The Venerable Jigoro Kano, the founder fo Judo, developed the present ranking system. It expressed rank as a number so as to give the practitioner motivation to advance further. Ken-do, Karate, Aiki-do, and other Japanese martial arts followed this idea.

In this ranking system, novices start as white belts and achieve various colored belts; black belt ranking is eventually awarded to those who have mastered the basics. A colored belt system is very good for the instructor; it allows judgment on sight of the right degree of correction for a given student.

In each martial art, there are from several to hundreds of different styles. The most popular and world-wide styles of Karate are Shoto-kan, Shito-ryu, Goju-ryu and Wado-ryu. Hundreds of derivative styles exist if one includes the styles who have only a few local schools. Even the largest style, Shoto-kan, is divided into many different groups.

Do you think that an average American high school student can transfer into a Japanese high school at the same grade level? The probable answer is no. In the Japanese school system, the average student completes calculus, geometry and other subjects before graduating from middle school; in America, thery are only first encountered in highschool. On the other hand, normal Japanese students cannot do well in America because they learn by rote memorization, and they have not been trained to learn by the time consuming task of collecting and synthesizing of information.

The same question applies to rank in different schools of karate. A colored belt of one style is not equivalent to the same color belt in another style, and so cannot be transferred. Even if the two styles are using the same color for the same rank, what one style does at a particular rank may not be the same as is done in another style.

Unfortunately, many people persiste in the idea that one belt rank equals a similar belt rank in another style. Sometimes, when a transferring student wears a certain color belt, the student treies to prove his or her ability in the new school. Such students are usually tense, and become a souce of accidents. They have forgotten that they are there to study for improvement, and not to prove their ability.

If one attends a repurable dojo, sometimes one can see a person who has been absent for a while weasring a white belt by his or her own choice, even though he or she had previously earned some rank. This indicates humility and willingness to study from the beginning. This kind of person is usually very promising because he or she is ready to observe clearly and learn new things. If one has an inflated ego, it is difficult to see things as they are and improve oneself.

From Kitoh Karate, by S. Sugiyama, Copyright 1994.