dan rank bars, where did they start?

[J. Pickard]

I recently spent some time training in S. Korea with people from all over the world. Something that stood out to me was that the only people who had rank bars indicating dan rank on their belt were from the USA. None of the Koreans had rank bars, none of the people from any of the other countries that I trained with had them, just the Americans. I know that in some Okinawan styles the bars indicate the title, not the rank (renshi, hanshi, kyoshi) so how did the bars come to represent individual dan rank and why does it seem to be exclusive to the US?

 

[skribs]

In BJJ, black belts have stripes for each degree. It's not unique to TKD or to the USA.

 

[J. Pickard]

In BJJ, black belts have stripes for each degree. It's not unique to TKD or to the USA.

I mean specifically for TKD. Stripes for individual da rank in TKD dont seem to be a common thing outside of the US. A few of the Canadians and Brits I trained with in korea had roman numerals but nobody except the Amerucans had rank bars. So my question is why is it ubiquitous in TKD in the US but not elsewhere.