Our 10-Belt White-to-Black "Hard-Soft" Progression System
In Hapkido, the level of skill (rank) is designated by a colored belt worn around the waist:
- Color-belt ranks below Black Belt are called grades (KUP in Korean)
- Black-belt ranks are referred to as Degrees or Dans
For many Martial Arts and Self-Defence Systems, achieving Black Belt level is a (quick) 2.5/3-year affair, with trainees grading almost every 3-4 months. This is often called the "Conveyor Belt" whereby the focus is on getting higher belts, fast. This approach may often lead to questions being raised regarding the real-world quality of these Black Belts when it comes to their true, realistic abilities and knowledge of/for self-defence and combat.
This is NOT how we do things and this NOT the Hapkido way.
We believe that earning a Black Belt in Hapkido is and should be a monumental life achievement: one must have reached a high level of knowledge, technicality, expertise, physical and mental fitness and maturity over the years across the 8 components of Hapkido (from long-range and short-range self-defence to break falls, sparring, defence weapons etc.) to be able to deserve to wear a Black Belt around the waist.
That's why we follow the strict 10-Belt White-to-Black "Hard-Soft" Progression System of the Australian Hapkido Association (AHA)
To be allowed by AHA Masters to go for Black Belt grading and achieve a 1st degree Black Belt, trainees must have trained regularly for a minimum of 6 years, must've successfully graded for each one of the 10 belts prior to Black, and must've clocked a minimum of 2,000 training hours along the way.
