it differs across the different schools of karate.
edit: this seems to be a good source for the belt order across the different styles. i usually paste the important part of the answer, but since the list is kind of long, i’ll just let you go look at it.
Actually, I researched this a bit more, and it seems there is a standard order of White to Yellow to Green to Brown to Black. If you use the source I referred to in my first quip, you will notice this pattern stays for all the different styles whenever it has those colors.
Wine3213 you were half right. There are 3 levels of Karate, Junior, Intermediate and Senior students. The belts for junior is White – Yellow – Red – Green – Purple – Brown – Black. Then for intermediate and senior students the ranking is white – yellow – green – brown – black.. Within the belts you have a ‘Tabbing’ system. E.g. Yellow – Yellow and 1 green tab – Yellow 2 green tabs – Green. The system is generally different between martial arts and even within different styles of Karate (I listed GoJu karate). In Judo the belts are White – Yellow – Orange – Green – Blue – Brown – Black with the respective tagging system to go along with it.
I don’t think there is any single order the belts follow. The belt order in Hapkido is white, orange, yellow, green, blue, red, black. There are no stripes on any of the belts and the only time you can add “degrees” is once you have earned a black belt. I also studied a style of Kung Fu that had no belts at all, I studied it in tandem with Hapkido, but I can’t say I have a black belt in Kung Fu because I wasn’t awarded a single belt.
@Andrew- Ok, you caught me, I just wanted to work ninjas into the discussion. I have to say, I’m thoroughly impressed with sferik’s usage of that character. I need to learn that special technique.
I know that some martial art purests look down on the belt system all together. They see it as just a bs way of showing rank, imstead of letting skill show how advanced a student is.
I heard that a longlong time ago they didn’t promote you with a new belt everytime you deserved so, it was just that you kept your belt for your whole life without washing it and wore it at every training session. This caused it to become very dirty and change colors over time. Eventually it would turn black, meaning you have trained a very long time and have got skills that kills.
It varies depending on the spefic discipline and even the instructor. The one I am most familiar with goes white, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown (three degrees), and black.