An Examination Of Belts

In martial arts the color of your belt is determined by your rank in the style of martial arts that you are practicing. The colors are not universal within the world of martial arts. They are merely a way for others to know how much you have progressed through your chosen style.

Belts and colors have been used in martial arts for centuries. It started with Jigoro Kano who is responsible for Kodokan Judo. The original belt colors that were used by Jigoro Kano were white and black. They were used to show the rank within that particular style of martial art. The colored belts helped differentiate between the students that he was teaching. When the students were competing the color of the belt would determine which activities the student could participate in.

It wasn’t long before other colors started to be used in other forms of martial arts. This use of belts evolved into a way of showing how advanced a student was in his chosen style of martial arts. All you would have to do is look at the color of the student’s belt to know what level or skill that student had achieved. The other styles of martial arts soon began to use this method of differentiating students over the years. Karate, Taekwondo and other styles of martial arts have all used the belt color system to determine skill level.

The problem with the use of belts is that there is no universal requirement among the different schools for receiving a belt color. One student who receives the same color belt as another student from a different school may have had to pass very different requirements to get the color. This means that the skill level cannot be determined among students from different schools. Most schools do try to stick to the same requirements as most, but there are schools that are very different.

Even though most martial arts do use belts as a way to signify ranking, there are some styles of martial arts that do not. Shootfighting is one of them. The martial arts that do not use ranking through belts are mainly self-defense styles of martial arts. Pitfighting is another form of martial art that does not use belt color to show rank. These particular styles of martial art are mainly used for protecting yourself and they are different from other martial arts in that sense.

The use of belt color to signify rank is unique to martial arts. They are a great way to motivate students to achieve. Students that are studying martial arts are most likely going for the black belt, which is the top of the line. It can take some students many years to get to the level of black belt.

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