What does it mean when they add a piece of tape to your karate belt?

Question

What does it mean when they add a piece of tape to your karate belt?

Answer 1

It depends in our style at what belt the student is.  For some lower belts, it's just to keep encouraging the kid and show that he's getting closer to his next belt.  In the intermediate and expert belts, it does show a promotion to the next kyu or dan.

We also use stripes to show who has earned teaching titles and who is being evaluated for promotion to black belt.

Answer 2

well some martial arts actually get you to sew a bit of ribon on your belt. it means different things in different styles but generally it means you are almost ready to grade or you are ready to grade or you are at this level you just havnt been able to attend a grading so you cant actually get your next belt yet.

Answer 3

It was originally started in many schools to give younger students short term goals, rather then making them learn everything between belts before they got any kind of advancement. It is just a system used to motivate children to keep going. It was really started as a McDojo practice.

You could have belts with various color stripes, however you would have to charge for each stripe, because belts are not free. A piece of tape costs very little, but can be an excellent motivator to an 8 year old because it gives them a sense of accomplishment and helps set short term goals, rather then a year between belts.

We don't do it at our school, but I don't see anything wrong with it as a motivation tool.

Answer 4

in most style is signifys moving up in rank for that belt, or even at my school it means you learned a specifically skill or set that the instructure saw. On black belts these typically come with teaching time, and experience.

Answer 5

Every school does not do this. But it is used to encourage students to continue. The theory is that the student feels as if they have accomplished something(higher rank). But they aren't quite ready for the next colored rank.

Yes they can buy belt now with a stripe or several stripe to represent the same thing, but of course that would cost the student more money.

Many school feel and some know that if they don't promote the students often they will lose those students and the revenue.

I love that at our school we don't promote rank. Rank is something that is earned and not paid for by students and their parents. Now if a student is not ready to be tested we try to discourage them from testing. But if they insist on taking the test my instructor will ask a respected black belt from another school to test them so the test will not be biased. Sometimes I'll test those students too. I have a couple of students that he teaches from another dojo that he wants med to test. He reminds me not to be too hard on them because they are only testing for their orange in jujitsu. One student is more ready than the other. But if they don't pass they just don't pass. In the style of martial arts that they take they do tips and stripes. We don't, but they wanted to learn jujitsu in addition to what is being taught at their dojo. We taught their instructor a few jujitsu techniques when he was testing for his 2nd dan. Their board was so impressed they awarded him his 4th dan.

Answer 6

We have 5 major criteria for advancing in belt.  You get a colored tip (free) for each of the 5 things, so when you have all 5 tips, you are ready to test for the next belt.  

For example, white tip is knowing your form, green tip is for knowing your blocking set, red tip is for terminology and attendance, yellow tip is for self defense and blue tip is for 1 step sparring and punching defense.  

James

Answer 7

its to denote steps of a rank in some arts you cant test for your next belt if you dont have a certain amount of stripes....i studied at one place who remains nameless...and i got my first "stripe" the first day...i would have gotten all three "stripes" by my second but they can only give one per day its a joke to me if your ready to test test i you dont pass your loss no need for added bs...

Answer 8

it means you're one step closer to getting your next belt.

i dont really see a point in it really....why cant they just give you a belt, rather than put a piece of tape on the one you already have?

largely they did this originally to give kids a sense of achievement. so they are always earning something.