Hi Andre thanks for the reply, your obviously very knowledgable on the subject and the guy you are referring to was obviuosly the original master. However I'm still not sure as to how you become a 'master' and you are correct when you say the the term is used too easily nowadays. If we are looking at the term masters then why isn't it applied to other combat sports for example (boxing). My Coach SCRAP has been involved in boxing for about 40 years he has trained world, ewuropean and British champions so surely this would qualify him as a master. Thats what I mean about the term it is very un-clear it is used far too much by numerous martial artists try and gain recognition and therfore extra income. I teach karate myself and some of my low grade students are afraid of fighting black belts I always ask them why and they usually cant answer me I make it very clear to them that its not the grade you are but how good you are the colour of a belt is irrelavant.