Hello again Daniel! no worries about arriving late to the thread...good commentary is always appreciated!
With the exception of the unethical schools you mentioned, I agree that belts help you determine who might be a good resource or who you should give some lead room to. I've been fortunate that the folks I've trained with have taken thier belt levels as a "responsibility" as well as an honour.
I agree that it provides structure and highlights resources, but as all schools do not use the same points for advancement...this can also provide confusion and difficulty for the student that moves. I don't have a lot of experience in moving from school to school, but do most schools "test" you to see if you are up to "their" level of x coloured belt?
I agree with Milt's point in his post. I think the belt system has merit, but it also seems to create confusion when comparing school a to school b. Perhaps this is just a consistency problem between schools and organizations. But it is an interesting issue.
I agree, it can be very confusing.
Not only are there differences in arts, but between organizations in the same art. Then to make it worse, between schools of the same organization in the same art.
Then there is the issue of the progression of colors. In TKD, red belt is like a brown belt in Shotokan, while in Shotokan, a red belt is one below yellow, and in Judo, it is higher than a black belt. Then there is the choice of colors; not all schools use the same selection of colors; we do not have a purple or orange belt in our curriculum and certainly not a camo belt. But other schools or systems do have them. Not all schools even use the same number of belts, and some have tape stripes in addition.
About the only consistency seems to be that white is beginner, black is advanced, and green is usually about a third of the way in from beginner.
For the most part, a belt and a rank is really only good within the school. One guy may only give black belts to champion fighters. The guy down the road may give a blackbelt to a severely handicaped student who perservered and worked their tail off and overcame great adversity to get through the curriculum. One teacher is basing his decision on technical skill and competative edge while the other teacher is basing his decision on the student's personal progress and hard work.
Both may be equally valid, but they represent entirely different things.
Interestingly, if you go to a kendo school (ours included), students generally do not wear belts or show rank. Seems to work out just fine.
Personally, I think that the kyu/dan system and the associated belts provide
one kind of framework for a teacher to structure the curriculum around. Different teachers may structure the curriculum in a different fashion and dispense with the whole rank thing. Certainly, traditional fencing salles do not use a belt system, nor do sport fencing academies, but they seem to turn out very capable students.
Enjoyable discussion, by the way
Daniel
