Krav maga belts

Krav Maga belts allow the evaluation of students progression. It symbolizes the student achievements throughout his Krav Maga career. Most of Krav maga federations share the same ranking system using color belts.

But unlike other martial arts, color belts are not universally adopted in Krav Maga. For example, the IKMF uses grades or groups named Practitioner, Graduate, Expert, and Master. It is also possible to find some school with no ranking at all. Krav Maga is all about being prepared for real life situation, rankings symbolize nothing in the real world.

Standard Krav Maga Belts

From beginner to confirmed black belt, the color belts system is used in Krav Maga and most other martial arts. A lot of Krav Maga techniques come from Judo, explaining why it also took its grading system. Each belt represents a set of techniques mastered and time of practice. Moving from one belt to another usually takes 12 months or less for the lower grades. As the grades increase, the expectations increase as well. Precision, accuracy, efficiency are all important points in Krav Maga. Some Krav Maga federations like the FEKM implements sparing as well in their curriculum in order to put the students in a position of high stress, intensity and violence.

The classic scheme of color is as following :

A student with a black belt is considered an expert. He continues his specialization through the dan levels until he reaches the status of master.

IKMF grading system

The IKMF uses a different grading system. It is divided in three sections : practitioner, graduate and expert. Each one is subdivided in 5 levels. Therefore, to reach graduate level you must pass all 5 exams from practitioner P1 to P5. Instead of the color belt, IKMF students are given a badge colored according to their level and a number of bar to symbolize the progression to the next level.

	Practioner Level (P1-P5)
	Graduate Level (G1-G5)
	Expert Level (E1-E5)