No one can say who first wrapped a piece of tape around a karate belt or even why, but I can tell you how achievement stripes were born. John Roberson came to me sometime back in 1999 with the idea that we could pre-cut stripes out of self adhesive vinyl instead of having to fool around with rolls of electrical tape. It made using them so much easier and the stripes looked so much better we decided we really had something other instructors would like to have. A lot of research and testing later, we had come up with Achievement Stripes.
Today there are over thirty different kinds, from solid colors to program-specific text or logos. Basically they’re designed for kid’s programs, but a lot of instructors use them to help track the progress of adult students too. Suggestions come from everywhere and I’m always happy to see people getting involved in improving their curriculum. I hope this site becomes another resource for instructors to learn, suggest, and debate new ideas.
They can be found online or in many magazines, but for some reason the prices they post are always retail instead of the actual cost to the instructor. I understand why for most of their products, the school needs to make some kind of profit on the supplies, but nobody (that I’m aware of) sells stripes to students. It seems to me the suppliers could minimize confusion by advertising the actual price. A lot of people tell me there’s no way they’d pay $5 a page for these things!
Achievement Stripes 