Hm. I always heard...
I always heard the belt system actually came from an American, post world war. He was teaching Karate in America, something he found during the world wa - and to his surprise he found that Americans want a series of short-term goals as they work towards a long term goal.
the problem was his Karate had two belts - white and black. And he couldn't keep people interested long enough on the journey to black belt (it was too much of a long term goal to hold their interest for long) so he came up with small stair steps on the way to black belt - so the Americans could focus on short term goals.
Even during the time I spent studying Judo, I never heard that Jigoro Kano was the "inventer of the belt system."
But it may well be true, because my story up above is just anecdotal information passed around a classroom that claimed it taught "self-defense" and in reality only taught some weird dance moves that weren't good for self-defense, and weren't much good for dance, either.
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In answer to your question, what does a black belt symbolize, it depends on the system. In most traditional martial art classes, a black belt signifies that you showed up to class, paid your fees to attend the class, did some movements in the air for hours, learned some semi-acrobatic kicks and self-defense moves that wouldn't work on Grandma.
However, in a BJJ curriculum, the belts are handed out for performance - fighting ability. If you can hang with the blue belts then you will eventually find yourself receiving a blue belt. It's all based on actual fighting performance - and its the only kind of "belt system" I care about.
It's a really, really, really good thing to have a belt system based on performance. People actually learn to fight!
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