Different obi colors.

[strangepair03]

Hello all, was wondering how many different color obi's are out there....I assume we all work off of a 10 kyu system, some schools have a few colors while some have many....How many you got and what are the corresponding grades???

 

Our dojo has: White-10-6th kyu

 

Green-6-3rd kyu

 

Brown-3-1kyu

 

Black-1-10 dan (optional red/white-7-8, red at 9-10)

 

Just wondering what else was out there in the world.

 

Thanks

[koryu]

The system that you are using is the traditional system that was originally created. Although several schools change their color of belts between kyu ranks to give students goals to go for. This also helps to distinguish within the kyu ranks. In the United States especially, people have to SEE achievement. It is part of how our society is. There is nothing wrong with either way in my opinion, our school used to use the 3 colored kyu system, and then went to more colors. Here is how my school's system works.

 

White - 10th kyu

 

Gold - 9th kyu

 

Yellow - 8th kyu

 

Orange - 7th kyu

 

Blue - 6th kyu

 

Green - 5th kyu

 

Purple - 4th kyu

 

Brown - 3rd kyu

 

Brown with Black Stripe down the center- 2nd kyu

 

Black with Brown Stirpe down the center - 1st kyu

 

Black - shodan and above

[Shorin Ryuu]

My current teacher only uses 2 color belts. He also does not test his students and merely gives out the belts when he feels they are ready.

 

White

 

brown

 

black

 

Most instructors in our system (Shorinkan Shorin Ryu) use the 10 kyu system with testing.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

Mu-kyu white

 

9. kyu white

 

8. kyu yellow

 

7. kyu orange

 

6. kyu green

 

5. kyu blue

 

4. kyu blue

 

3. kyu brown

 

2. kyu brown

 

1. kyu brown

 

1. dan and above: black

 

Renshi: black with one stripe

 

Kyoshi: black with two stripes

 

Hanshi: black with three stripes

 

 

 

Shorin Ryuu: I like your instructor's idea.

[Shorin Ryuu]

I like his idea too. Although he trains full time, he doesn't teach full-time (we have 3, 2-and-a-half hour sessions a week...which come to think of it, is still a lot of time) and obviously doesn't do it to make a living, so he has more flexibility on this issue.

 

There's nothing wrong with teaching to make a living. But in order to do so, you either have to have a whole lot of students (in the 100s), charge them money often (or larger amounts less often), or some combination thereof. This results in the need for numerous kyu ranks and the like. Not because you are greedy, but simply because you need to make ends meet. Commercialization has evils, but it has good as well. Without it, most people that are taking martial arts now probably wouldn't be doing so.

 

But if martial arts is your sole source of income, then there are slight compromises you have to make (not integrity, but usually either in quality or the expenses your students have to pay).

 

I like the joke one of my instructors used to tell us. "How do you make a small fortune teaching martial arts?" The answer, of course, is "Start out with a large fortune."

 

It's hard to make a living off of martial arts, which is why many instructors have a full-time job as well. Certainly kyu ranks do help with many students who require an external visualization of their achievements. But they also help the instructor pay the bills.

[Jussi Häkkinen]

It's hard to make a living off of martial arts, which is why many instructors have a full-time job as well. Certainly kyu ranks do help with many students who require an external visualization of their achievements. But they also help the instructor pay the bills.

 

Most definitely, if the testing fees are high-ish. I've actually wondered about this a lot - I've got used to rather low (at least I think so) fees. Our general kyu-rank testing fees are 5€ (about $6.5) and dan test fees are 10€ (about $13) - and, for some reason, I didn't have to pay even that - grading was free. With dan-rank we have a certification fee (paid only when test is over and passed), which is set by our international association.

 

Generally, test fees are used to pay the expenses (food, travel, accommodation) of the person who judges the grading. Higher price for dan-grading is probably due to lower amount of people in these gradings. People have to buy their own belts.

 

I wouldn't call that as very bad, when it comes to fees. I've heard of very much higher sums.

"How do you make a small fortune teaching martial arts?" The answer, of course, is "Start out with a large fortune."

 

Amen.

[Shorin Ryuu]

I was fortunate and didn't pay for any of my kyu ranks (not in Shorin Ryu, anyway). My first Shorin Ryu instructor only had a few students and he didn't charge for belts or lessons (he was a teacher who volunteered his time to teach at my university's traditional karate club and did not get paid). Since we were funded by the university, we could get free belts and equipment. I paid for my shodan to get the certificate from Okinawa and whatnot, but other than that, I haven't paid for any of my belts.

[Skeptic 2004]

I was fortunate and didn't pay for any of my kyu ranks (not in Shorin Ryu, anyway). My first Shorin Ryu instructor only had a few students and he didn't charge for belts or lessons (he was a teacher who volunteered his time to teach at my university's traditional karate club and did not get paid). Since we were funded by the university, we could get free belts and equipment. I paid for my shodan to get the certificate from Okinawa and whatnot, but other than that, I haven't paid for any of my belts.

 

Uh..ditto on that.

 

As far as my current instructor (not a part of Shorinkan) goes he actually doesn't give out rank and has not given out rank in over 20 years. Back when he did give out rank he used to give white, brown, black. It was very similar to what Shorin Ryuu's current instructor does; no tests, he gave belts when he thought you were ready. He stopped giving brown and only gave black with a teaching certificate for a while in the mid '70s. When he noticed that his younger students stopped coming after he gave them black belt and a teaching certificate, I think around 1980-81 he stopped giving rank all together. A few years later he stopped wearing his rank. All the students that were still with him followed suit. To this day, no one wears rank (including me now that I train with them).

 

His school is pretty small and there are no testing fees (since there are no tests...or rank for that matter).

[strangepair03]

My dojo also has no fee for testing, my sensei also has no commercial dojo, we train in his "converted" 3 bay garage attached to his home. It has all the equipment and supplies we need and the tuituin is 15 bucks a class and they run 3 hrs. each...tuesdays and thursday. I am also lucky in that my sensei is a very personable guy, if you are around and want to train on say...monday, if I give him a call and he is not busy, you are more than welcome to go to the house and train...no cost, he always says he is happy when students show the extra interest, and he likes the opportunity to teach and train extra himself.....It is really refreshing to see so many of you that are as happy with their sensei as I am.

[unknownstyle]

white

blue

green

brown

black

red/white

red