Warning: a black belt is only a black belt—your rank is your Dan or Kyu rank. Anyone one can buy a belt that’s black. It’s like putting a title of DR. in front of your name and claiming to be an actual DR. You only become a DR. by having the diploma from an accredited medical school to prove it. This is true of every college degree.

The martial arts world is full of people claiming "black belt" rank who have never heard of the Dan and Kyu rankings, and instructors claiming to be an "instructor" without anyone's certification or recognition of such.

Remember: A Black Belt is only a piece of colored cloth. Your actual rank or “grade” is your authentic diploma—properly awarding a Dan or Kyu rank which is the universally accepted standard by all major systems: Japanese, Korean and Okinawan.

The Chinese have their own ranking system, however they have had to accept the "karate" standard for rank. This is shown when they put anyone in competition and they must place their student according to "belt rank". As a matter of fact, many Chinese systems have now adopted the colored belt system.

The difference between Shihan & Hanshi The "shi" in shihan means teacher or master. The "shi" that's used in hanshi means (gentle)man, samurai or warrior, or scholar.Hanshi is also "teacher of teachers"

Japanese uses a broad array of honorific suffixes for addressing or referring to people. These honorifics are gender-neutral and can be attached to first names as well as surnames.
When addressing or referring to someone by name in Japanese, an honorific suffix is usually used with the name. Dropping the honorific implies a high degree of intimacy and is reserved for one's lover, younger family members, and very close friends, although within sports teams or among classmates it can be acceptable to use family names without honorifics. When referring to a third person, honorifics are used except when referring to one's family members while talking to a non-family-member, or when referring to a member of one's company while talking to a customer or someone from another company. Honorifics are not used to refer to oneself, except to be arrogant (see ore-sama, below), to be cute (see chan), or sometimes when talking to small children, to teach them how to address the speaker

Kōhai (後輩) is a junior, the reverse of senpai, but it is not normally used as an honorific.

Shidōin (指導員:しどういん), intermediate instructor, also unrelated to grade.

Shishō (師匠 : ししょう) is another title used for martial arts instructors.

Senpai (先輩) is used to address or refer to one's senior colleagues in a school, company, sports club, or other group. So at school, the students in higher grades than oneself are senpai. Students of the same or lower grade are not senpai, nor are teachers. In a business environment, colleagues with more experience are senpai, but one's boss is not a senpai. Like "Doctor" in English, senpai can be used by itself as well as with a name.

Sensei (先生) (literally meaning "born before me") is used to refer to or address teachers, doctors, politicians and other authority figures. It is used to show respect to someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery in an art form or some other skill, and is also applied to novelists, poets, painters, and other artists, including manga artists. In Japanese martial arts, sensei typically refers to someone who is the head of a dojo. As with senpai, sensei can be used not only as a suffix, but also as a stand-alone title.

Renshi (錬士: れん): Ren means "polished, tempered" and shi means person.

Kyōshi (教士: きょうし) mean Professor or philosophy.Therefore Kyoshi equals a professor capable of teaching the philosophy of the martial arts.
Kyōshi (教師 : きょうし), which in everyday Japanese can be a more modest synonym for sensei, is sometimes used to indicate an instructor.

Shihan (師範 : しはん), merely means chief instructor; unlike the titles above it is not related to grade. (In the Isshin-ryū school of karate-do, Shihan is used to refer to 5th degree black belts or higher.)

Hanshi (範士 : はんし) The Han means 'example, model' and indicates ' a teacher that can serve as an ideal model fore others.It also refers to a senior expert considered a "teacher of teachers". This title is used by many different arts for the top few instructors of that style, and is sometimes translated "Senior Master" or even "Grand Master".

Soke: The head of a family (such as a patriach) or "originator". This meaning the person who formed the particular martial art style

In the Japanese martial arts, the further subdivisions of black belt ranks are called dan grades where higher numbers means higher rank. Yūdansha (roughly translating from Japanese to "person who holds a black belt") describe those who hold a black belt rank. While the belt remains black, stripes or other insignia can be added to denote seniority. In some arts, very senior dan grades will wear differently colored belts such as in judo and some forms of karate where a fifth dan will wear a red and white belt, which becomes red only at even higher ranks.

In contrast to the "black belt as master" stereotype, a black belt commonly indicates the wearer is competent in a style's basic technique and principles.Since in many styles a black belt takes approximately three to six years of training to achieve, a good intuitive analogy would be a bachelor's degree: the student has a good understanding of concepts and ability to use them but has not yet perfected their skills. In this analogy a master's degree and a doctorate would represent advancement past the first degree.

Another way to describe this links to the terms used in Japanese arts; shodan (for a first degree black belt), means literally the first/beginning step, and the next grades, nidan and sandan are each numbered as "ni" is two and "san" is three, meaning second step, third step, etc. The shodan black belt is not the end of training but rather as a beginning to advanced learning: the individual now "knows how to walk" and may thus begin the "journey".

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