Dan (rank)
"Rokudan" redirects here. For the koto composition commonly abbreviated as 'Rokudan', see Rokudan no shirabe. Dan Dan and Kyū ranks are indicated by belt color or by stripes on the belt Chinese name Traditional Chinese 段 Simplified Chinese 段 Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin duàn Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization duan4 Korean name Hangul 단 Hanja 段 Transcriptions Revised Romanization dan McCune–Reischauer tan Japanese name Kanji 段 Hiragana だん Transcriptions Revised Hepburn Dan The dan ( 段 ) ranking system is used by many Japanese organizations and Korean martial arts to indicate the level of one's ability within a certain subject matter. As a ranking system, it was originally used at a go school during the Edo period. [1] It is now also used in modern fine arts and martial arts. The system was applied to martial arts in Japan by Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938), [2] the founder of j