Belts system in your style

[nzproud]

What's your belts color system in your style?

Org/Stye: IKO1, New Zealand
Belts:
white (no kyu)
orange (10, 9)
blue (8, 7)
yellow (6, 5)
green (4, 3)
brown (2, 1)
black
+
+

[blackdog]

Org/Stye: IKO3, Australia
Belts:
white (no kyu)
red (10, 9)
blue (8, 7)
yellow (6, 5)
green (4, 3)
brown (2, 1)
black

[Spirit]

Our group... (our group sets bi-laws but allows the freedom of each dojo owner to move within those laws that best suit his/her dojo's needs and ideologies
White... jukyu & kukyu
Blue.... hachikyu & nanakyu
Yellow... rokukyu & gokyu
Green... yonkyu & sankyu
Brown... nikyu & ikkyu

***My dojo
White... jukyu to nanakyu
Green... rokyu to yonkyu
Brown... sankyu to ikkyu

[seienchin]

Does anybody have the old style tradition of no colours - just an unwashed white belt, which, after sufficient training becomes a brown belt all by itself? and the a black-belt, which goes white again with age and wear? "Beware the man with the white, tattered belt".

What about washing your belt? When I was a kyu grade, we were taught to keep our belt, dye it for colour, and never, ever wash it. It was said to containe the spirit of our training.

This worked OK for white to red-belt, but my belt came out very purple (and very pretty) when I was changing from red to blue, so I had to abandon it. My compromise was to take the Kyokushin logo patch off my original belt. It has been sewn onto every belt I have ever worn. that patch has done every training session of my entire life.

However, in my dojo we also had a tradition of handing belts on. As an instructur, you could give your coloured belts to each of the first of your students to reach those ranks. I was delighted to finally give away my brown belt.

any other traditions around obi?

Osu

[Shokei Marcsui]

Org/Stye: IKO4
Belts:
White (10, 9)
Blue (8, 7)
Yellow (6, 5)
Green (4, 3)
Brown (2, 1)
Shodan

[StarKodama]

Org/ Style Shinkyokushin, Japan
Belts:

white (no kyu)
orange (10, 9)
blue (8, 7)
yellow (6, 5)
green (4, 3)
brown (2, 1)
black


In our dojo, if you pass the white, orange, and blue gradings, you go directly to the next belt. Those who excel on those gradings will receive a stripe on their next belt (so if someone kicks butt on the orange belt grading, they'll get a blue belt with a stripe).

But from yellow on you have to take a different grading for each level. I just received my green belt this week!!

Oh, and only 1kyuu and above have their names embroidered on their belts... everyone else's just has their names written on them by Sensei.

[Lucy]

Org/Style: IFK Great Britain
Belts:

White (No grade)
Red (10 & 9th kyu)
Blue (8th & 7th kyu)
Yellow (6th & 5th kyu)
Green (4th & 3rd kyu)
Brown (2nd & 1st kyu)
Black (1st Dan and above)

When i first started 10th and 9th kyu were white belts and we had no red belts.

[Aunty Ichigeki]

I notice some orgs still have red belts. We (IKO1) used to have red but it was changed to orange in the late 90's. Does anyone know why? It spoiled Cameron Quinn Shihan's book!

[Lucy]

Our IFK red belts for 10th & 9th kyu were not introduced until the mid/late 90's? Im not sure the reason for this.

[Satori]

Org/Style: Seido Juku, Australia
Belts:

White (10th & 9th Kyu)
Orange (9.5 Kyu & 9th Kyu - Juniors start with white, grade to orange, grade to advanced orange, then grade to blue etc)
Blue (8th & 7th kyu)
Yellow (6th & 5th kyu)
Green (4th & 3rd kyu)
Brown (2nd & 1st kyu)
Black (1st Dan and above)

[Ninsho]

Aunty Ichigeki,

The Red belt was switched to Orange by many of the Kyokushin organizations because many other systems use Red and or Red/White belts for higher dan ranks.

Osu!

[Aunty Ichigeki]

Originally Posted by Ninsho

Aunty Ichigeki,

The Red belt was switched to Orange by many of the Kyokushin organizations because many other systems use Red and or Red/White belts for higher dan ranks.

