According to professional martial arts teacher and martial arts historian Dave Coffman, there is no central authority that governs requirements for belt in martial arts. Although many martial artists, especially advanced martial artists, are in good physical shape, a specific belt rank is no guarantee of a certain level of conditioning or fitness.
Context
The martial arts community consists of dozens of styles, many of which have multiple sub-styles. Each sub-style might have hundreds of individual schools and organizations. Requirements for belt rank are school- or organization-level decisions. Many schools have formal or informal fitness requirements for promotion, which may apply to all belt levels or only to a selection of ranks.
Benchmark Requirements
One style of fitness requirement requires a minimum level of fitness for each belt level. For example, a school might require all students to be able to do 10 push-ups for their earliest level and 100 or more for a black belt. According to tae twon do black belt and teacher Ben Cohn, many tae kwon do schools set similar requirements for flexibility.
Improvement Requirements
Another common structure for fitness requirements is that students are expected to improve from belt level to belt level. American Kenpo Karate Academies of Albuquerque New Mexico does not set benchmark requirements. However, at each belt test students must do different kinds of calisthenics for one minute each. To pass, a student must do at least one more of each exercise than he did during his previous test.
Incidental Requirements
Though not a stated requirement, the rigors of martial arts study can push students to improve in fitness from belt to belt. In some schools, this comes from making upper-level classes more rigorous than those for novices. In others, it stems from an understanding that the belt test itself will be physically taxing. Students in either case will condition themselves in and out of class in order to keep up with expectations, despite having no official fitness requirements for rank.
Special Needs
Ben Cohn has spent much of the past five years teaching students with special physical needs. According to Cohn, schools that accept disabled students will adjust their requirements to account for different abilities among their students. In some cases this means simply waiving certain requirements. In others, a teacher will assign different requirements according to a student’s goals and abilities.
Ultimate Black Belt Test
The Ultimate Black Belt Test, a program run by martial arts industry consultant Tom Callos, takes an extreme approach to fitness for the martial arts. To pass this 13-month test, a student must accumulate a total of 55,000 push-ups and sit-ups and run 1,000 miles. This isn’t a requirement set for baseline fitness, but rather a demonstration of the power of accumulating small efforts regularly and over time.
References
- Dave Coffman, Martial Arts School Owner, Bushido Martial Arts, Hillsboro, Oregon
- Ben Cohn, Tae Kwon Do Instructor, Hillsboro, OR
- "AKKA Black Belt Book"; Bill Packer; 1996
- Ultimate Black Belt Test
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