Breaking in your belt

[quinteros1963]

wash and dry it a time or two and it will be fine

[Otto]

None of you should be washing your belts. EVER. Or throwing them in the dryer. Want to break it in? Do a couple hundred pushups a day for six months. That, with your regular training and it will break in just fine.

[JusticeZero]

*shrugs* I don't see any trouble with washing a belt, personally. The color thing seems more philosophical than anything, and is a pretty recent tradition in any case. A frayed belt doesn't imply wisdom to me, it implies poor care.

Then again, I don't even wear my cord...

[Throwdown0850]

*shrugs* I don't see any trouble with washing a belt, personally. The color thing seems more philosophical than anything, and is a pretty recent tradition in any case. A frayed belt doesn't imply wisdom to me, it implies poor care.

Then again, I don't even wear my cord...

its not because of poor care. the belt will eventually become frayed no matter the care. especially in Judo. or other grappling martial art where there is ground fighting involved.

[JusticeZero]

That doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of it and try to keep it in good condition. There's no special honor associated with a shredded and stained uniform piece.

[the beast]

None of you should be washing your belts. EVER. Or throwing them in the dryer. Want to break it in? Do a couple hundred pushups a day for six months. That, with your regular training and it will break in just fine.

I agree never wash your belt.Mine took over a year of blood and sweat and is just now starting to break in .

[still kicking]

To me the point of breaking in a belt is not so I can look cool and like I've had it for a long time, but for simple practicality. Usually we recycle colored belts and you can get a used one, but for one of my colored belts there were no used ones available in my size. The new one was so stiff that I literally had to keep on retying it throughout the class -- like every minute or so! This got really frustrating, so here's what I did. I took it home and tied up up in a ball of knots, then soaked it overnight in cold water, then let it air dry. (This required some preplanning, as it took a couple of days to dry.) This helped a lot, and then I did it again the next week when I had a few days between classes. Then it was nice and soft, and stayed tied throughout the class!

[Wa-No-Michi]

Can't remember whether it was on this forum that I mentioned this before, but a good way to overcome the problems that "wearing in" a new belt sometimes brings, is to tuck the ends back under the waist of the belt.

In fact it was originally the way that belts were tied apparently

The "hangy down ends" as a way to tie your belt was invented by the young bucks of the Japanese Universities that had Karate clubs, such as the Tokai and Nichidai as I understand it... seems that students were rebels back then also.

If you look at some early photos of the likes of Funakoshi and Mabuni for example, this is the way they seem to tie their belts for training at least.

It does help stop it from coming undone, also stops the belt ends from flapping around.

WNM

[Otto]

I'm not sure how to post multiple quotes yet, so I copied and pasted the following two, which I thought were fantastic!

"To me the point of breaking in a belt is not so I can look cool and like I've had it for a long time, but for simple practicality. Usually we recycle colored belts and you can get a used one, but for one of my colored belts there were no used ones available in my size. The new one was so stiff that I literally had to keep on retying it throughout the class -- like every minute or so! This got really frustrating, so here's what I did. I took it home and tied up up in a ball of knots, then soaked it overnight in cold water, then let it air dry. (This required some preplanning, as it took a couple of days to dry.) This helped a lot, and then I did it again the next week when I had a few days between classes. Then it was nice and soft, and stayed tied throughout the class!"

What a great idea that is! Nicely done, brother.

The second one was -

"Can't remember whether it was on this forum that I mentioned this before, but a good way to overcome the problems that "wearing in" a new belt sometimes brings, is to tuck the ends back under the waist of the belt.

In fact it was originally the way that belts were tied apparently

The "hangy down ends" as a way to tie your belt was invented by the young bucks of the Japanese Universities that had Karate clubs, such as the Tokai and Nichidai as I understand it... seems that students were rebels back then also.

If you look at some early photos of the likes of Funakoshi and Mabuni for example, this is the way they seem to tie their belts for training at least.

It does help stop it from coming undone, also stops the belt ends from flapping around."

Outstanding. Thanks for pointing this out to me!

[bushido_man96]

None of you should be washing your belts. EVER. Or throwing them in the dryer. Want to break it in? Do a couple hundred pushups a day for six months. That, with your regular training and it will break in just fine.

Washing belts isn't a very big deal, really. Here is a good article on the "not washing belts" condundrum: http://www.24fightingchickens.com/2005/09/09/urban-legends-of-karate-belts/