When I opened my school, I was a brown belt. I had ten years of teaching, but I was still a brown belt. I remember one day a prospect came in. We chatted a little bit, and I noticed he looked at my belt a few times. Finally, he asked, “So, who’s the black belt here?” and I told him there wasn’t one. He said, “Interesting,” and then he left.

I’ve written before that the belt is a proxy, but that’s all it is. It’s not a guarantee. It’s just a shortcut to seeing how good someone might be. A black belt sure does signals legitimacy. But for most people starting out, they wouldn’t know the difference between that and a blue belt.

For many people, Magic Johnson is the greatest basketball player they’d ever seen. He’s a legend, and then he became a coach, and he only lasted 16 games. Being great at something and being great at teaching it are different skills. They overlap, but they’re not the same.

I started teaching as a blue belt. At the time, I thought I was a great teacher. Looking back, I know I had a lot to learn. I was better than a white belt and actually worse than some of them, but I got reps. I made teaching mistakes, or I ran class incorrectly, and I did this in front of real people with real consequences. Those lessons got learned before anyone expected me to have them figured out. By the time I earned my black belt, I wasn’t just decent at jiu-jitsu. I was good at teaching it.

When you’re choosing a school, ask yourself if it’s a place where you can learn, watch a class, talk to the students who’ve been there a while. The belt on your instructor’s waist is just one data point. Don’t let it be the only one.