Judo Belts (Ranking system)
Judo belts ranking system of grading someone’s competence and it is done by judo belts colors, the system is separated into two sections in short:
the Kyu (‘students belts’)
and
Dan(‘master belts’).
Student judo belts
The Kyu section these are apprentice’s rankings as can be seen here:
| White 6th Kyu |  |
| Yellow 5th Kyu |  |
| Orange 4th Kyu |  |
| Green 3rd Kyu |  |
| Blue 2nd Kyu |  |
| Brown 1st Kyu |  |
To acquire one of those for example a white 6th Kyu judo belt, you must “become” a judoka.
How to do that?
Well you just need to come to the dojo put your feet on the tatami mat and there you go you are a white judo belt “owner”.
Easy right?
For the next, yelow judo belt, you must train hard for a while and present some of throwing techniques to your sensei.
Every next “level” you want to gain as a student judoka ask you for some new things learned, new techniques in tachi waza, ne waza or kansetsu waza.
Master judo belts
Also here is the Dan section of the ranking system:
| First dan Second dan Third dan Fourth dan Fifth dan |
     Black |
shodan (初段) nidan (二段) sandan (三段) yodan (四段) godan (五段) |
|
| Sixth dan Seventh dan Eighth dan |
 Red and White or Black |
rokudan (六段) shichidan (七段) hachidan (八段) |
|
| Ninth dan Tenth dan Eleventh dan |
 Red or Black |
kudan (九段) jūdan (十段) |
To become a master of judo in the first place you must, be a masters candidate a brown belt for a while.
In addition you must perform a judo kata, nage-no-kata in front of sort of a comity of judo masters, and if they consider you to have performed it properly and generally deserve to become a master of judo, you get your black belt.
Every next dan type of judo belt is harder to get and requires not only more time but also results in competitive judo and/or other kinds of contributions to your/global judo community.
jūdan
There are only a handful of judokas in history that achieved 10th dan, jūdan as seen on judoinfo.com
- Yamashita, Yoshitugu (1865-1935) Promoted 10th Dan 1935
- Isogai, Hajime (1871-1947) Promoted 10th Dan 1937
- Nagaoka, Hidekazu (1876-1952) Promoted 10th Dan 1937
- Mifune, Kyuzo (1883-1965) Promoted 10th Dan 1945
- Iizuka, Kunisaburo (1875-1958) Promoted 10th Dan 1946
- Samura, Kaichiro (1880-1964) Promoted 10th Dan 1948
- Tabata, Shotaro (1884-1950) Promoted 10th Dan 1948
- Okano, Kotaro (1885-1967) Promoted 10th Dan 1967
- Shoriki, Matsutaro (1885-1969) Promoted 10th Dan 1969
- Nakano, Shozo (1888-1977) Promoted 10th Dan 1977
- Kurihara, Tamio (1896-1979) Promoted 10th Dan 1979
- Kotani, Sumiyuki (1903-1991) Promoted 10th Dan 1984
- Daigo, Toshiro (1926- ), Promoted 10th Dan 2006
- Abe, Ichiro, Promoted 10th Dan 2006
- Osawa, Yoshimi, Promoted 10th Dan 2006
Now there are some equally important variations to this depending on what part of the world are you in.
More on this in Wikipedia , IJF , Kodokan.
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