It's
a black piece of cloth in the form of a long belt. They can be bought in any
martial arts store for no more than 5 or 10 dollars.
The right question, could be something like "What does a Black Belt
represent?", this requires a longer explanation. When Master Funakoshi
arrived to the Japanese mainland, there were no belts. It was not before 1932
when he standardized the different levels in Karate, based them on the Judo belt
system.
At that point he gave all his older students a black belt. The black belt
represents the moment when you have learnt the technique well enough to be able
to begin your true Karate training. So once you earn a black belt, after years of
practice, you are ready to begin.
In Shotokai there are 5 dan degrees.
There are previous gradings before attaining a shodan (first degree black belt)
these are called kyu, in Shotokai Karate Budo, these are:
8th kyu: white
7th
kyu: yellow
6th
kyu: blue
5th
kyu: green
4th
kyu: purple
3rd
kyu: brown
2nd kyu: brown
1st
kyu: brown
The time it takes you to get to the store
and pay the bucks....
I once read a story where the moral was "if you have one eye placed on
your goal, you have only one eye left to watch where you are stepping". I
believe this is very much the case for Karate-do, you must learn without a material
objective, and with no specific interest other than learning as much as you can
about yourself.
Fifth dan as a grade and as a title: Shihan. This of course is out of respect for the fact that Master Funakoshi's rank at his death was 5th dan.
No, it's just the beginning. It's only possible to grade people with respect to their technique, and the technical aspects, and respect to our founding master.