"what makes a sifu certified?"

I am a martial artist, my skill and school are irrelevant to this specific dicussion, but after parsing through the many forums I have noticed the frequent occurance of the question " is this person a legitimate sifu", and how one really knows... I've thought to myself...In all the knowledge of our si-gungs and there si-gungs. I'm sure that the issue of proving; one your skill, and two your legitimacy in a school was not a foreign concept to them. I know for a fact (personal experience and otherwise) that the majority of "arts" out there have some form of "certification" which is generally strict and one is only allowed to take it at the descretion of his or hers, instructor.
SO I pose this question if you do not have proof of some type (besides a picture with your "sifu") that you a a certified "instructor" how does one know wheather or not their sifu is an legitamate instructor of the art form or nothing more than a fake? (PROVE IT ...if you can)

To me, besides the photo - which isn't always
proof per say; the main thing is to have some
sort of written document which has been signed by your sifu acknowledging that you have been certified or authorized to either:

A) Grant you status to be a Sifu or

B) Authorize you teach the specific MA that
you have been studying under him/her.

In some cases, the Sifu will keep a documented
list (in one case publicly acknowledged) of who
is currently authorized (re: certified).

Anyway, just my 2 cents worth.

It takes 2 medical doctors to certify a sifu. The doctors must be psychiatrists and the sifu must be a human being (so that exempts the dog sifu from South Shaolin claimed by the Shaolin-Do).
In my humble opinion, anyone who looks for or believes the credentials of anyone in this forum needs to be certified.

Traditionally it has been your Sifu's blessing. To get rid of human error and favoritism, a comittee of Sifu's certifies the upcoming candates in the ACMAF. Other people use writen certification from their Sifu. Besides that the only thing that makes a sifu is buckets upon buckets of sweat. In the Summers I would weigh myself before practice, work out and drink two or more gallons durring my work out and weigh myself after only to weigh the same amount. I did this every other day in the summer (throwing grade long forms) so it's safe to say that I've sweated buckets.

8Step Sif

[This message was edited by 8stepsifu on 11-14-00 at 10:43 PM.]

I think most schools now have a systematic approach to doing it after you reach a certian level, demonstrate a certain level of skill or have been involved in it for a certain amount of time or all of the above.

For example ..........when I and my kung fu brothers were certified (I hate that term), It was a three day test, 1. The 1st day was all the fists sets that we ever learned right after the other, applications, a very long horse stance and oral exam about the the style and history etc 2. The second day was all the weapon sets and 3. The third day was all about sparring with any intermediate or advanced student that showed up for class that day, round robin, two minute each, senior students for last, on the average it was 10-15 students and you had to touch with our main instructor, plus Tai Chi Chuan and Tai Chi Chuan weapon sets.

This was just a test of knowing the material we still had to continue training and learn additional material. As well as demionstrate and be critiqued on teaching classes.

This was only the beginning, the hard part is breaking all the material down and actually trying to learn something. After dozens and dozens of sets, drills, exercises and etc., i am sad to say i am just nowunderstanding all i need is the basics. I guess it takes going through the other to figure that out.

" Moss Never Grows on a Rolling Stone"