Osu!

Thanks for solving that mystery. That makes perfect sense.

[Kris]

in Zendokai the belts go:

White
Blue
Yellow
Green
Brown
Black

It is a 10 kyu system, so all the color belts also have one to three black stripes at the end.

[Spirit]

Originally Posted by Ninsho

Aunty Ichigeki,

The Red belt was switched to Orange by many of the Kyokushin organizations because many other systems use Red and or Red/White belts for higher dan ranks.

Osu!

P.S.
in TKD it is their "brown belt' level as well
and if I'm not mistaken Honbu was orange from the start???

Passing on belts, yes we did it but then the bad thing is years later you don't have your old belts the person has quite training and you can't find them or your belt.
I got my white belt pass on to me by my buddy, asking only I do one thing better than he, I did not let him down!!!

No washing, or you remove the sweat & knoledge that is in the belt, I believe that is the myth behind passing it on...

[Nix]

I find the tradition keeping the belt, and just dye it to a new color quite interesting. I've never heard of that. Doesn't the color wear off onto the dogi, though? We also never wash our belts.

Our system (Ashihara, NIKO) uses following system:

White
Red (10th - 9th kyu)
Blue (8th - 7th kyu)
Yellow (6th - 5th kyu)
Green (4th - 3rd kyu)
Brown (2nd - 1st kyu)
Black (1st - 3rd dan)

The students will sew a stripe on their belt for every odd numbered kyu. In example, 9th kyu is a red belt with blue stripes, 7th kyu is blue belt with yellowstripes and so on. Also, we've recently applied a new grading system, in which children will have two grades between belts, called 9thA and 9thB kyu, 7thA and 7thB kyu and so forth untill 3rd A/B. The first time, they will sew on a stripe on one end of their belt (left-hand side), and later one in the other end of the belt. Though this may vary from branch to branch. Black belts receive a new belt if they graduate to a higher dan. In Ashihara, you can only practice to become 3rd dan. 4th and 5th dan are honorary grades, issued by Kancho Ashihara. I'm not even sure if there are anyone higher graded than 4th dan, besides Kancho himself, and there is only a handful of 4th dan. I might be wrong, though.

[seienchin]

hi LoQi,
You are right, the colour does wear off on the dogi, but it looks kind of cool. I had a green belt that was the product of dying my yellow belt with blue dye.... when I tried to add blue to it to make brown it went a funny grey. I don't think it is terribly practical, but it is a nice tradition.

With my very first dojo, I had a cohort of 8 juniors all grade simultaneously for their bluebelt (at that time we had abandoned 10th and 9th in Australia, and everybody went to 8th). In collusion with their parents, I pretended to be very stressed about whether any of them had passed. We prepared a surprise party, where everything was blue, including the soft-drinks, and a big vat of blue dye.

There were lots of blue-stained gi's in my dojo after that, but the kids were really proud of them. Everyone could tell what rank they were even without their Obi. they are all adults now, but when I see them, they all remember the "blue party".

[Nix]

Really interesting. The colored belts we use also wear of on the dogi, but only to some extent. I also like the "blue party". Great story!

[boldbhoy]

Originally Posted by Aunty Ichigeki

I notice some orgs still have red belts. We (IKO1) used to have red but it was changed to orange in the late 90's. Does anyone know why? It spoiled Cameron Quinn Shihan's book!

I have seen red belts within iko1, but only for uchi dechi. Not sure of the spelling, but the students that live in the dojo.

[Liu]

I've switched from Shito Ryu to Kyokushin. I have 2 years of Shito-Ryu (green belt) and about 3 years of Kyokushin training (currently green belt as well).

Shito-Ryu International Karate Do Kai

White
Yellow
Orange
Green
Blue
Brown
Black

I'm not sure about the kyu numbers but I know that there is no additional kyu between two belts.

[A-jay]

Wado ryu has the same system:

White
yellow-8th kyu
Orange-7th kyu
Green-6th kyu
Blue-5th and 4th kyu
Brown- 3rd,2nd and 1st kyu
Black-shodan