What do the different color belts mean in martial arts? Nowadays there are a lot of belts to keep the kids interested. And they have added belts because people associated testing fees with them. Yes, you...
Yes, you know nowadays there are a lot of belts to keep the kids interested. And they have added belts because people associated testing fees with them.
So, they want as many belts as they can have. But the old meaning of belts was that it used to just be white belt and black belt. Then they had white and brown and then black. And the idea was that your white belt you came in as a virgin, you're pure and you're innocent and that's why you wore white. And as you're trained more the sweat and the dirt and the grime build up on your belt made it get darker, darker, darker and darker and more soiled. And the darker belt person in the class was more senior to those new persons with white. Then the belt starts to fray and then it actually starts to get light again. Black belt actually starts to turn white because the edges start to tear and it becomes worn and tattered and when it does that it starts to lighten and that's what they consider full circle.
And another explanation is, white belt is innocence and pure. Yellow is the second belt in many systems and it represents the color of the seed.
Orange is the next belt and it represents the color of the earth and that the seed is planted in the earth.
The next belt is green; the seed starts to grow into a tree or flower, which could be green.
It then grows towards the blue sky, so blue would be the next belt.
: And then many times they will have brown after that, and either red and black, or black and then red depending on the system. But the idea is that the belt progressively gets darker from white to black.
And as you go through the colors in the belt system, that red belt before black means the person has not become polished in enough as a black belt. They have excellent control, but they have not developed enough power.
It is like handing the kid a gun and the red actually signifies danger of that student.
That is in Korean systems. In the Japanese and the Okinawan systems you go to black belt. There is only one person in the system that has a red belt and that is the senior person which would be a 9th or 10th degree black belt. Then there is one person in the whole system that has the red belt that is the head of the whole system. Kung fu has different colored sashes. And there are even schools where you wear different colored T-shirts at different levels.
A lot of schools are trying to make it different, headband different colors headband you know just to be different.
