The Itsuo Tsuda School is a no-grade school, where one can rediscover the freedom of speaking out, of intervening, of reacting within a group of people with no necessity of recourse to our respective « levels » in order to determine who has the right to speak and who has the right to listen. Our school is nonetheless endowed with some form of hierarchy, an implicit, moving and living hierarchy, which is for us to feel and appreciate – a search that is an integral part of our practice. In his November 2019 blog article, reknown martial artist and searcher Ellis Amdur recounts, across the senpai-k?hai relation in kory?s, a story of this shadow ranking system.We thank Mr Ellis Amdur for his permission to share and translate his article.Avaible on this blog: https://kogenbudo.org/senpai-kohai-the-shadow-ranking-system/Ellis Amdur’s written works can be found on https://edgeworkbooks.com.