Judo federations have promoted another eleven who are not recognized (at that level of rank) by the Kodokan. On July 28, 2011, the promotion board of USA Judo awarded Keiko Fukuda the rank of 10th "dan", who was the first woman to be promoted to judo's highest level, albeit not a Kodokan-recognized rank. Although "dan" ranks tend to be consistent between national organizations there is more variation in the "kyū" grades, with some countries having more "kyū" grades. Although initially "kyū" grade belt colours were uniformly white, today a variety of colours are used. The first black belts to denote a
Judo in Canada be promoted after five years in the previous grade, but a 'good' candidate would have to wait eight. There have only been seventeen "judan" (tenth dan) judoka in history, fifteen promoted by the Kodokan and two by the International Judo Federation. None of them are Canadian, but Canada does have a group of more than 100 "kōdansha" (high dan holders), all of whom have devoted much of their lives to Canadian Judo. The late Yoshio Senda became Canada's first "kudan" (ninth dan) in 2007, and since then three more Canadians have been promoted to "kudan" by Judo Canada: Yeiji Inouye