Once upon a time (the 1960s), in a land far, far away (California) a great warrior returned from battle (Osan Air Base in South Korea) with knowledge of mystical new powers (Tang Soo Do and Judo). The people of his native land sought to aquire this new knowledge and so his journey began... (No, Not Walker, that comes later!) Chuck Norris, the karate teacher!

After a little time, the first black belts in what would be the original "Chuck Norris System" were promoted and somewhere in the beginning were given "Black Belt Numbers" that essentially ranked them in order of when they received their 1st degree.

(Fun Fact - Chuck Norris in our records is official BB# 0, where it all began, and the lowest BB# we have officially in our database is 11.)

Fast forward to the 2000's, UFAF's website is taking shape and Black Belt records are manually integrated into a database. After UFAF starts to grow and evolve from a Black Belt Only member organization to an "all students of all ranks" member organization there was a need to identify students with an ID number, but we didn't want to disrupt the natural progression of black belt numbers, keeping a count of 1st degrees and the fun of knowing "what number black belt am I in the world?".

The new "Student Member IDs" were introduced starting the numbering at 1000000. For a short time when a student passed their 1st degree black belt test, we would convert their Member ID over to their newly assigned BB# as their new Member ID. This became confusing at times for members, and with the growth of UFAF and addition of UFAF BJJ, then UFAF KMF, and now UFAF Affiliates, the decision was made to assign all new members a unique Member ID that will never change. New CNS 1st degree black belts are still assigned a BB#, but it is purely for chronological order and historical reference.

So with all that, there are some members from "once upon a time" that only have a Black Belt Number that also serves as their Member ID. If your CNS BB# is 3787 or lower, that is your Member ID, everyone else uses the 7 digit Member ID.

The End.