What Are The Requirements To Become A Judo Black Belt?

Despite there being thousands of judo black belts in the world, achieving this rank is not easy at all. At the very least, a judo black belt is a personal milestone from all the hard work you have put in to the sport. Whilst it is not overly difficult to become a black belt in judo, it does require hard work, determination and perseverance – skills which most people don’t seem to have.

Judo is a martial art which is very hard on the body. It’s rare to see a black belt in their late 30’s or early 40’s who doesn’t have a chronic injury. In this sense, judo black belts should be given a lot of respect for the sacrifice they have made to their body. Striking arts may also give you injuries, but these are less life changing. Even other grappling martial arts such as jiu-jitsu may require longer to get a black belt, but affect the body much less overall.

The Only Real Requirement For A Judo Black Belt

The only real concrete requirement to be a judo black belt in any country is age. On the official Kodokan website (written in Japanese), it says that you cannot receive a black belt before you are 14. Of course, you’re supposed to have around 10 years of regular training, but there is no doubt that a McDojo or two has awarded people black belts just because they paid enough money.

Officially though, if you trained around twice per week for 4-7 years, this should be enough to earn you a black belt provided you have mastered all of the basics. This is more than a sport such as taekwondo, where it would take 3-5 years on average and less than BJJ which would take 8-10 years, whilst training a little more than twice per week.

Overall, the only real thing that matters is whether you earnt the belt or not. Anyone can get promoted to a black belt by an instructor who doesn’t care about judo. However, if you’ve put in the blood sweat and tears, this is really all that matters.

Judo Black Belt Status Around The World

Being a black belt in judo mostly differs from country to country. Not only is there a skill gap in terms of nations, but the governing body also has different requirements in each region. A Japanese judoka with a black belt, is likely a lot more qualified than a South American black belt.

For example, in Great Britain, there are 3 different governing bodies of judo alone. Black belts can be certified by 3 different associations, the AJC (Amateur Judo Association), BJA (British Judo Association) and the BJC (British Judo Council).

In America the two most well known associations are the JBBA (Judo Black Belt Association), Team USA judo and the USJA (United States Judo Association).

Whilst none of these organizations hand out black belts or give tests for people to become a black belt, they do keep track of active judo black belts within their countries.

These organizations become even more confusing as they are disjointed from one another and don’t really mean anything even if you have paperwork with their logo on it. You can be a legitimate judo black belt in any country without a certificate or medal to prove yourself.

Do You Need To Compete To Become A Judo Black Belt?

You don’t neccessarily need to compete in order to become a judo black belt, although it is encouraged given that it will show your level of judo against high level resisting opponents.

Some gyms and countries will take this a step further and promote those who do well in competition faster than average students. This makes sense, since if you’re training harder and making judo a more competitive sport than other students in your gym, you will certainly overtake them if they don’t care as much.

However, competing in judo tournaments is not required for a promotion – but randori is. Unless you are injured or exceptionally old, there is no way around this. Sparring is used to both sharpen and test your skills. It is a key component of martial arts and even if not done regularly, cannot be ignored completely. If there is no randori in your judo gym, it could be a McDojo since there is no way to test if your techniques actually work. Martial arts without sparring are not martial arts, they are simply an art form.

By sparring you can also get a good feel for how you stack up against other judokas from both your own gym and other gyms in the local area.

Fake Judo Black Belts

Thankfully this isn’t a huge problem in judo, but it does plague a variety of martial arts (judo not excluded). Typically you will find the odd delusional person who travels from dojo to dojo with a black belt and vague story of how they got it. In the western world, judo circles are fairly small, so the chances are if you are a black belt, you will know (or at least know of) all the other decent black belts in your city.

Therefore this can be policed rather easily. Nobody can stop a random man from tying a black belt around his waist and claiming his is an expert judoka. But the mats don’t lie and these people get found out very fast.

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