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.

2024 Report – Chairman Edward Scharrer Shihan, 9^th Dan

Firstly, I’d like to congratulate all the inductees for AMAHOF 2024 in Adelaide. Your dedication and hard work in your respective disciplines have been acknowledged by your peers and I hope you enjoy the evening we share with you all 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 either grading or acknowledging credentials of applicants from non-aligned martial arts so that they may operate within the industry with proper accepted accreditations. However, for a myriad of reasons these individuals have lost or are no longer in a position to be graded by any formal Martial Arts Organisation.

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 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 Sokeship Council 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.

Now in its 27^th year of operation the Sokeship Council has adjudicated about 30 gradings as well as acknowledging many grades from head instructors that we have previously graded. The Sokeship Council has seen AMAHOF Legends, Barry Bradshaw 10^th Dan, John Whipp AM CSM 7^th Dan and Ramon Lawrence OAM 8^th Dan occupy the position of Chairman. I and my Vice Chair Master Steve Weston are privileged to be standing on the shoulders of such giants to continue the valuable service that the ACS provides to the Martial Arts Community here in Australia.