Belts & Their Meaning
Belt System
The color belt ranking system is helpful and well organized way of representing individual’s improvement but it really doesn’t ensure that your karate belt utterly defines you. Karate belts carry importance for keeping standardization of requirements which in return helps to maintain the values based on systems and integrity. What each rank means to a karateka (a practitioner of karate) is about their training journey, color by color.
White Belt
White belt is the representation of very initial level of karate. It is worn by the students who have just started their study about karate. So, this white belt symbolizes their enthusiasm to learn and are a clean slate.
Yellow Belt
Yellow belt awarded to a student when he demonstrates that he is actually adopting this learning phase in a fruitful way. It also symbolizes the first beam of sun light that actually gives new rays and hope every morning. So, this yellow belt gives hope to a learner that s/he is actually learning and practicing at his/her best.
Orange belt
Orange belt represents that student has further opened up his mind and his skills are improving rapidly. Just like when sun rays turn orange, giving representation of the growing strength of sun. The orange belt also symbolizes improvement in an individual’s skills.
Purple Belt
As purple represents the color of dawn and the sun progressing throughout the day, purple belt is awarded to students who are converting into the intermediate stages of the learning phase.
Green belt
Green belt represents that the intermediate levels of karate learning have been accomplished successfully. Just like a trees green leaves showing growth and strong roots. Green belt is awarded to intermediate students who are continuing to grow and become strong in their kills.
Brown Belt
Just like the of ripening seed that is ready for harvest, the brown color in karate belts represents that students skills are becoming mature and he’s leveling up to higher expertise. So, brown belt is awarded to students whose techniques have begun to mature.
Black belt
Black belt is awarded to students who seek to gain deeper and complete understanding of physical and mental teaching of karate. Many people after receiving black belts are considered to be expertise in their domain and they start passing on their skills to others.
Achievement of rank should be considered as a side effect of karate training and it should not be taken as a key goal. The key goal must be personal development and growth at whatsoever rank level you attain.
Grand Master Lowe's goal is to build more instructors of the art.