Sokeship Council

The Sokeship Council is a body of senior technical members of the Australasian Martial Arts Hall of Fame (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 – Melbourne, 2026

Firstly, I’d like to congratulate all the inductees of AMAHOF 2026 in Melbourne. Your dedication and hard work in your respective disciplines have been acknowledged by your peers, and I hope you enjoy the evening as we share with you all in celebrating your achievements.

I’d also like to congratulate and thank the executive committee for the work they have done in organising AMAHOF on its 30^th anniversary year here in Melbourne. Having been Event Director for three previous events, there is certainly much work to be done and many things to organise. Everyone on the committee has their role to play and there is much satisfaction on the Sunday afternoon at the event close that another AMAHOF event has been brought to a successful conclusion.

In 2027, the Australasian Sokeship Council will also celebrate its 30^th year of operation having been established in 1997. The ASC is made up of members of AMAHOF and/or WKUHOF who are normally 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 either grading or acknowledging credentials of Martial Artists who apply to the ASC for Dan or Shojo rank assessments.

The ASC is a service arm of AMAHOF and provides an avenue for non-aligned martial arts to have access to an acceptable grading authority. For a myriad of reasons, these individuals have lost or can no longer be graded by a traditional Martial Arts Organisation. So that they may operate within the industry with proper accepted accreditation, the ASC 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 ASC 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 ASC will not attempt to compete with nor conflict with existing styles or Organisation grading panels. The Council refrains from offering gradings to any person either within an existing organisation or those who have recently departed from their parent school. Indeed, 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.

This year we have had several applications for Ranks and Rank Acknowledgement and I would like to congratulate all the recipients who were successful through the assessment process. I would also like to thank ASC members, in particular GM Anthony Hockley and GM Ramon Lawrence for their assistance in a number of these applications.Edward Scharrer, Shihan
Chairman Sokeship Council
AMAHOF Legend 2022
AMAHOF Member 2000
AMAHOF President 2019-23