Belts

[andyb28]

Hi Guys,

Having never had a black belt before, I wondered if someone could give me some advice on how to soften it a bit.
It keeps coming undone as I cant get the knot tight enough and the ends stick up like rabbit ears :(

I am sure you all have faded black turned back to white belts where all the silk has come off, but perhaps if you can remember when you first got your belt what you did?

Thanks
Andy

[wadoka]

It can only soften through pure sweat!

Best not to do anything more than tying normally. Could tie and leave overnight, every night.

Training wise, why not tuck the ends of your belt in.

[andyb28]

Well sweat I can do no problem, its just annoying when it keeps coming undone.

I have only ever seen 1 person tuck the ends of their belt in and that was on a very old video. I dont consider myself in the same league as that person, so thought perhaps that was "his" thing :)

[Gary]

I tuck my belt ends in - always have.

Not only helps stop it from coming undone, but also means the belt ends don't get in the way.

The belt ends dangling down thing is a gendai way of wearing the belt as far as I understand. Certainly in older schools that utilise soto-obi (as a way to wear their sword for example) ends were mostly folded back in to the belt.

I don't think it is a measure of how good or bad you think you are.

Gary

[oneya]

How to soften kuro obi

ts.JPG (6.92 KiB) Viewed 9047 times

[WadoAJ]

How to soften kuro obi

ts

Awesome! I'm almost certain to know what feeling it gives to see such an image of your sensei. For me it really is just a part of a video playing in my head when I see images of my late sensei. And weird enough I see this when I look at this image too. I must have been watching to many videos..

And Andy... 'm not sure about what to do. I guess just be patient? The silk belts.. I think I never had one. My first belt was a lousy one and the one I have now from Japan is not silk I guess. Never had the problem you had. Your first problem of luxury as a black belt ;)

AJ

[Gusei21]

About the ritual of belt wrapping.

I will just repeat what Takagi Sensei said to a foreigner once who visited our dojo ( I was the translator).
It went something like this...
Takagi Sensei: Why does that guy have his belt wrapped around like that?
Me: Dunno. He must be from the Wadoryu Renmei.
Takagi Sensei: Oh..ok. don't they know that Otsuka Sensei only wrapped his belt around like that when he was demonstrating? He never did that when he was just practicing or teaching class.
Me: shrugging shoulder...
Takagi Sensei: The reason Otsuka Sensei wrapped it around his belt was because jujitsu people did not want the ends dangling because the opponent could grab it. So it makes sense to do that for a demo...but other than that it looks kind of goofy...

In Japan only Wadoryu Renmei people wrap the ends around their belt. AND THAT ONLY STARTED HAPPENING AFTER Otsuka Sensei passed away.
Wadokai does not do that. And I don't think the WIKF does that either. Certainly no other karate style does that.

So if you are Wadokai then don't go to Japan with your ends wrapped around. People will think you are 'different' and if you know Japanese society then being different is not a good thing...

[wadoka]

:-)

[claas]

Here we have a demonstration and a seminar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QslwdN2mz_Q


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2YxWsGLPts

[shep]

I tuck my belt in for the simple reason I hate having the ends flapping around when I'm kicking. It annoys the hell out of me

shep