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I remember when I was in high school, I had some friends who studied karate, and they were like, "I finally made it to black belt." Meaning, they were a master
by lkrubner 5y ago
I remember when I was in high school, I had some friends who studied karate, and they were like, "I finally made it to black belt." Meaning, they were a master now. They were 16 years old, and had maybe 3 years experience. In Taiwan, in the 1890s... uh, they would not be regarded as black belt.
Even then it was clear that there was a lot of "belt inflation" happening. The karate schools like the children to feel like they are making progress, so every 6 months the children got a new belt, until finally they were black belts.
It seems like the same thing has been happening with engineering titles.
- ok_dad 5y ago> In Taiwan, in the 1890s Karate is Japanese, but I get your point.
- lkrubner 5y agoWe are both wrong. I was thinking "Island south of Japan" and I said Taiwan, but I should have said Okinawa, which was conquered by Japan and part of the Japanese empire in the 1890s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyu_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyu_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate Taiwan was also conquered by Japan and was part of the empire in the 1890s, which I think is why I confused it with Okinawa.
- mrexroad 5y agoFwiw, black belt was basically when you actually started learning. Everything up until then was really just gaining what you needed in order to actually start learning. IIRC the “black” represented the dirt (effort) accumulated over time.