What’s the Best BELT in Martial Arts?

What's the difference between Judo, Taekwondo, BJJ and Karate Black Belts?! Welp... time for some research!

I want to give a big shout out to these folks who helped me with this!!
In order:
@KARATEbyJesse for his Karate wisdom!
Coach Frank Dees and his BJJ knowledge
Master David Wright (from Master Changs Martial Arts) for his kickin info
Sensei Alex Lahman from Triangle Jiu Jitsu!
and @Shigashi84 for his awesome stories of the coral and red belts in Judo!

[KARATEbyJesse]

Thanks for having me on your channel again Seth! 🙏 Karate nerds 4 life!! 🥋

[SoftwareTesting-bvdi]

I was a kid in the 1970s. Back then, we knew two things as absolute Gospel truth:
1. if you drank pop rocks and Coca-Cola at the same time your stomach would explode
2. if you got a black belt in Karate, you had to register your hands as deadly weapons

So, there is no contest. Karate black belt. Kid logic wins every time.

[AmitKrepel]

"i think i have someone else that can help us out with that" immediately in my head with an accent" Okinawa is the birth place of karate"

[christophervelez]

Just got my BJJ Black Belt last Saturday after almost 12 years and wouldn’t have it any other way!

[himeshsinghshishodiya]

It's amazing how much Judo has contributed to/helped create different martial arts.
I really wanna learn Judo.

[yakovdavidovich]

I do believe there is a cultural difference in the concept of black belt in BJJ. As you heard, every art likes to say that black belt is the beginning, or it means you have the basics down. But BJJ at some point in the past decided the black belt should be a level of mastery, and that's really why it takes so much longer. Most people will compare the time, effort, and skill involved to get a BJJ black belt to be like getting 2nd or 3rd dan in Judo. While a lot of BJJ black belts import the idea that it's a beginning, it's really not as true as it is for other arts.

[joatanpereira]

it's important to remember that the rank system depends on the organization for Judo. for example, here in Brazil it goes: white; blue; yellow; orange, green; purple; brown; black and so on. but you need to be at least 16 for the black belt and there's a minimum time for each belt. while in Japan it's common to get a black belt at around 15 and many people go straight from white to black, like in the old days. it may seem early because we westerners see the black belt as this crazy rank, but in Japan that's just the beginning, it's like graduating from high school.

[kananisha]

For my Shodan In Judo, I started help teach classes at brown belt. Writing my own lesson plans and teach them . Help teach classes, demonstrate skills ect at our national camp in front of a national board and finally sparing after than a gauntlet going from white belt up to my head coach who is an 8th Dan. This was over the course of almost 4 years as a brown belt.

[yishaicampbell]

For taekwondo it’s important to recognize that Kukkiwon standards separate children’s black belts from those of adults. An adult earns a Dan while a child is awarded a Poom, these are separate rankings. Additionally while there are other tkd organizations other than the kukkiwon’s World Teakwondo Federation many “taekwondo” schools are not associated with any, and thus have no enforced standard or curriculum. The Kukkiwon its self does not bother much with color belt standardization it is really focused on Poom and Dan certification as the black belt is seen as a beginner. My master would say that only once you gained your black belt would really start learning taekwondo.

[TreyaTheKobold]

I will say in TKD that the focus on being a good person was huge. One of the requirements for belt advancement was community service. I picked up trash out of a lake with friends. It was fun. We threw a ball of dead grass at a crocodile.

[nuclearchef-san]

I started my journey in 1974 beginning with Japanese Jujutsu first then Kempo karate here in Tokyo, Japan. Achieved black belt in 1984(age 14) for both, and up to 6th degree in both(2002) before I switched to MMA(Boxing/Muay Thai/Wrestling/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu-mixed) since then. It’s been a long ride, I’ll be 54 in May

[pukanger]

This is super interesting. I’ve got 3 black belts: I got my TKD black belt at 18, got a 6th dan in karate (Pukang tang soo do) after 20+ yrs in the MSU karate club, and a 1st degree black belt in BJJ (Combat Base/Magic BJJ), which is what I currently train (I’m almost 52, so I’ve been at this stuff for a bit, lol). I found the difference in requirements and public perception fascinating. This was a well done video that paid respect to all the arts covered. Great work!

