Full Coloured System
There is a common belt system in modern Martial Arts that follows a very similar colour system. There is a general meaning to each colour in every modern art that has colour belts which goes:
The white belt symbolizes the birth or beginning of a person’s will to acquire the skills
Yellow signifies the first beams of sunlight that give a seedling new growth and new life.
Green is a representation of growth
Blue represents the sky and the light it provides all growing things
Purple represents the colours of the dawn
Brown is a representation of the ripening of seed during the maturing and harvesting process
Black symbolizes the darkness beyond the sun
This colour system originated from Judo in Japan. It was then added to Karate and then it was slowly adapted to the modern version of Martial Arts. The meaning of this coloured belt system is to signify the involvement of someone new in the martial art world of their specific style. This is slightly different to the meaning in Kung Fu where the story for the colours in Kung fu is that a white belt is given to someone new and that they must always wear it when they train and never wash it so after years and years it will go from white to black. This story shows that one must be dedicated to their respective art and how dedicated one must be to achieve a black belt.
Stripe Coloured System
Taekwondo has a slightly different coloured belt system where it doesn't progress from full-coloured belts but with stripes to full coloured instead. It also has more stages to progress through from 10th kup to 1st kup and it goes from white to white with a yellow stripe all the way to red with a black stripe as the 1st kup. After 1st kup you can be graded to a black belt which it goes from 1st dan to 9th dan, 1st dan being a novice black belt and 9th dan being a grand master.
Martial Arts Uniforms
In martial arts, a uniform is generally required to grade and practice the specific martial arts. There are subtle differences between the common uniforms of Judo, Karate, and Taekwondo. In Taekwondo, there is a deeper neck area and a difference in length compared to the karate uniform whilst everything else is the same. The difference between Karate and Judo gi is the weight as typically the judo gi is twice the weight at around 1kg compared to the Karate Gi being 500 grams.
The uniform in Kung fu is traditional Mandarin clothing as typically people who practice kung fu was a lot of the population in traditional times so the clothing people use in modern times was the common clothing they had used back then. Another significant Chinese Martial art uniform is the Shaolin uniform. Its typically a gray piece of clothing that looks unique compared to other martial art uniforms. It also has something that wraps around th feet which no other uniform has.
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