What’s so special about a black belt?
Non-martial artists tend to take one of two views of the black belt. They either see it as cause for ridicule, and make comments about yellow braces, or trousers falling down, or about origami ‘experts’ being able to fold their assailant into a table decoration, or they imagine the holder to be some sort of super-hero, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound, and capable of feats of inhuman greatness.
Both these points of view are based upon ignorance, and it is therefore our responsibility to educate and enlighten. But what then should we say when Joe Ignorant asks “what is a black belt, and why should anyone aspire to holding one?”
It is my contention that this mythical strip of textile carries with it many more drawbacks than benefits, and we the practitioners, and the public at large, would be better off without it.
The Kipling-esque Just So Story of how the karateka got his black belt goes something like this. The obi of antiquity was a purely functional item to hold the gi in place. Time and effort in the dojo, along with blood, dust and myriad other impurities darkened the fabric. Thus darkness of material became equated with hours of effort put in, and therefore with level of expertise. Some bright spark, so the legend goes, decided to formalise this, and from the simple white-to-black / novice-to-expert delineation, evolved the spectrum of ever darkening colours, allowing the student to deploy progressively darker dye on the way from novice to “expert”.
There are many flaws with this argument. To start with, we know that in keeping with Japanese civilian practice, Japanese dojo are places of cleanliness and order. What self-respecting student would regularly wash and press his dogi, , but not wash the length of cloth that held it together? If on the other hand, we choose to believe that the almost-ritual cleanliness of the Japanese dojo is a modern divergence from the Chinese or Okinawan tradition, why do we not denote our rank with coloured gi, instead of obi? The gi (or at very least the seat of the trousers) of your average Chinese or Okinawan, would surely exhibit this rank-by-length-of-training characteristic even more than the belt. (I do not intend, by this observation to imply anything about the relative hygiene levels of Japanese, Okinawan and Chinese people, about which I know nothing, merely to point out the absurdity of the notion which some claim as tradition.) On second thoughts, I retract this argument, as it is obvious that whatever your cultural background, you would be reluctant to declare your prowess at an activity by the colour of your arse!
Whatever its provenance, the black belt in modern society obfuscates the true ability of the holder, for better or for worse. Black belts are awarded by many different well-intentioned bodies, for many different reasons, and against a vast range of standards, so the belt tells us little of any value about the wearer. Furthermore less ethical bodies will award ranks for cosmetic, economic, or political reasons, and all that the public sees is the one black belt. That is surely argument enough for its abandonment. Some may counter that a single awarding body would maintain a consistency of standard, but in the first place this unification has proved over the years to be an impossible outcome, and secondly a single body would eventually become an autocratic, self-preserving despot organisation easily as capable of unethical black belt awards as the worst of today’s cowboy groups.
A common insult amongst senior (by which I mean experienced) karateka is ‘I knew him when he was a spotty Green belt”. This is supposed to suggest that a) the guy making the statement has been around for years and therefore must be good b) that the slighted party is not capable of progress (but wasn’t every 8th dan a green belt once?) and c) that “because I’ve been around longer I must and will always be better than him”.
The biggest problem with rank and martial arts is that the criteria for awarding any rank are so disparate. In general we accept that karate is based upon fighting, and that any test that does not involve a fatality must be in some way flawed. So we invent tests that mimic aspects of combat, such as kata, jiyu kumite, ippon kumite, shiai, tameshiwari, shimewaza and so on. Furthermore we argue that as “civilised’ people, the practice of “martial arts” should make us better people. We therefore assign merit to such things as leadership, loyalty, teaching ability, club-spirit, longevity of service, and ability compared to others of similar age, sex, or physical (dis)ability. So, with all these possible measures of merit, how do we know what “sort" of master we are looking at? Is our 8th dan so honoured because a) he killed fifteen people with his bare hands or b) because, in spite of his two left feet, only one arm, and dodgy heart, he tries hard, and comes to every session and is a willing club participant and organiser; or c) because although he can’t fight for toffee, he knows the whole syllabus in Japanese (written and spoken) and once did a reasonable Bassai Dai (with his best mate coaching sotto voce “zenkutsu, Gedan Barai, Turn! Kiai!” from the sidelines). Or perhaps he awarded it to himself!
In conclusion, we the experts cannot agree upon, or distinguish between the different types and standards of black belt worn today. Therefore it is surely impossible for the layman to make any reasonable judgement. Better then to allow each student to make up his or her own mind based upon whether the personality, teaching style, training regime, or syllabus content suits their own needs, and do away with the smokescreen of the black belt.