If go rank were "belts"?

Actorios · Post by **Actorios** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 9:27 am

In order to explain to someone your level, an easy way to express what 12k or 6k is, would be to convert it into "belts" like in judo, which people are more familiar with.

If we assume that dan level is "black belt", how would you choose to convert go rank into belts from white to brown?

amnal · Post by **amnal** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:20 am

Whilst everyone is likely to associate 'black belt' with 'really good', I'm sure I'm not alone in having no idea about the others!

jts · Post by **jts** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:21 am

I don't think that people are anymore familiar with the chromatic scale of judo (lower down than black belt) than they are with kyu ranks. It seems easiest to me to say that 1d is like a black belt, and he give 9H to a 9k, and a 9k gives 9H to an 18k, and an 18k gives 9H to a complete beginner.

Li Kao · Post by **Li Kao** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:40 am

AFAIK belts represent being able to do certain techniques, and are not about fighting strength. Go ranks on the other hand are all about strength. So I'm not sure how useful that comparison is.

Actorios · Post by **Actorios** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 10:45 am

jts wrote:I don't think that people are anymore familiar with the chromatic scale of judo (lower down than black belt) than they are with kyu ranks. It seems easiest to me to say that 1d is like a black belt, and he give 9H to a 9k, and a 9k gives 9H to an 18k, and an 18k gives 9H to a complete beginner.

Well, some management techniques involve a logic of belts in the same way as Judo (green, black and sometimes yellow):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Sigma
So, I would tend to believe this is somehow something which is quite well-known. Maybe it does depend from country to country.

Koroviev · Post by **Koroviev** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:27 am

Li Kao wrote:AFAIK belts represent being able to do certain techniques, and are not about fighting strength. Go ranks on the other hand are all about strength. So I'm not sure how useful that comparison is.

Depends, not in Brazilian jiu-jitsu for example.

Mivo · Post by **Mivo** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 11:44 am

When I was practicing judo as a kid, you didn't go from one belt colour to the next, but you'd get "stripes" added to your belt. Those were in the colour of the next belt (e.g. a white belt with three yellow stripes meant you were about to get promoted to the yellow belt). I however have no idea if that is commonly done so or if that was just something my local judo school did back in the late 70s. Using a system like this would allow for the white belt to be equaled to 25kyu (or whatever you want to use as "knows the very basics of how to play a legal game").

xed_over · Post by **xed_over** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 12:34 pm

Actorios wrote:If we assume that dan level is "black belt"

I always assumed that "black belt" would be pro level -- in the spirit of the book First Kyu, where there are no amateur dan ranks.

Loons · Post by **Loons** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 7:26 pm

I guess the colours aren't universal across martial arts? Though I guess it seems judo is the default. My memory suggested the sequence as red white yellow green blue purple brown black.

Also, I'm sure I've heard of teachers "awarding" go ranks based on knowledge as well as game results ; also I am under the impression many martial arts gradings have sparring components for at least some levels.

Ultimately; a pretty good analogy?

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Sat Sep 17, 2011 8:11 pm

xed_over wrote:I always assumed that "black belt" would be pro level -- in the spirit of the book First Kyu, where there are no amateur dan ranks.

Yea, this might be true in the past when dan meant pro dan. But now we have amateur dans.

Possible analogy:
amateur 1-dan = shodan = beginning dan = accepted to university
kyu = warm-ups = getting ready = pre-university education

In this analogy, to make black belt 1-dan means exactly: accepted to a university (which is not bad, but not great, yet

)
If one does not continue to study after reaching 1-dan, it's like declining a university education.

likely to associate 'black belt' with 'really good'

In this analogy, therefore, people who think black belt 1-dan as 'really good' are, shall we say, slightly misinformed.

Laman · Post by **Laman** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 12:02 am

just as a side note, are you all aware that belts in martial arts actually represent kyus and dans? not much converting needed. only go has more kyu grades

hyperpape · Post by **hyperpape** » Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:23 am

I've never done martial arts, but knew some people who had, and I "knew" that it went white, yellow, orange ...stuff...brown, black. I don't study jeopardy or trivial pursuit or anything, so I think it's pretty common knowledge.

Horibe · Post by **Horibe** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 6:39 am

Helel wrote:If you use the European colours I assume it would be:

1k - 2k : Brown

3k - 4k : Blue

5k - 6k : Green

7k - 8k : Orange

9k -10k : Yellow

> 10k : White

Make it 3 ranks per belt and I completely agree with this.

hyperpape · Post by **hyperpape** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 6:58 am

EdLee wrote:
xed_over wrote:I always assumed that "black belt" would be pro level -- in the spirit of the book First Kyu, where there are no amateur dan ranks.
Yea, this might be true in the past when dan meant pro dan. But now we have amateur dans.

Possible analogy:
amateur 1-dan = shodan = beginning dan = accepted to university
kyu = warm-ups = getting ready = pre-university education

In this analogy, to make black belt 1-dan means exactly: accepted to a university (which is not bad, but not great, yet )
If one does not continue to study after reaching 1-dan, it's like declining a university education.
likely to associate 'black belt' with 'really good'
In this analogy, therefore, people who think black belt 1-dan as 'really good' are, shall we say, slightly misinformed.

I guess there must be variation between different martial arts and probably also between different countries, but my impression was always that there was a huge variation within the realm of black belts, so that an "ordinary" black belt was simply incomparable to an advanced one, in the same way that an amateur low dan is simply incomparable to a professional 1 dan. Unlike an ordinary professional 1 dan, who is a huge underdog against a top pro, but still has a faint hope if they play.

Shorter version: there are < 2k go professionals (and not many more amateurs who are their equal). There are a lot more than 2k black belt martial artists, right?

EdLee · Post by **EdLee** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 1:11 am

hyperpape wrote:< 2k go professionals

Did you notice you inadvertently overload the meaning of "2k"?

hyperpape wrote:so that an "ordinary" black belt was simply incomparable to an advanced one,
in the same way that an amateur low dan is simply incomparable to a professional 1 dan.

Correct. That's why (meaningful) dan rankings are, well, meaningful/useful.

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