grateful to be part of an organization, Shin Kaze Aikido Alliance, that is much more transparent and uses its resources to help Aikidoka in the developing world.
Shin Kaze charges $170 for a shodan promotion by testing in North America, compared to $250 charged for the same rank by the USAF, according to its most recent fee schedule. The Capital Aikido Federation, another independent Hombu-linked group, charges $200 for the same shodan.
If you’re curious about the “wholesale cost,” a shodan rank by examination currently costs $148.56 at the Feb. 3 conversion rate of 154.86 yen to 1 U.S. dollar at Yokohama Aikido Dojo in Japan, a total that includes the Aikikai Foundation membership fee, the Aikikai Foundation support fee, a dan grade fee and the International yudansha book fee. Add to that administrative time and the Japan-U.S. shipping cost and your shodan rank shouldn’t cost much more than $200 in the U.S.
But even senior black belts must submit to USAF price-gouging: Lower-status 7th dans who aren’t subsidized by the leadership are also profit centers for the group. The USAF charges $2,000 for the rank compared to the $1,260 charged by Shin Kaze, a markup of nearly 60%.
Gotta pay for those sushi dinners!
Despite the multitude of attractive alternatives to the USAF, its status as nominally the largest U.S. group of Aikido dojos makes its self-dealing use of resources impact us all.
What if those tens of thousands spent in Japan went to promoting Aikido on social media or training new teachers? We would all benefit, including Hombu Dojo in the long run.
Padding your bio at your juniors’ expense
And who really benefits from these ever-more-stratospheric dan rankings in a time of Aikido’s widespread decline? Beyond 3rd or 4th dan, there are no tests in most Aikido organizations, so it’s certainly not a measure of pure skill.
Any rank beyond “black belt” matters little to 99.9 percent of Aikido beginners and 100 percent of the non-martial arts universe. (A veteran Aikido teacher across town from me who was unaffiliated with any organization used to award himself his own ranks, and died as a 10th dan. Respect!)
There was a time that 8th dan was reserved for only the most senior Hombu-trained teachers, many of them pioneers who left their homeland and endured incredible hardship to spread Aikido abroad. Read all about it in my book about Kazuo Chiba and his generation of Hombu-trained teachers.[2]
Outside of Japan, among the first 8th dans named was Christian Tissier, who has introduced Aikido to hundreds of thousands of people and truly revolutionized how the art is taught and practiced in Europe. Another pioneer of outstanding accomplishment.
However, the 8th dan rank as it is awarded in the U.S. in recent years seems mainly a reward for sycophantic devotion to Yoshimitsu Yamada, the late founder leader of the USAF.
Yamada was a pioneer, but he will get an unfortunate asterisk by his name in Aikido history for driving out a group of senior students in 2019 for questioning his treatment of women. His legacy will be forever tainted, along with that of his senior teachers and the current USAF leadership.
Even so, it’s not hard to understand the “modernization” of standards from Hombu Dojo’s perspective ‒ they’ve got bills to pay. With the weak yen, a few 7th or 8th dans paid for in U.S. dollars could cover quite a few bills. (Hey USAF members, has your organization lowered your promotion fees to reflect the nearly 60% drop in the value of the yen since 2020?)
Although subsidizing Hombu dojo has its purpose, it is hard to understand why senior U.S. Aikidoka from multiple organizations continue to spend small fortunes on ever-higher ranks and multiple jaunts to Tokyo when a good proportion of their students struggle to pay for dues and seminars, let alone a $2,183.04 summer camp or a Japan trip. What is especially sad is that most of the USAF teachers who shared their Japan junket photos in 2025 also visited Tokyo for their 6th and 7th dans. How many trips is enough?
How can these teachers justify it to themselves as they take yet another certificate from Doshu and splash out on yet another sushi spread in Shinjuku? They are selling out the future of Aikido for their own self-gratification.
Just say no to GigaDan
A modest proposal: Instead of asking your family, students, colleagues and benefactors to pay for your latest calligraphy wall-hanging and selfies at Hombu Dojo, use those resources to bring up your juniors and attract the next generation to Aikido.
Use those tens of thousands to subsidize new dojos and help out promising younger teachers, instead of forcing your new instructors to beg for mat money online via crowdfunding. With rent, insurance and utility costs in the U.S. skyrocketing, these junior teachers and struggling dojos need your help.
Rank-and-file USAF members should question why they pay among the highest surcharges in the Aikido world for their own promotions while senior teachers jet off to Tokyo on the regular to add more and more meaningless padding to their website bios.
Organizations outside of the “crony capitalist” USAF should think hard about whether they want to keep pouring time, energy and money into glorifying the senior ranks as the junior ranks dwindle and the middle ranks become demoralized by the lack of resources expended on growing the art.
How about a moratorium on ranks above a certain level until beginners outnumber geriatric 6th dans on the mat at your camps?
In the meantime, stay tuned for sushi dinner photos from the 9th dan junket!
Author’s note: The essay above represents my views alone and does not represent the opinions of Shin Kaze Aikido Alliance.
Footnotes:
Total cost of full 2025 USAF Summer Camp as calculated from New York Aikikai Website on Feb. 2: Full week Aikido + meals (Sat-Thurs) $890; Friday night hotel, $251.04; Saturday night hotel, $331.28; Sunday through Wednesday night hotel at $177.68 per night x 4 nights, $710.72. Total: $2,183.04.
All proceeds from book sales linked to this essay will go to Aiki Access for scholarships to 2025 Aikido Women’s Camp in Joshua Tree.