I hadn't thought about it in this context before, but I used to train Kendo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kendo), a Japanese martial art, a long time ago. One interesting thing is that Kendo doesn't have belts like most other martial arts, the principle being that seeing the color of someone's belt causes you to prejudge their ability. Ideally, you should only know how good they are by actually training/fighting with them.

I've been very disappointed by comparing people's titles with their actual technical ability -- somehow it never seems to be the case that the ability outstrips the title.