The Legacy of the Black Belt

The Legacy of The Black Belt

4th dan thesis

When one thinks about the martial arts, he is inevitably drawn to the idea of the expert of the art: namely, the black belt. The tradition and culture of the martial arts community has projected the reputation of a dedicated warrior of the body and mind. From this reputation, students who are young in the art may have a distorted perception of the “black-belt”. Such a view, naive and vulnerable as it is, can produce damaging results to the student and Tae-Kwon-do as a whole. Therefore, It is imperative that beginning students understand what it means to be a black belt rather than have the rank of black belt.

Tradition holds that the origin of the black belt was rooted in the old methods of training in the older Asian martial arts. As the years of training progressed, the student’s belt or sash would become dirtied and blood stained due to the intense training. Eventually the belt would become “black”. However, historians tend to point to Jigoro Kuno, the founder of Judo, to be the first to incorporate a black belt ranking system in to training. Jigoro Kuno’s system consisted of only white and black belt ranks which later inspired the modern color belt ranking systems.

In Tae-kwon-do today, Black belts are looked upon as highly skilled (even expert) students of their art. Although most black belts are very knowledgeable and talented, they are, at best, only beginning the long journey of understanding the art. A first degree black belt could be said to have an advanced knowledge of the basics of Tae-kwon-do. However, the deeper understanding and correlation amongst the techniques has yet to be unearthed. This advanced knowledge of the basics provides the student to evolve into the next phase of his journey in Tae-kwon-do as an instructor.

When a student is progressing though the gup ranks, he or she may have been called upon to assist in class instruction. However, the burden of class...