Belt question

[Shotokan-kez]

Yeah i agree here with you azmyth it does depend on the school. In ours we have a white stripe on our purple belt and white stripes on the brown, yet in other shotokan clubs they have stripes on other colours too.

[Azmyth]

yeah the school I am at now.. has all sorts of different belts I have never seen...

but no more belts in the lineup than any other school.

when ur goal is to attain higher rank its always kinda cool to have a neat looking belt waiting for you.. it kinda helps with motivation. Alot of people frown on schools who have odd color belts.. but, that doesn't change rank. Unless its to the point where they just have a bunch of pointless belts in there to make it take longer.

[G95champ]

Belt stripes.

Ive seen this done a few ways.

Some schools will add a color stripe to a belt to tell if your a high or low ranks. For example if your belt order was to go gold, blue, green. A blue belt with a gold stripe wa a low ranking blue belt. As to where a Blue belt with a green stripe was a high ranking blue. Those may come from a poor test or a really good test or it may simple be based on time.

I have also seen schools add white or black stripes. We add black stripes to our brown belts. We have 3 browns and makr each by adding a stipe. However each stripe for us comes with a test.

I would assume a white stripe or black stripe could stand for low or high ranks as I talked about above as well.

Again its all up to the school and the more you see the crazy color systems you will come into contact with.

[bushido_man96]

I have also seen black stripes on belt tips to show rank, like one brown belt being senior over another, due to test performance, etc.

In our system, each belt has a high and a low distinction. Low blue belt, for example, has a white stripe through the middle. High blue belt is a solid blue belt. This continues up to recommended black.

I have also been in schools that put stripes on one side of the belt to show the acquisition of certain requirements for testing; one stripe for forms, another for new basics, etc. That way, an instructor can glance at the belt and see what they need the most work on.

[DWx]

When I first started, my instructor used electrical wiring tape on the belts to denote seniority within grades...

[bushido_man96]

When I first started, my instructor used electrical wiring tape on the belts to denote seniority within grades...

Mine too!! This used to be pretty common, until companies like Century started making the new belts with stripes on them.

[Shotokan-kez]

our system has a purple belt, then a purple belt with a white stripe. Also a brown, brown with one white stripe and then a brown with two. The two being the highest out of the three brown belts. I do like the stripes, they are cool looking belts, especially the purple.

[usc96]

I was in Karate several years ago but I was forced to get out.

Ok I'm a bit confused, explain this?

[Underlink]

i used to trin shotokan for a year or 2 and then switched to wado-ryu and the belt systems were almost identical and also i did aikido and jujitsu and all mentions had a irst belt as red.

i never came across any class that had red before black apart from tikwando.

i did not know that i guess it makes sense tho as like you siad light to dark is rule of thumb and red is an add ball

http://www.cobrakarateclub.com

[Shorin Ryuu]

No color don't matter.

The color belts were added by Kano and Funkakoshi to show the differant stages of training but in most styles you have white and black. Sometimes it is even the same belt just gets really dirty lol.

But you may have 2 TKD schools or 2 Shotokan schools or 2 TSD schools etc in the same org. or assoc. and they have differant belt color systems.

There is no right or wrong answer but like I said above a general rule is to go from light to dark.

Actually, it was more like the gi was added by Kano (and adopted by Funakoshi) and the usage of belts in karate was added by Funakoshi. The color belts were added much later by others as commercialism entered the martial arts more.

As for belts with black tape on the ends... it seems like an easy way to charge a student for a promotion without having to pay the extra cost of buying another belt (or having the student buy another belt). Plus, it is a good motivator for those who have to rely on such external symbols.

The same white belt getting dirty to become black is just a myth. The karate belt system hasn't even been around for a century yet. Since the Japanese were obsessed with cleanliness, I can't imagine them wearing such a dirty piece of cloth around their waists...