The Belt System of Martial Arts
The colored belt grading system is an integral part of almost any popular martial arts training regimen. Some dojos and schools may use a more complicated version incorporating more gradations or colors, but at its heart the belt system is a simple way to visibly track a student’s progress and expertise. Compared to many of the ancient martial arts traditions that have been around for hundreds of years, the belt ranking system was only invented in 1883.
Opinions on the exact origins of the belt system differ. The legend goes that the belt colour scheme came about as a result of a practitioner's belt gradually changing colour naturally as a result of the sweat and grime of his training. For a belt to turn from white to black would take years and years of work, thus black became the colour to symbolise the highest echelons of achievement.
For the most part this a somewhat romanticized version. A dirty belt would not have been likely to show the bright greens, blues, and oranges used today. When looking at the order of colours - white, yellow, green, brown and black - a likelier explanation presents itself. Instead of simply buying a new belt every time a new rank was achieved, the practitioners of the past would dye their belts to the colour of their newly achieved rank. Many modern students simply purchase a new one, since most people do not often perform their own textile production. Busy dojos go through martial arts belts surprisingly fast, and often will hang onto old ones as keepsakes, which can then be displayed in their homes.
Modern dojos now use a much expanded array of dojos. It is now common for students to proceed from white, through yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, brown, red, and then to black. The exact order may differ slightly, and certain schools also denote additional ranks with a stripe or other decoration before the student progresses to the next color. There are many ranks, or Dans, both before and after the black belt, something that is not very well known. Many believe the black belt signifies the end of a practitioner's training; in fact the opposite is true, as he/she must now begin the ten Dans. Higher Dans are usually shown with bars or other insignias added to the basic Black Belt, or with different color combinations.