Basic Facts Concerning Black Belt Rankings In The Various Martial Arts

Black Belt rankings were originated by Master of Judo Jigoro Kano. Master Kano is supposed to have created his system based on rankings used by swimming clubs. Karate clubs throughout the Land of the Rising Sun borrowed his ranking system.

The original karate system is rumored to have had two belts, white belt and black belt. As classes grew larger two more belts were used, green belt and brown belt. Eventually Chinese American Kenpo was developed by Ed Parker, and the number of colored belts expanded greatly.

Belts of color were setup in the following ranking: white, orange, purple, blue, green, three stages of brown, different stages of black. As the belt ranking systems expanded, legends having to do with the significance of the colors grew. Each martial arts school seemed to have a different reason for the belt colors.

White and black, when they were first utilized, didn’t have much significance, as there were so few students and the promotions were pretty easily understood. White meant beginner, and black belt meant the student was pretty much recognized as an assistant instructor. As the belt systems grew ever larger this notion was augmented by instructor rankings.

White, green, brown and black were alleged to have to do with the spring, summer, fall and winter of the martial arts life of a student. This also aligned with the notion of beginner, intermediate, advanced and expert ranking. This concept, while worthwhile, fell by the wayside when more colors were added.

The full spectrum of colors used by Chinese Kenpo Systems had to do with a full range of knowledge. Correctly or incorrectly, a Kenpo student was assumed, when he was raised to black belt, to know everything in the spectrum. This notion began to recede when red belts were first used.

At first, red belts were used to honor high ranking masters, these were sometimes politically motivated belts, though there were some legitimate rankings. Then, because people tend to promote themselves to the highest rank possible, the red belt replaced the black belt in many peoples estimation, and the spectral system broke apart. This was aided by the fact that some systems, especially taekwondo systems, began replacing the brown belt with the red belt.

In modern times, while colored belts are said to be of great use in motivating students, the fact of the matter is that there has been some abuse. Many commercial martial arts schools have elongated training time to align with the increased rankings to keep people at their schools, and this has extended the length of time it takes to learn the martial arts. It is hoped that understanding the real information of Black Belt rankings, as described in this bit of writing, will help potential students when they analyze possible arts to learn.

Click on over to Monster Martial Arts for the true data about belt ranking systems and how long it truely takes to learn the martial arts. x-4