Can anyone prove to me a single martial art style has a universal colored belt system?

I don't know of any. When I was in judo the USJA had a universal colored belt system. I don't know if that has changed. I have a lifetime membership but I haven't kept up with it.

Back then it was

1st, 2nd, 3rd yellow

4th, 5th, 6th orange

then

Jr rank

8th, 9th, 10th blue

senior

8th, 9th, 10th green

next

Junior

3rd, 2nd, 1st purple

Senior

3rd, 2nd, 1st brown

Dan

1st - 10th Black

Everyone age and rank was recorded in the computer system. You can leave and come back 10 or more years and your rank is still listed. If you were a junior rank you would automatically be moved to senior rank. There was no additional test for that. This was true even though a senior ranked student is considered higher than a junior ranked student of equal rank.

This really only mattered when lining up for class or events. The highest ranked student were to the far left. Then in order of rank you move towards the right. If there was a purple belt and abrown belt the the brown belt lined up further on the left than the purple belt even though the testing requirement were the same.

Even though there were 3 degree of every rank most places didn't use this to determine the order of where you line up as many people didn't wear the patch to signify which kyu rank they had. Some schools did. I never visited their dojo to know if they used that to line up too.

Which of the 3 degrees you earned was often based on your written test scores. In our dojo we had to pass the written test before you could do the physical test. I can't say how other schools did it. I still have my book that give all of the requirement for every rank and what the color of belt are.

Since then several rules have changed and several throws have been removed. I can't say if the colored belt order has changed. But in the 80's it was universal.

There was one slight thing as for as promotion that was up to the instructor. A student that was not of senior rank age can be promoted to a senior rank if the instructor believe that student could handle it. If you had a senior rank you could no longer compete against children or anyone your age in competition. You had to fight against adults. I had to fight adults as a child. Only a few of us in our dojo did this.

I competed in local, state, national and junior nationals and the color rank was always the same.

edit:

I found this online. It gives all of the requirement in a pdf format for obtaining rank in for each kyu rank

http://www.usja-judo.org/downloads/

I was looking for the belt colors but I haven't located it so far other than I know it is in my book. The colors are universal for that organization. But not for judo as a whole. I can't say if it has changed.

Edit:

I found this too. It does break it down like I did, but it displays the color belt. It just does shows the jr rank equivalent to green and purple, but it doesn't tell you that is what they are.

http://www.usja-judo.org/promotion-requirements/

The original belt colors in Kajukenbo were: white, purple, blue, green, brown and black. Some schools have added yellow and orange belts between the white and purple belts. Other schools have added double color belts.

So, J, you are correct. There isn't a single school around the world that teaches the same style that uses the same order of colored belts. At least not in Kajukenbo, but maybe there is a relatively obscure style that is practiced by very few people, and they more or less kept things the same all these years throughout the world.

But until this style is found, let us assume that you are correct.

coloured belts seem to be entirely up to the school teaching them

if you take a big organisation like British Judo Association then all schools will follow the same syllabus and grade system but the schools in the organisation are all independent.

some martial arts dont have grades at all and some only have them in the west so that instructors can keep track of large numbers of students (and in some cases just milk more money out of them)

personally i dont get too hung up on belt colours anymore. i have various different belts in different martial arts. interestingly i have two red belts in different martial arts - one is a very low grade and one is a high grade.

please note that i am not making any comments about what is taught or by who (although i do think that the bja are excellent)

choi kwang do is the best example of a common grade system. it is an offshoot of taekwon do but now completely independent. it is entirely owned by one person (grand master choi) and all of the schools worldwide teach the same syllabus and follow the same grade system. thats the nearest i can get to proof for you, you'll have to email the head office in atlanta for more info.

I can only answer for the style I teach. We have the same belt system that they have in Japan and it has been the same for the over thirty years I have been in the association. White-Red-Green-Brown and black. Having said that I do know that there are schools that have the same style and name that have different belt system although they do not belong to the JKF of Wado-Kai.

I do know that there are schools and instructors of varying styles that have so many belts and stipes that it hard to keep up with, but of course this becomes a cash cow for those styles.

Good question J. I also see where people refuse to see that the belt system they use in their school is not the same used everywhere else. I never assume any color belt system is the same. One of the most varied colors in use is the blue belt. In some style it is a low color. In other it is a middle color. In still others it is considered a high ranked color belt. For example in the first dojo I trained in Blue belt was the second color belt we received (our system was White, Yellow, Blue, 2 Green belts, 3 Brown belts, Black). many other styles use Blue as a color just before Brown belt.

As you said there is no universal color belt system. And the McDojo/Belt-Mills have made what was already confusing in the 1960's when I began my training even worse. They added colors, stripes, and tips never used or needed before. This is only made worse by the desire to make money by promoting students.

...

Thanks for asking a good question. What about, instead of belt colors, the question addressed common requirements for kyu/dan grades. For instance, one school might have different belts/striping than another, but if the grade requirements are identical would this count for your question?

By the way, I don't know of any style that is old and broad (like a karate or jujitsu) that would even come close to being a yes for your question. A certain ryu/style within that art might be consistent because they have a strict adherance to tradition (Danzan Ryu, for instance), but even then there could be an outlier even among such a ryu that seeks to stay rooted in its traditions.

Where are you drawing the line on your inquiry, at the ryu level (Danzan, for example) or at the art level (Jujitsu, for example)?

Belt systems only apply to the school they are issued in. That is it. A black belt in Kyokushin in one school cannot be compared to a black belt issued in another Kyokushin school, even under the same umbrella organization. It cannot be compared because the comparison is incompatible.

People try to make everything fit in the same box, of course, but such projects usually produce more politics than skill.

the only universal belts I have ever seen are white & black but that's only from my personal experiences and isn't really proof at all lol

but what I have seen is a countless number of colours used by schools all over the world and none if them are universal among said schools.

There are no universal belt systems as far as I know. What would interest me even more is a "no belt" system in a modern martial art.

martial arts dont have a universal some just have levels others have some belts but there is still a black belt in almost all martial arts