[kyladavenport]

Gained my black belt and actual felt I wasn’t ready. Sensei said, “now the real training starts and he was bang on. “

[mrarmaggedon]

Kano Jigoro introduced kyu and dan (6 and 10 respectively) ranks to martial arts in 1883 based on an already wide-spread ranking system in many Japanese arts (flower arranging, go, tea ceremony) which itself was based on the Chinese 9 rank system for players of go (weiqi) called 九品制 (jiǔ pǐn zhì) which was in turn based on the 9 rank system for court nobles (九品中正制). Prior to this, martial arts operated on a licencing system. A student would enter as okuiri (basically "entrant into the art") and after years of training would enter the mokuroku (official rolls of the school) basically being formally accepted as a member of that ryu (and by extension representative of their values and artform). Eventually a practitioner would earn a menkyo (licence) which certified that in the eyes of that ryu they were skilled enough to teach the art. In theory there were different levels of students in the rolls and different levels of licence, topping out at menkyo kaiden (grand master) but as is often the case with history, nothing was standardised and every school pursued its own system. Only the menkyo really mattered as this proved to people outside the ryu that a practitioner was in fact to be trusted to open a school and teach students. Within a ryu a student's rank and skill would be assessed in the master's head or through whatever internal ranks and traditions that school established.

Kano wanted a more systematised approach to ranking with finer subdivisions partially to better track student progress and partially to modernise his art (Kano had lived through the Meiji restoration and the 1880s when the Kodokan was founded was a time of great change and modernisation in Japan with the military and martial arts (among other things) borrowing from Western counterparts.

Kano invented the martial arts black belt (in 1886) based on the Japanese swim team who put black ribbons around the waists of top tier athletes. This was partially just to visually distinguish the advanced students from the juniors for the purposes of partnering during training, but also a way to reward advanced students and add incentive. However the belt at the time was the traditional wide sash (obi) of a Japanese kimono, until the modern judogi was invented (along with the modern belt) sometime around 1907. Kano himself then subdivided the kyu ranks into the the bottom half (6-4th kyu) who had a white belt and top half (3rd-1st kyu) who had a brown belt (half way between white and black). He later also suggested a light blue belt for complete beginners (6th kyu) but whether this was ever adopted I don't know.

Belt colours would explode in Europe with the spread of Judo and Karate as (whether this is true or not I can't be sure), it was said that the European students were too impatient and needed more consistent rewards and distinctions of rank and so every kyu rank would have a unique colour and additional kyu ranks were created so that students in many Japanese (and by extension Korean) based martial arts today can expect their first belt promotion in 3-4 months of starting.

As regards BJJ's influences: Judo was at the time called "Kano Jujutsu" or "Kodokan Jujutsu" and in the early 1900s when Mitsuyo Maeda came to the West (he arrived in the US in 1904 and Brazil in 1914) the arts had not diverged as much as they have today. That said, Kano himself was influenced by western styles of wrestling in developing Judo and the Brazilians further incorporated techniques from wrestling via the vale tudo tradition within which Maeda would often demonstrate the efficacy of (what we now call) Judo.

But this is also why BJJ calls itself "jiu-jitsu" and not "judo" because this distinction was not yet formalised when BJJ was being developed and it was seen as the next evolution of the art from various syncretised classical Jujutsu traditions into Kano Jujutsu and then into Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Interestingly, BJJ belt ranks are a later development dating to around the 50s if I recall correctly. Originally only the white (pre-black belt), light blue (black belt equiv.), and dark blue (instructor) belts were used. This is also why black belts under Royce Gracie's lineage use a blue bar on their blackbelts instead of red, as Royce has moved to wearing a blue belt in homage to Hélio Gracie. Interestingly, the full BJJ pre-black belt system today varies between Gracie and IBJJF but both use the following basic colour progression: white - yellow - orange - green - blue - purple - brown, very much inspired by the Judo ranks, with yellow, orange, and green being exclusively used for under 16s though the green belt as an "early blue belt" for adults does exist in some rare places, it is not known by most jiujiteiros and is looked down upon by the rest.

[eternalgaming]

you are the only channel I watch that I don't see the advert a mile a way so I dont skip that part like i normally do

[skntbmr]

I have a Kykoshin karate black belt, a judo black belt and a BJJ brown belt. Kykoshin black belt exam was brutal, but BJJ belts are next level. You require so much knowledge and skill, it is of the scale, takes forever as well. Judo black belt is following the curriculum and racking up competition points, at least in Europe that is an option if you don't want to go the kata way. Not easy, but I would place it third.

[bigsarge]

The difference between a white belt and a blue belt in bjj is usually gigantic

[MatthewSedgley]

I'd choose Taekwondo and the Muay Thai equivalent of a black belt, not because these are in anyway better than other martial arts, I just like stand-up martial arts more than grappling/takedown focussed ones, plus I want to become a human bay-blade.

[shootits]

My first old TKD teacher told me the belt color story 😂

I have TKD and BJJ black belts but i still would like to have a karate one just because watching karate was my gateway into martial arts

[TheBladerunner]

I have 3 black belts. One in aikijitsu, one in karate and one in freestyle kickboxing. I also have a brown belt in judo. The toughest guy I ever encountered was a man called George Glass. He was a 6th dan in judo and possibly the nicest guy you could wish to meet. I trained with him once a month. He wasn’t a big guy but he was so knowledgable and could whoop pretty much any person I know