What Do The Belt Colours Mean In Taekwondo?
Everyone knows that martial arts students wear a white belt as beginners and that a black belt signals an expert, but what about all the other colours?
What do the Taekwondo belt colours mean?
In the Korean martial art of Taekwondo the colours white, yellow, green, blue, red and black have different meanings, based on natural surroundings and easily understood concepts.
- White stands for innocence: a lack of knowledge of Taekwondo.
- Yellow represents the colour of the earth, from which the Taekwondo seed grows (you’ll have to believe me that the ground is often yellow in Korea).
- Green continues the natural imagery: the colour of the plant as it increases in size and reaches to the sky.
- Blue is the sky the plant is reaching towards.
- Red is associated with danger in many cultures, and a red belt means that the wearer understands that their skills can cause harm to others.
- Black shows that the wearer is aware of darkness and the fears it can hold, but is ready to face those fears.
Tags and gradings: how you move up the belts
This isn’t the whole story in the Taekwondo grading structure. A new student can expect to remain a white belt for about three months before being awarded a yellow stripe, or tag, to sew onto their belt. They are now halfway to a yellow belt, which they can grade for in another three months or so. Once they have a yellow belt they can try for a green tag, and so on up to black tag. Gradings, however, are not every three months after blue tag. Sometimes the periods can be longer, depending on the student’s progress.
How long does it take to get a black belt?
It can take about three years from white belt to black belt, a time of great advances and sometimes frustrations. Perseverance, keeping going and sticking at it will gain you a black belt, something many people see as life-changing. Instructors often joke that a black belt is just a white belt who never gave up training, and like so many jokes there is truth in that.
Beyond black belt: the Dan grades
But achieving a black belt is not the end of the journey. A first black belt, a First Dan, is the entry point to the Dan system that goes through Assistant Instructor, Instructor and Master, up to 9th Dan or Grand Master. We can see that the colours on the belt represent knowledge and achievement in a system that allows for many years of personal and physical development. For some of us it means a lifetime of learning.
When do you want to start? Your first class is a trial, so see our class times and come along.
Part of the Northwest London Schools of Taekwondo, teaching traditional ITF Taekwondo to children, teenagers and adults at Holy Innocents Church Hall in Kingsbury.
