It's such an incoherent article that it's hard to do more than react to the title.

It doesn't surprise me at all. It's not like there is really a central system for martial arts ranks. When I was a kid I went to this Dojo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaolin_Kempo_Karate

which has a slightly different system of belts and isn't taken seriously by everyone. Despite that, decades later, the last time somebody held a fake gun to my head they were tasting dirt and then it hit me that I would have done the same thing if it was a real gun.