Does Wing Chun Have Belts?

Wing Chun is a Chinese martial art that was popularized by Bruce Lee and Ip Man amongst others. Over the years, it has gone on to be one of the better known martial arts in the world and now has a global following. 

As a result, the usual questions are asked about Wing Chun which are also asked about other martial arts by outsiders. Today, we shall be answering questions as to whether Wing Chun has belts or not. As well as this, we’ll also be looking at whether Wing Chun actually needs belts as well, or whether the current system is better left off as it is. To learn more about Wing Chun and its belt culture, read on for more information.  

Does Wing Chun have a belt system?

The answer to this question is no. Not at least universally speaking. There may be the odd Wing Chun school out there that does use a belt system, but if this is the case then it goes against the grain. Sometimes (for whatever reasons), a martial art will not have a belt system and this is the case for Wing Chun.

Perhaps the reason for this is that when it first began, the Wing Chun masters felt that belts weren’t needed. For example, belts are often used in martial arts to keep track of students, or sadly even to make a profit out of students. This wasn’t the case for Wing Chun and it never caught on.

Interestingly, looking at the Russian martial art of Sambo – it seems that Sambo recently adopted a belt system after years of not using them. Of course, there are pros and cons to having belts but they are not used in Wing Chun. Remember, a lof of Wing Chun was based around self defense and these roots have not strayed. With this in mind, belts simply aren’t used.

Does Wing Chun have black belts? 

As you may have figured by now, Wing Chun doesn’t have a belt system. With this in mind, black belts are not used in the discipline. What’s worth noting is that senior Wing Chun figures are still respected in the art. For example, if you enter a Wing Chun dojo, you still may be expected to bow to your teacher. In other words, status is still a big deal in Wing Chun and roles are respected. 

Does Wing Chun need a belt system?

One question often posed is whether Wing Chun actually needs a belt system. As mentioned, there are certain benefits of using belts when thinking about the size of the school. However, you could also argue that there’s no need for Wing Chun to use belts either. The reason for this is that Wing Chun has come this far without belts and arguably doesn’t need them at this point either. 

For example, boxing and wrestling have also been around for years yet don’t use belts either. Further, one issue found with belts is that it can attract certain types of people that are attracted to the status of having a high belt, rather than actually training for their own reasons such as personal growth.

A second issue is that Wing Chun doesn’t have an active competition scene. Often, belts are used to mark the skill levels of two competitors. In other words, you don’t want to match a white belt up against a black belt. As Wing Chun doesn’t have regular competitions, there’s no real need to separate its practitioners in this way.

Are there grades in Wing Chun?

This is a question that depends entirely on each gym and differs from place to place. In other words, some dojos will make you test for a certain grading to see what your skill level is. The point of this is for teachers to be able to see where their students are in terms of progress. 

Overall, this makes sense if there isn’t a belt system as some teachers like to track progress of their students. This is especially the case if a gym is very large and less personal, where it makes sense to do this as otherwise you may get bogged down in a sea of various students. 

However, if you train at a very small dojo then often grading simply isn’t necessary. If you train in a small class, then the teacher will be able to see how you’re getting on anyway. For instance, they’re more likely to keep an eye on you during sparring so having a formal test isn’t necessary. 

Conclusion

For most of the time, Wing Chun does not use a belt system. Having said this, in some cases you can find certain gyms that will adopt a belt system for their own reasons. As mentioned, there are pros and cons to having belts but regardless, Wing Chun doesn’t use belts. 

It doesn’t look like Wing Chun will ever adopt a belt system any time soon either, seeing as Wing Chun has arguably peaked in popularity and is not very organized in a global sense.