Ile kirjoitti: ↑touko 18, 2017, 10.17

For over 400 years, there were no ranks or ranking systems, no black belts, in the traditional Japanese martial arts.... Somehow, these arts survived, and even prospered.

All that ended when Judo Founder Jigoro Kano adopted the Dan ranking system into Judo

The system of colored junior belts (for example, white → yellow → green → blue → brown → black) wasn’t invented in Japan at all – it was introduced in Europe in 1935 by Mikonosuke Kawaishi, who was instrumental in spreading Judo to there and then later brought back to Japan.
...
Again, it was a system that was introduced for…children, and it worked well…for children.