The ranking system is the lifeblood of any martial art. All students are considered to be white belts when they start training, even if they do not wear a gi (uniform) with an "official" white belt. From white belt, students progress through yellow, orange, green, blue, brown and shodan-ho ranks before earning their black belts. The following guidelines outline the average time it can take students to progress through the ranks. However, these are only guidelines based on class attendance, effort and progress for teenagers and adults of six to eight classes per month and the assumption that the student trains 12 months per year. Depending on their effort and/or level of concentration, children can take up to twice as long to achieve each rank.
- White to yellow — four to six months
- Yellow to orange — four to six months
- Orange to green — four to six months
- Green to blue — six to eight months
- Blue to brown — eight to ten months
- Brown to shodan-ho — ten to twelve months
- Shodan-ho to black — twelve to eighteen months of training, plus the student must attend about a dozen black belt classes (which are conducted monthly by Sensei Manara)