LearnMartial Arts Styles6 min read
Belts and Ranks, Explained.
Kyu, dan, gup, stripes and poom: how belts work in jiu-jitsu, karate, judo and taekwondo, why wrestling and boxing have none, and what a belt does and doesn't tell you.
- Covers
- Jiu-jitsu, karate, judo and taekwondo, plus why wrestling and boxing have no belts
- The big idea
- A belt measures time and skill at one school. It is not a ranking against the world
- Varies by
- Style, federation and school. Your coach's system is the one that counts
- Also see
- The Kumite glossary for the words you hear on the mat
The short version
A belt tells you roughly how long someone has trained and what their coach thinks they can do. It does not tell you who would win. Two blue belts from different gyms can be very different, and a strong wrestler with no belt can give a black belt a hard time.
Belts are useful anyway. They give beginners small goals, they help coaches pair people safely, and they mark years of showing up. Treat them as a record of the work, not a prize.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu
BJJ has few belts and they take a long time. That is part of its reputation.
Adults (16 and over)
| Belt | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| White | Beginner. Learning to survive, escape and stay calm underneath. |
| Blue | The fundamentals are there. Often 1.5 to 3 years of regular training. |
| Purple | Building a personal game and starting to help teach. |
| Brown | Refining and filling gaps. Close to black. |
| Black | Often 8 to 12 years. Then degrees, and eventually coral and red belts after decades. |
Most belts have up to four stripes on the black bar at the end, small steps between belts. IBJJF sets minimum ages and minimum time at each belt for its tournaments. For example, you must be at least 19 for black belt.
Kids (4 to 15)
Kids move through white, grey, yellow, orange and green, each with variations (like grey-white or yellow-black). At 16, a kid moves into the adult system, usually at blue or purple depending on where they got to.
Karate
Karate uses kyu ranks, which count down toward black belt (10th kyu, 9th kyu... 1st kyu), then dan ranks, which count up from 1st dan (shodan).
The colours between white and black depend on the style and the school. Yellow, orange, green, blue, purple and brown are common, but the order changes. Many schools award a black belt after roughly 3 to 6 years of steady training, with a grading (a test in front of senior instructors). Some give junior black belts to kids, with a full black belt later.
Judo
Judo also uses kyu and dan. In many US clubs the coloured belts run white, yellow, orange, green, blue, brown, then black. Promotion often counts competition points as well as technique and time. Higher dan grades can wear a red-and-white belt, and very senior ones a red belt.
Taekwondo
Taekwondo counts down through gup ranks (often 10th to 1st), then up through dan ranks. Colours vary by organisation. In the Kukkiwon system, children under 15 who pass a black belt test hold a poom rank, often shown with a half-red, half-black belt. It converts to a dan at 15.
Wrestling, boxing and MMA: no belts
These sports measure progress differently. Wrestlers have a record, varsity spots and brackets. Amateur boxers move from novice to open class as they win bouts. MMA fighters have a record. The mat, the ring and the scoreboard do the grading.
