New belts at Dan gradings???

[jarrettmeyer]

That being said, I cut off the Shureido emblem on my belt and the manufacturer's patch on my gi...that was too much commercialism for me.

 

I was the only one at my dojo to have done this, and everyone asked me why I did it. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one to have done it.

[Shorinryu Sensei]

One question for those who might know.. he does have a piece of red tape on one end of his belt.. does this have any signifigance?

 

If it's that old, maybe to keep it from coming apart?

[vertigo]

If it's that old, maybe to keep it from coming apart?

 

wouldn't surprise me much

[gojoinstructor]

We use the same belt . We do have a stripe system. Something my instructor has done since he opened the school. One stripe for each level of BB. Shodan - 1 ; nidan - 2 ,etc...

[Chito]

No stripes or new belts in Chito Ryu for yudansha ranks. Course, you kinda get an idea who has had their black belt for awhile... they usually turn grey and white with worn edges. And in our style, when they reach the level of Renshi, they wear the red and white belt.

[Karate-addict]

After my shodan grading I got my black belt after 6 months by my sensei, it came from Okinawa with my name in katakana on one side and the name of the style on the other, this is the last belt I will ever wear.

[Grenadier]

In all styles that I have studied, we kept the same black belt. In some (Shotokan, Tae Kwon Do), Sensei / Sabumnim would simply add stripes for each Dan rank achieved, using inexpensive medical tape.

 

In my more recent schools, the same belt is kept, and no further markings are made. While it's true that you can't distinguish a Shodan from a Judan just by looking at the belt, at least you can still get an idea of how advanced they are by watching their techniques.

 

The only cases where a new belt is awarded is if someone achieves a Renshi / Kyoshi / Hanshi ranking, in which cases, the white and red belts are awarded, but usually only used during formal events. Almost all of the instructors that achieved such rankings still wore their normal black belts while teaching classes, etc.

 

In some styles, the Renshis would wear a belt that had a horizontal white stripe below (or on top of, depending on how it was worn) a red horizontal stripe. Kyoshis would wear a belt that had alternating vertical red and white stripes, while the Hanshis would use a solid red belt.

[smr]

One of my instructors has had her dan belt for approximately thirteen years. It is still as black as the day she bought it.

[aefibird]

We keep the same black belt for each dan grading - my instructor has had his current belt for about 10 years. The one before fell apart completely (he'd had it about 18 years) so he decided it was time to get another. We don't use stripes to differentiate between dan ranks and all dan grades wear a black belt.

[CloudDragon]

As the belts have embroidery showing the current Dan, our black belts get a new one every promotion.

 

To quote my instructor, quoting our grandmaster:"In Korea if you had an old worn out black belt it meant you were poor!"