What do the different belts mean?

[Ellacooper]

Friends since I am a beginner in taeqwando so I am Not aware about the different belts. Although I have listened Black belt, Blue etc but I dont know the exact meaning of these belts. Please make me understand.

[wagnerk]

Take a look at this site, it shows the different colours of the TKD belt and the means of the colours.

However the requirements of each belt may be different, association to association.

[DWx]

Depends which type of Taekwondo;

ITF WTF or a different style?

ITF: http://www.comdo.com/belt-colours.html

WTF: http://www.tigonblackbeltacademy.com/wtf-belt-system/

ATA: http://ataonline.com/taekwondo/belts/index.asp

Other schools may have their own variation too.

[JusticeZero]

They are a bunch of arbitrary colors made to denote arbitrary levels of skill for beginners so that teachers can know at a glance how advanced of material and how rough they can be with a given student that they might not know.

[Archimoto]

They are a bunch of arbitrary colors made to denote arbitrary levels of skill for beginners so that teachers can know at a glance how advanced of material and how rough they can be with a given student that they might not know.

Funny, but perfectly put!

@ellacooper: just dive in to your training with reckless abandon and a true heart. If it's meant to be then one day you'll know the significance of each and every belt!

[bushido_man96]

They are a bunch of arbitrary colors made to denote arbitrary levels of skill for beginners so that teachers can know at a glance how advanced of material and how rough they can be with a given student that they might not know.

Very well said. Some schools will put more focus on philosophical meaning behind belt colors, and some will just use different colors to denote different levels of knowledge and ability.

In the ATA, there is a meaning and interpretation to each belt color. In my current style of TKD, there really isn't. So, it just depends.

[kensei]

I once read this posting on a web site that attempted to explain the whole color thing to membership, it read something like;

White is for the purity of snow and the way that a beginners mind is, yellow is the color of the sun and understanding, green is......

You get the point. The only thing running through my mind...boy someone has alot of spare time on their hands!

Truth is, like everyone here has suggested, we took the Kyu/Dan ranking system from Judo for Karate and then the Korean arts adapted it when they changed Karate to be TKD and other Korean arts took the system of ranking as well.

The colors are simply picked to show advancement and I have seen a PLETHERA of different colors used. Gold and yellow, blue, Green, Purple, red, orange, white, black, brown, gray, pink, Camo!

They only mean what you want them to mean. Personally I am all for a white brown black color system and be done with it.