All About Black Belts

A very common question and debate within all of martial arts is what does it mean to be a black belt.  What does it mean to have ranks, what does a certain rank mean?

The biggest debate about ranks is about Black Belts.  

What does it mean to be a black belt?

Are all black belts teachers?

Are all black belts good fighters or the best competitors?

How Long does it take to reach black belt?

What good are they?

First our entertainment culture has made a black belt into something it is not.  

Almost everyone’s opinion of rank falls into two views:.

Theory one goes something like this:  A black belt means you have a certain amount of SKILL, you should be the best ATHLETE or at least one of the best ATHLETES in your Dojo. This is a COMPETITION CENTRIC mindset.  It has been said that if you can go to a competition and beat several black belts then you should be a black belt too. Is this really true? If you are a great athlete, can run the fastest, do the most pullups, pushups, situps, know three throws really well and have a great day at the tournament and beat three black belts who are older, and have been doing Judo for 10 years; are you a better Judoka, or are you instead a better Athlete who also knows some Judo?  

Doesn’t seem quite right does it?

Kano invented the belt system, and he is recorded as saying in effect, that a belt color is similar to a degree in education.  This is an EDUCATION CENTRIC MINDSET Remember Dr. Kano was an educator first. If we view belt rankings as similar to educational degrees it begins to make a lot more sense.  There are instances all through our history where extremely gifted and uneducated people achieved great success without a Masters or PhD in their field of work. However, having a PhD in a particular field does seem to indicate a certain level of knowledge.  There is a joke that highlights this: What do they call a person who graduated last in their class in med school? ...Doctor. A person who graduates Medical School is a Doctor.  They may not be the most skilled doctor and depending on special interest they may not be the person you most want to treat you after a car wreck, ( I would much rather be treated by a Trauma Medic than an Oncologist if I have a car wreck and need to make it to the Hospital)

Back to Judo and other Martial arts.  I am coming around to the idea that competing (win or lose) is valuable to learning and testing yourself as a means of self evaluation.  But- I believe that a Black Belt only means that that individual has attained a certain level of knowledge.  In almost all cases a person with a Black Belt will also be a fairly formidable opponent during a competition, but they may not be the best athlete. There will always be the less knowledgeable person who is younger, stronger, faster, tougher, and luckier than you.

Short answer:  A black belt is not necessarily the best FIGHTER or COMPETITOR or ATHLETE in the club.  A black belt simply means you have completed the curriculum up to that point with a reasonable measure of skill and knowledge.  That is it.

Let’s look at one more sports analogy.  A boxer is simply “ranked” according to his win/loss record in competition.  Same with a amatuer wrestler, a baseball team, a football team, whatever. But Judo, and most other martial arts, were not developed as a sport first.  There was a curriculum one had to learn. So from this perspective which person would you rather LEARN from? A person who is an Orange Belt and has won 100 tournaments.  Or a person who has been a black belt for 10 years, trained a 100 people but who has not competed more than 10 times? Of course the best outcomes, for world class training, would be a blend of both.  But the point is, success in competition is not completely knowledge dependant, and being a black belt cannot be based simply on success in competition.

So, is every black belt an instructor?  

Short answer: NO

Is every person who has a masters in business (MBA) a professor in a college?  No.

An Instructor/Sensei/Coach is a person who has the KNOWLEDGE plus the  ABILITY and DESIRE to pass that knowledge on, and most of the time takes time to learn also how to TEACH in addition to learning the skills they want to teach.

What are ranks useful for then?

Two easy short answers

1. Motivation

2. Measurement of progress towards a goal.  

By the time a person achieves a mid to high level rank in a martial art they have been motivated to become committed.  By the time they get to this point surely they are continuing on because they enjoy it. But in the beginning you naturally want to feel a sense of progress.  Belts do that, really for the same reason we have grades in elementary school and quarterly report cards. If you started elementary school at 6 and just stayed in elementary until college with no defined steps in between it would feel as though no progress was being made.

The other thing from an instructional perspective, it helps a Sensei assess who should be working with who and the overall knowledge of the person at a glance.

So how long does it take to make black belt…? typically 3-5 years of practice more than once a week for several hours and at least SOME individual study outside of the Dojo. But it could take decades, or it could take a couple years if that is all you do in your free time and are a good athlete and also soak up knowledge.

So to sum up our philosophy:

• Not every Black Belt will be an instructor

• Not every black belt will be the best competitor/fighter

• A black belt is a person who has a certain amount of knowledge and reasonable amount of skill and a significant amount of mat time invested into the art.