Recognising grades

Once you first go beyond a white belt (Mu Kyu) you receive 9th Kyu and a green or red belt. After that you receive a silver star for each grade until your 4th Kyu. At 4th Kyu you replace your silver stars for a single gold star and carry on till shodan. At shodan you remove all the stars and wear a blackbelt. You then add stars in the same fashion till 10th dan (Judan).

11th dan and above denotes the levels of Menkyo Kaiden that the student has achieved. They are still actually 10th dan but these extra grades serve to indicate their current progress in this most advanced level of study.

You also replace your Bujinkan patch depending upon your level.

This all sounds horribly complex but recognising grades is actually very easy. The table below summarises what to look out for.

Grade	Stars	Patch
9th Kyu	None
8th Kyu
7th Kyu
6th Kyu
5th Kyu
4th Kyu
3rd Kyu
2nd Kyu
1st Kyu
1st dan	None
2nd dan
3rd dan
4th dan
5th dan	None
6th dan
7th dan
8th dan
9th dan
10th dan	None
11th dan
12th dan
13th dan
14th dan
15th dan