Belt Colours, why do they tend to follow this sequence?

[Dobbersky]

All

Most TMA's tend to follow this sequence

White - Red - Yellow - Orange - Green - Blue - Purple - Brown - Black

But it would make more sense to follow this sequence

White - Yellow - Orange - Red - Purple - Blue - Green - Brown - Black

As the colours work better if One follows the old system of dying One's belt as it is easier to dye from light to dark as it is from ight to dark to light to dark again.

Your thoughts please

[Wastelander]

All

Most TMA's tend to follow this sequence

White - Red - Yellow - Orange - Green - Blue - Purple - Brown - Black

But it would make more sense to follow this sequence

White - Yellow - Orange - Red - Purple - Blue - Green - Brown - Black

As the colours work better if One follows the old system of dying One's belt as it is easier to dye from light to dark as it is from ight to dark to light to dark again.

Your thoughts please

My current system goes white-yellow-orange-blue-purple-green-brown-black, while my previous system went white-orange-gold-yellow-blue-green-purple-brown-black. I think that most systems now have developed their own color orders to suit whoever is in charge of choosing such things. Personally, I believe that the order of the colors is largely irrelevant outside of the white belt being first and black belt coming last (excluding kohaku belts, of course), so people can put them in whatever order they want.

That said, if you want your students to dye their belts like they used to in Hawaii (and possibly elsewhere) then I agree with you that it makes much more sense to follow an order that is conducive to altering the color over time.

[Rateh]

At tournaments that I have been to ranks have been divided as: Beginner (White, Yellow, & Orange), Intermediate (Green, Purple, & Blue), Advanced (Red & Brown), and Black Belt

This would seem to imply that, at least in the united states, belts follow a similar order in most schools.

Schools may not use all of the colors, or be in the exact order, but from what I've found: if you have a white, yellow, or orange belt you are probably a beginner, if you have a green, purple, or blue belt you are probably an intermediate, etc.

So White-Orange-Purple-Green-Brown-Red-Black would fit, as would any number of sequences.

While I have heard of red being a beginner rank, I have not experienced it in any of the schools that I have trained at. If red is used its generally one of the ranks right before black, or used for higher black belt rank.

[JusticeZero]

Well, given that the idea of using colored belts is a very new and modern one, it's reasonable to expect that people are still playing around with it.

[ps1]

The original color system was white, black, red. So there you go. Everything else was added in between when Kano developed it and now.

I've seen a myriad of systems. In Chuan Fa and Aiki jujitsu it was White, Green, Brown, Black.

In Karate it was White, orange, yellow, blue, green, purple, brown, black

In TKD it was white, yellow, blue, purple, green, brown, red, black.

In BJJ it is white, blue, purple, brown, black

In the end, it's all up to the person in charge. I've even seen schools add in colors. The ATA has a camouflage belt in there somewhere too.

[ShoriKid]

White-Yellow-Blue-Green-Brown-Black.

I'ge had a purple and red when my first instructor was asked by his sensei to experiment with the belt system. Older I get, the fewer belts I want to deal with. Simple stuff, not complex.

[DWx]

How rooted in fact is the dyeing of the belt thing behind the choice of colours? Other than white-black it doesn't seem to be all that consistent across styles. I can see the dyeing working for white-yellow-orange-red and then maybe purple, possibly a very dark blue, but after that it probably doesn't work so well anymore.

In the TKD I do, its: White-Yellow-Green-Blue-Red-Black

We have it that order for a reason as there's this analogy of a plant growing = TKD skills growing attached it it. And they're linked to the Buddhist colour meanings.

[evergrey]

In our little odd branch of Kyokushin, we used to have white, green, brown, black. Now we have white, blue, green, brown, black. Totally not standard for our style but so far the sky hasn't fallen, LOL!

I honestly think it doesn't really matter all that much, so long as you hold high standards to your ranking process.

As an aside, the OCD part of me wants it all to be in rainbow order, and the artist in me is sad that we don't have a purple belt.

I love purple.

OSU

[moriniuk]

When I first started Karate the first two grades were white belt with one red stripe followed by white belt with two red stripes.

Before your first grading you wore a red belt.

It later changed to white belt for new starters followed by red belt followed by orange belt.

I can only think that the introduction of the colours was to make it look like you'd achieved something.

[monk64]

As a point of comparison...

In Kung Fu, traditionally it was "student" and "master" and there were no belts. When it came to the West, people wanted belts.

My Kung Fu teacher was very traditional and the sequence was white-yellow-green-brown-black. It followed the classic (and probably apocryphal) story about a student's belt getting dirty with age.

I truly wonder about the historical accuracy of the "rainbow" belt style. I suspect it was developed mostly because students want frequent rewards (no problem with that) and to add more testing fees (which is ridiculous).

To-Shin Do has the most ridiculous belt system I've seen. Most levels have a "blue-white", "blue", and "blue-black" system.

One school I saw had the usual rainbow with a "-black" at each level, such as "blue" and "blue-black". That is perhaps not that unusual but they actually had a "white-black" belt before yellow belt, which I'd never seen.