The Black Belt Mentality

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Recently, HBO has been showing re-runs of The Karate Kid Part I to III. Aside from getting a real treat from recalling how things were back in the 1980s, it also got me thinking about why people pursue the martial arts. One of the most notable features of studying martial arts is the black belt. If someone says he/she has a black belt in a particular martial art, we cannot avoid thinking "wow, bad ass!"

There are legends about the origin of the black belt. One story I heard was that Okinawan karatekas used to tie a white sash around their kimonos during training, and over the years the sash would darken because of accumulated dirt until it became black. So having a blackened sash would be a sign that one had been practicing for many years and was thus competent in the art. Historically, it seems the belt color system was introduced by Kano Jigoro (founder of Judo) when he started publicly teaching judo in the 1880s.

Either way, the black belt is widely recognized as a sign of accomplishment and competence in a martial art. Given that it usually takes at least two years of constant practice to achieve a black belt, the mystique of having a black belt is understandable. The black belt is so iconic that there's even a magazine named after it, Black Belt Magazine, one of the oldest martial arts publications in the United States.

Of course, in martial arts communities there has been concern that the martial arts are being cheapened by the so-called McDojos, usually referring to franchised martial arts clubs. These training centers are not bad in and of themselves, but some serious martial artists complain that some of these centers misrepresent the martial arts by either churning out large numbers of black belts in a short amount of time (leading to half-baked martial artists) or by misleading students into thinking they're the next Chuck Norris and can therefore handle any life and death situation, when the training curriculum is anything but realistic.

A real danger is if some guy gets his black belt after only a few months and he decides to open his own gym and call it a "self defense" club. That's when people can get in serious trouble if they think they can apply what they learn there in the street.

This just goes to show that official rank or title doesn't necessarily tell the whole tale. There can be brown belts who can move and fight better than a black belt, for example. It depends on how they train. Which brings me to another point.

I remember my aikido sensei once saying that the black belt is not the ultimate goal. Rather, it just means that one has mastered enough of the basics in order to truly start learning and exploring the deeper meaning and nuances of the art. And this type of thinking brings us to life in general.

We can never really learn enough. As noted American historian Will Durant once said, "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." Once we accept this, that we know enough to realize that we know nothing, then we can have the humility to actually be open to new ideas and new paradigms.

In the end, the black belt is supposed to be a sign saying "I'm ready to learn more" rather than as something to be used to intimidate or impress others. I suppose this is why some of the highest masters of a martial art sometimes wear a white belt, the sign of the novice.

In a deeper sense, everything always comes full circle and it is something that anyone on the spiritual path should realize if one is to progress.