Black Belt Blog - Mas Max

September, 2025

“Crawl to a new partner,” Mas Guru Agung’s voice cut through the room. 

Six hours into my black belt test, I’d stopped counting the discomforts in my body as distinct pains. Sure I could name them if I tried: headache, nausea, bruises up and down my arms and legs and a finger I thought might have been fractured by a recent snake strike. But they all blended together, an indistinct haze of pain and exhaustion intent on battering down my resolve. 

Finding a new partner proved hard, we’d all been blindfolded before this exercise began. Still, my fingers eventually brushed someone and we began to circle, weaving our arms and legs in the familiar motions of the crawl. 

I was trying as hard as I could, I loved this movement, but I was flagging. The pain and exhaustion were proving too much. I kept falling out of stance and tripping over myself as we moved. Mas Guru Agung must have seen because she spoke again, her voice now coming from somewhere to my left. “Don’t be tired yet, the test has barely even started.”

Then she said something that would change the course of the test in my mind. “Remember, at any time, if you want to stop your test, just tell a black belt and we’ll end it right there. This isn’t something we’re doing to you, it’s a journey you’re taking yourself.”

She’d said it before but now, in my exhausted state, I really registered what it meant. My first thought was immediate: No, I can’t do that. I’ve told my friends at school that I’m taking a black belt test. What will they think when I come back and I’m not a black belt? My second thought followed so closely on the heels of the first it nearly got kicked in the shins. Why is that your first thought? Is that really why you’re doing this? 

It wasn’t a good enough reason. If that’s why I was testing, I needed to stop the test right there. I almost did, but hesitated. I thought back to the months of training leading up to this point, and realized there had to be more to the story. But if this was my journey, then I couldn’t take it without knowing why. I had to find a better reason.

What Is Rank?

Years ago, Mas Guru Agung gathered the teen class and asked us essentially this same question. This was during the latter half of the pandemic so we were training outside in a field on Mount Tabor. We sat in a circle on the dusty ground while the setting sun and the reservoir's electric lamps cast us in alternating circles of red and golden light. We were silent for a time before trying to answer. We all knew the ranks, blue sash second stripe, green sash first stripe, white sash third stripe, but what did any of them actually mean?

The first answer we gave was the most obvious one. Rank, together with our standards, was a way to measure your knowledge of the art. It sounded sensible enough, but Mas Guru Agung pressed us for more. She said it wasn’t the whole story and in the years since, I’ve learned why. As a teacher in the white sash class, I’ve found rank to be far less important to my teaching than I had expected. It’s sometimes a convenient way to divide the room: “White sashes run down to that end of the floor! First stripes by Mas Zach over here! Second stripes all the way over there by the garage door!” But even without the stripes, I’d know what to teach them. The first step to being a teacher is to know and care for our students. That means knowing what they need to work on without counting stripes on their sashes. 

After a little more discussion, we came upon another answer. We suggested that rank existed as a mark of achievement. The stripes and sashes and promotion ceremonies were all celebrations of what you had learned and a symbol of your skill. 

Mas Guru Agung agreed that was an important part of rank, but she didn’t end the discussion. She seemed to be waiting for more. After a short pause, Mas Tula, a green sash on the other side of the circle, raised her hand and offered a completely different perspective. “We have rank,” she said, “so you know who to ask for help.”

It was something I’d never before considered, but once she said it, it made so much sense. Wearing sashes had seemed like it went against so many principles in our art. If our goals were ‘ego in service of ilmu’ and accepting our teammates, why did we have signs that said, “I know more than you,” wrapped around our waists. But if those signs instead said, “I can help you learn more,” it aligned with our school’s mission instead of fighting against it. A blue sash third stripe, worried about setting up attacking for their kembang, can do a quick sweep of a room or hallway and know who can help them. Anyone green sash or above has been there before and can give them advice. 

Nearly four years later, at the black belt test after my own, Mas Guru Agung gave us one final piece to the puzzle. She explained that ranks were themselves a test. When you finish a test, you aren’t done. You still have to complete your ‘perchibian’, lasting anywhere from a couple months to a year, during which you put into practice the lessons the test taught you. In that same time, your teachers watch to see if you use your new rank for good, or if it gets to your head. In that way, your rank is its own sort of test, to see if you’ll use your authority to help others. 

Though the question had come to me early in my black belt test, it took the rest of the first day before I found the answer. We were in Scico, waiting for horse stance to begin. We stood side by side at the window, looking out at a thunderstorm that crashed and beat beyond the glass. 

I was filled with a joy and peace unlike anything I’ve felt before or since. At that moment, I finally understood the reason I had tested. The lessons I had learned and this moment of joy were worth everything I’d been through and whatever was still to come. Being a black belt wasn’t worth that. Expectations from my friends at school weren’t worth that. An eight foot stretch of black cloth certainly wasn’t worth that.

This was.

Ask anybody here and we’ll tell you. We’d still train if there were no ranks. We’d still take black belt tests as well. The cloth we tie around our waists, the titles some of us are called by, these aren’t the goal. They just mark who has been given the gifts that we call tests, and show you who to ask if you need help learning more. 

-Mas Max