|
|
|
|
The history of karate belts
Coloured belts are a relativelly modern invention designed to denote progress and achievement. Back in Japan and China, there was no coloured belt system. In Japan, martial artists often trained in no more than a loin cloth. When they did start to wear clothing, it was just loose comfortable cotton clothes. Until the latter part of the 1800s, martial arts was taught and practiced for potentially life-and-death combat, and many of the customs came down from a clan or family training ethos that had little interest in rewarding relative martial progress, but was more concerned with raising the level of all within the group so that they could effectively fight alongside each other. It was Jigaro Kano, the founder of judo who invented the gi in the late 1800s, and some say it was based partly upon firemen's uniforms of the day. Kano was a modern-thinking instructor, who recognised the incentive value of dividing students' progress up into grades, and it is widely believed that he was the one who invented the coloured belt system basing it upon colours in the ancient game of Go. However, researcher Dave Lowry suggests in his book In the Dojo, that it was actually a judo student called Mikonosuke Kawaishi who came up with the idea of colours. Prior to that point, although there were ten grades, there were only two colours - white for a novice, and black for experienced judoka. It has been suggested that martial arts instructors never washed their belts, and thus the longer one had been training, the dirtier the belt became, resulting in a black belt becoming a symbol of great experience (or a very dirty lifestyle!). Given that the belt is itself a relatively modern martial arts accoutrement, this completely false urban legend has been proven to be wholly untrue. In actual fact, when Kano first started using the grade system, there were just two belt colours - White - a novice, and black belt, who was considered to be experienced. Although it's whimsically appealling (and a little nauseating!) to imagine a little old master roaming the country in his increasingly grimy decades-old belt, it simply is not true. Nevertheless, the belt has been assigned additional significance by many martial artists who say that the soul of their training and martial arts is in their belt, which has accompanied them throughout. Such martial artists continue to recommend that one should never wash one's belt, and they can even get quite snotty if someone touches their black belt without permission. In my opinion, saying that your belt holds the spirit of your training is as nonsensensical as claiming your shoelaces represent the spirit of your walking skills. Okay, so you don't earn new shoelaces for learning to walk better, but to me, the spirit of my karate is inside me, and it's not personified inside anything so mundane as an item of functional clothing.
Modern commentators such as Phil Redmond of 24fightingchickens, have pointed out that Japanese karateka quite freely wash their belts, and have no problem dumping them (and their gis) on the floor whilst changing, with no ceremony or regard. Phil has written a very funny article on karate belts. To me, the belt, whilst being indicative of my place along the martial journey, is shown no more special treatment than any other piece of clothing. Sometimes you see people going through a ritual for undressing, carefully folding gis in a specific pattern so that the badge is always uppermost, and ensuring that belts never touch the floor. Karate is full of rituals, some of which are based in warrior's logic, and others come from Buddhist traditions. In the old days of clan loyalties saying the wrong thing or showing disrespect could get you killed, which I suppose is why our modern clan symbols (club badges) are sometimes afforded extra respect, and are not simply dumped on the floor face down. But I'll bet that not a single GKR student who never washes his belt, shows the same respect to the club badge, which in one sense, is more deserving than symbols of personal achievement. But honestly, given that all of the "white to black" tales are no more than myth, and belts are a wholly modern invention, I suggest that if you want to wash your belt, you do so guilt free, as I do. If you choose not to wash your belt, that's fine too - just remember, the only mystical significance your belt has, is what you choose to give it. |
