Watashi wa rokkyuu Kyokushin karateka desu. Translation: I am an sixth kyu Kyokushin karateka; plain English: I am a student of Kyokushin karate and have attained the rank of yellow belt (see below for description of the meanings of belts and kyu).
 
 
This is Sosai Masutatsu Oyama: the creator of Kyokushin karate. He was a student of another discipline until his sensei told him that he could not learn anymore from a teacher and that he must go and learn on his own. Sosai went to live in the mountains and developed Kyokushin. 
 
 

A kyu is a level, starting at the 12th kyu and progressing down to 1st kyu, being followed by the black belts. Between each different coloured belt is a transition belt which has the colour of the last belt earned with a single vertical stripe of the colour of the next belt. This transition belt is a fully fledged belt of its own and sometimes requires its own test (depending on the school, the sensei, the student's progress, the level, etc). The belts progress as follows: 

12th kyu: white belt
10th kyu: orange belt
8th kyu: blue belt
6th kyu: yellow belt
4th kyu: green belt
2nd kyu: brown belt
Shodan (1st dan black belt)


Typically, when I tell someone I'm a 'yellow belt', people assume I am a beginner. However, in kyokushin, as can be seen above, it's the third colored belt. However, it is not 'halfway' to black belt as it may appear from the above list. It is halfway down the list to 'black belt', however, the time to progress from one belt to the next increases dramatically as one moves down in kyu. The transition from white to orange can be done in a couple months with regular practice; orange to blue in ~3-6 months; blue to yellow in ~4-10 months. From yellow on, it's a bit slower. In particular, even with consistent training, transition from brown to black usually takes a year or more, and then further transitions from 1st dan to 2nd dan black belts take a number of years combined. Thus, while yellow may appear to be halfway, it's probably more appropriate to say it's about 25% of the journey towards black. And probably only about 10% of the pain, because that progresses with the belts, too.

OSU !

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