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All taekwondo students wear white or colored belts to indicate their skill levels. Solid-color belts represent mastery of particular skills, while striped belts show that students are still learning those skills. All beginning students wear white belts, which represent innocence. The black belt is the highest rank. As a student’s skills grow, he or she will earn belts in the following order:

• Yellow stripe.
• Yellow belt, representing the Earth. The roots of your taekwondo form are ready for a beautiful plant to grow.
• Green stripe.
• Green belt, representing the plant. Your taekwondo is starting to grow from the Earth.
• Blue stripe.
• Blue belt, representing the sky. Your taekwondo skills are growing strong, toward the blue sky.
• Red stripe.
• Red belt, representing danger. You are becoming very skilled in your taekwondo, but still have more to learn about self-control.
• Black stripe.
• Black belt, representing maturity and the highest rank. You have attained a good level of skill in taekwondo, including rejection of darkness and fear. the black belt representing the highest rank

Digging Deeper Find out more about Taekwondo terminology.

Students wearing taekwondo belts from white to red are called “kup” grade students. For example, a white belt student is a 10th kup student, and a student who is one grade away from a black belt is a 1st kup. Black belts are known as Dan grades when the students are more than 16 years old or Poome grades for students 16 years old and under. Black belts go from 1st Dan or 1st Degree to 9th Dan.

To earn the next belt, each student must master certain skills.