Originally Posted by jade_dragon

ah ok i think you meant the belt tests thing.

short story of it is belt testing came about to rank fighters for matches against each other, the romantic story of it (lots of these in martial arts) is that a man trained in his white gi and his white belt, the grass, dirt, blood and sweat changed his belt many colors until it was black. When he trained harder all the stains caked and fell off, revealing that he had reached a new level and he began again, reinventing himself.

The belt has now become a way for a school to charge your kids and yourself more money. It is a trophy to be shown off, a way for you to guage your progression since the fighter has become one that needs a physical thing to spur him/her to continue working hard OR paying more money, I need neither. My ability to perform movements, eliminate movements that do not work for my abilities and body style and defend or attack are what I as well as my sefu guage my progression on physically, the way I apply everything guages the mental, I need no colored sash for that.

Even with the colored belt, it would mean nothing in a fight, just that I paid money to get tested on what was handed to me, like you said, based on what I was told, your logic was there but not applied wholistically.

Keep in mind that a UFC ring with a ref and gloves and filed finger nails and a list of things you can not do has very little to do with self defense in the streets. I know many of them have backgrounds in real defense, but to train for fighting like that changes the mental triggers for fighting, it is something that I as a person who has other things in life to do will not afford myself the thinning of my reactions for points and fame. I do not fight unless I intend to hurt the other person greatly or kill them using what is available to me, thinking that the other person means to kill me without a second though, this is why I avoid it whenever possible.