randompasserby wrote:To expand a bit, Takeuchi's ranked 1-Kyu which is the highest "student" rank (10 is the lowest iirc) before progressing to Dan (expert/teacher).
Sayashi is 6th Dan, dunno if that's ranked among adults or minors and honestly I've no idea what's the difference between those distinctions for Calligraphy but last thing I remembered about it was how she mentioned wanting to get an instructor license one day.
The rank difference is pretty big but I wouldn't read too much into it...
One conclusion I feel safe drawing is perhaps Sayashi is just that much more interested in/dedicated to the art, put more time into it and took more formal exams to advance in rank
To expand on that a bit, whenever a student decides to be ranked as an adult, he usually goes back on or two ranks lower depending on your school or the organization your school belongs to. For example, if randompasserby is a 5th Dan as a child, if he decides to be ranked as an adult, he will be 4th or 3rd dan. It's not a demotion by any means, and is highly dependent on how you will fare on your test.
Bear in mind that this was the practice years ago and may have been changed. Also, certain schools do not practice separate rankings for children and adults and other schools have different regulations still. An older school may have one ranking system and their advancement is based on skill, rather than years.
Given that Riho is already in 6th dan (not exactly rare but pretty uncommon for her age), I am pretty confident she still outranks Takeuchi.
