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The Martial Arts Belt

Did you know that many years ago martial arts was taught in secrecy? Martial arts schools as we know them today did not exist. Students trained solely for self-defense and meditation. Unknown at that time were the multitude of benefits of martial arts training that would appeal to millions of people of all ages in the future.

Some students wore a special white uniform that allowed easy freedom of movement for the practitioner. A white belt tied around the waist completed the ensemble. These first martial artists trained hard, sometimes hours a day, learning to fight and to defend using their hands and feet as weapons. After months and years of practicing, the student’s belt, which was never washed, became soiled and noticeably darker in color. This became a visual sign of the amount of training and experience the student had and why the black belt symbolized an expert in the arts.

Most modern day martial arts schools use some form of progressive ranking system to indicate the student’s level of experience. Beginner students typically wear a white belt (or sash) and expert students wear a black belt. However, since students train indoors in a facility, belts are not exposed to elements that would automatically darken the belt with training experience. Therefore to appropriately distinguish students based on skill level, many martial arts organizations adopted a color belt system between white and black. Imitating the soiled progression of light to dark, beginner colors are usually light such as yellow and orange; intermediate colors, blue and green; advanced colors, purple and brown.

The order of colors are by no means a standard. In some styles for example, the red belt, not black, is the highest rank in the system while in others, red may precede black. Although ranking systems may differ from school to school, the function of the system remains consistent: Each belt rank represents the culmination of knowledge the student has learned and also clearly defines the information that is to be learned to achieve future ranks.