Belt color is one of the most important and recognizable aspects of Japanese martial art training. The color of your belt tells other people what skill level you are at in your training. A black belt is one of the most impressive colors to achieve. Consequently, white belts signify a beginner or a student who has not acquired enough skills to move onto the next color. Fortunately, even black belts once had a white belt. Through hard work and discipline, that white belt will eventually be replaced by a black belt.

What does the white belt really mean, though? Did you know that in traditional martial art training, the practitioners had no ranking system? Sure, there was a certain hierarchy within the dojo (formal karate training school): there were the beginning, intermediate and advanced students, the senior instructors and the Sensei (head instructor), but they had no colored belts. Everyone had a white belt. The orthodox Japanese martial art of karate didn’t start with a colored ranking system until it came to America. As this author’s Sensei explained, the American student needed a measurement of progress, unlike the Japanese students. Today, there are some schools that keep to the bare minimum of white, green, brown and black belts. Other schools like a little more flash and incorporate yellow, orange, blue and red. It all boils down to the same thing: something to keep your gi (karate uniform) closed.

Seriously though, in traditional martial art training, the difference between a white belt and a black belt was the amount of years you spent sweating in the dojo, paying your dues and how much knowledge you attained through your training. In the Japanese martial art, the only thing a black belt represents is that you have mastered the basics and now the real work begins. Once you have reached this level, you start to learn the moves behind the moves.

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