Non-traditional gi's

[AnonymousOne]

I guess its a free world. I have seen people in weird gi's with all sorts of stuff and also ones with the USA or English flags on them. They look like kooks to me, I guess I am not that patriotic.

Our school is very traditional. Heck, the emblem on your gi cannot be a proper embroided one until you reach sandan. I dont know why that is.

What the heck, live and let live.

[Sam]

Ive seen LOADS of Gi / Doboks.

All plain colours, some combinations, mosto f the flags, some nice multicolour ones, a couple of CAMO [EVIL!!!!!] doboks, some ones that made the guy look like a bee....

I personally stick to plain 1 colour with a line down each side, it used to be black and red and now its grey and pink.

If i do anything like tourneys or grading, or seminars, or anything official i always go in my whites. Other than that whatevers comfortable so long as its not decorative - we are all tehre to train and not make a fashion statement!!!

[parkerlineage]

In my dojo, everyone starts with a white gi, then, when you get your purple belt (6th kyu), you can wear a black gi. We are also allowed to wear red only at tournaments or demos - our Sensei also wears red, on occasion.

There is no limit to patches, but I have the Parker Crest, Universal symbol, and Parker/Planas Lineage patch on all my gis.

As for flag-gis and non-official patches - no can do.

Peace;

Parkerlineage

[Skeptic 2004]

I suppose I would qualify as one of those who wears a "non-traditional gi." That is, in our class we all wear white gi pants and white t-shirts with Shorin-Ryu in kanji written vertically over the left breast. On weapons days we wear a white t-shirt that has Ryukyu Kobudo written in kanji vertically over the left breast. No belts.

I've mentioned this in a thread entitled "Street Clothes" in the Combative Arts section but my instructor did away with the traditional gi shortly after he gave up wearing his rank. His explanation made a lot of sense to me for why he did away with regular gi and rank. I also came to my own conclusions; I believe that there are certain fallacies in always training in traditional (or in some cases flashy non-traditional) gi, and I discuss them in depth on the post:

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=250425&highlight=#250425

This is not to say that I think wearing traditional gi is wrong. My best friend puts it best when discussing why he wears traditional gi: "This is what I wear so my regular clothes don't get dirty and messed up."

When I wore traditional gi, it was plain, white, cotton gi with no accoutrements. My old instructor used to tease me about sowing our club's patch onto the gi, but I was lazy and I was never a fan of wearing patches of any kind on my gi. However, I do enjoy collecting organizational patches, though I have no intention of wearing them.

I would not be averse to wearing black gi since dirt is less evident on it than say, white gi. Otherwise, all that decorative, flashy, "stylish" patterns, colors, patches, etc. I think just looks stupid and foolish and perpetuates the stereotypes and images of martial artists to the outside world that appears to irritate quite a few people here in the forums.

[aefibird]

I personally stick to plain 1 colour with a line down each side, it used to be black and red and now its grey and pink.

lol, I hear ya on that one. I have pair of gi trousers that I wear for Wing Chun. They started out as black with a red stripe down each leg...now they're grey with a pink stripe! I think I'm definately gonna have to get myself a new pair.

[Tyrant General]

i'd rather have the dojo's go with the traditional colors.

For one, its less of a distraction to the other students.

second, i wouldn't want to make the dojo into a fashion show.

the dojo is a place of learning

[kitsune_no_tama]

in my dojo, our sensei supplies black and white gi's at a price. there is no restriction on which type exactly, but i have seen red pink and even yellow in there! im hoping to get a team colorblock red and black uniform for my b day right before the world tournament in july.

[Shorin Ryuu]

Unsuprisingly, I agree with Skeptic2004.

Like belts, the wearing of gi isn't really a traditional thing in karate. On Okinawa, it was too darn hot (still is, I hear...) to wear gi all the time. Most people trained in something equivalent to a loincloth. This practice was changed in some places in the early 1900s (after learning it was disrespectful to the emperor not to have a shirt on...). Other places wore merely the pants and put the top on for formal occassions or picture time. Some places didn't even put the emphasis on wearing gi tops until more women were allowed in the dojo.

Long story short, even the notion of "traditional gi" is somewhat laughable. The only part that makes it traditional was the fact they opted for simplicity over flashiness. What gave it a somewhat traditional nature was the importation of its usage in Japanese martial arts and into karate. And even then, some of that was relatively new in terms of standardization and whatnot.

In my dojo, we wear the gi as a matter of custom yet we don't put any more stock into it than is warranted. On some hot days we have worn only the pants (obviously no belt...proof that you don't even need the obi to hold up your pants). No loss of spiritual development, awareness or knowledge absorption was noted, although scientific methods have yet to be used. Maybe I should conduct an experiment and write an article for BlackBelt Magazine.

[CrazyChild13]

at our school we can waer a certin gi color when we get a certin rank....

white and orange belt the begining stages you have to wear a white gi

purple you can get a black gi

blue you can get a blue gi

green you could have any one of the 3

brown you can start to mix and match gi's like black bottom white top

balck you can finally wear a red gi

I myself prefer a black gi because it shows less dirt, it looks better on me, and because its a privlage i earned as for patches we have to wear them but i never put mine on because it looks stupid and i like patch-les unifoms

[scottnshelly]

I've never been one to say anything about people not wearing 'traditional' gi's, just as long as they are wearing something. I do have some reservations about some of these flashy, tiger-striped, multi-colored, sleeveless, scrolling marquee, sequin covered tops that I've been seeing around. I just wear a plain black heavy duty gi. As a sign of respect to my Instructor and school, I have an eagle and my name embroidered on the back. (When I achieved Jr. Black, my Instructor gave me a gi with this on it. All of the Black Belts in the school were.)