Sokeship Council

The Sokeship Council is a body of senior technical members of the Australasian Martial Arts Hall of Fame (AMAHOF) Inc. who are responsible for the investigation, ratification and recommendation of awards towards promotion of members to the Executive, or any other task as directed by the AMAHOF Management Committee.

Chairman: Shihan Edward Scharrer

REPORT FROM THE CHAIRMAN –Canberra, 2025

Firstly, I would like to congratulate all the inductees for AMAHOF 2025 in Canberra. Your dedication and hard work in your respective disciplines have been acknowledged by your peers and I hope you enjoy the evening we share to celebrate your achievements.
The Sokeship Council was established in 1997 and is made up of members of AMAHOF and/or WKUHOF who are normally the headmasters of their own school or association and have acceptable experience and ability to assist in the correct judgement of proficiency levels within their own arts.

They have been selected for their expertise and availability to assist in grading or recognising the credentials of applicants from non-aligned martial arts, enabling them to operate within the industry with appropriate and accepted accreditation. These applicants, for a myriad of reasons, may have lost or no longer hold affiliation with a formal Martial Arts Organisation capable of awarding such grades.

The Sokeship Council provides a means of Quality Assurance to ensure that the applicants emerging from the assessment, grading and ratification process indeed possess the skills and knowledge commensurate with the level they have been awarded.

This assessment process includes examination of the traditional building blocks of any Martial Arts which includes technical excellence, etiquette, content and knowledge of their syllabus and time between ranks. These are compared to other similar systems to ensure that when the Sokeship Council bestows a rank on an individual, they are indeed comparing apples to apples and that both parties can be confident that any grade awarded is both  appropriate, well deserved and can withstand comparison to any National and/or international standard.

However, the Sokeship Council will not compete with nor conflict with existing styles or Organisation grading panels. The Council refrains from offering  radings to any person either within an existing organisation or those who have recently departed from their parent school. A minimum interval of two years must elapse between a person resigning or a membership termination for any reason before the Council will consider any application for grading or acknowledgement.

Now in its 28th year of operation the ASC has adjudicated over many gradings as well as acknowledging many grades from head instructors that we have previously graded. This year for the 2025 Awards the ASC will be presiding over 3 higher dan gradings as well as few grading acknowledgements from its membership. Congratulation to all the recipients of these gradings and acknowledgements.