Martial Arts Supplies

I figured that a good follow up to my previous posts in the Four Part Series – What is the Significance of Martial Arts Belt Colors, would be a little more information that you might not know about martial arts belts.  

There are three basic types of martial arts or karate belts, single wrap, the single wrap velcro, and the traditional double wrap belt.  The single wrap belt and its variant the velcro belt are just as described, they wrap around your waist one time.  Think of them as you would put a robe belt around your waist.  The velcro variation used primarily by smaller children, has a velcro fastener on the end to make it easier for children to fasten their belt.  For purposes described later in this post, I will focus primarily on the traditional double wrap belts.

I will not get into how to tie your belt, this is a subject better left for video blog posts.  I will however touch on the differences I use in teaching students to tie their belts.  In our school, we teach students to start with placing the middle of their belt at their navel, then pulling the ends around both sides of their body and meeting in the front at the navel.  We then have them tie the knot (with the original starting point in the middle of their knot) to help prevent the belt from falling off during practice.

Our black belts tie their knots differently.  Our black belts have embroidered belts with their names, our school name, and their black belt dan ranking.  Because we have the embroidered belts, the students are taught to tie their belts in the traditional manner so that their name is easy to read by others looking at their belt.  These students begin at one belt tip and carefully wrap the belt around themselves twice then tie the knot as mentioned before.  Tying a black belt takes practice just as tying any belt as a beginner takes practice.

Now let’s move on to belt materials, belt maintenance and care, belt sizing, and other belt issues and secrets.

All martial arts belts aren’t created equally. Belts come in different thicknesses, different materials and different sizes. Most martial arts belts are cotton/poly blends. I will discuss these later in this post.  Kung Fu belts are the most unique.  For instance, kung fu belts are called sashes.  They are made of a thin material like satin or poly/cotton blends.  

In my 20+ years of martial arts, I only knew of one fabric for Kung Fu sashes, satin.  That is until I came across the Bold Look brand nearly two years ago. Although satin is the traditional fabric for sashes, I have had instructors inform me that the poly/cotton blend is easier to work with in classes.  The reason that they like the poly/cotton sash is because they do not slip.  The satin sashes are slippery, therefore children in classes are always tugging at the sash to keep it from riding up.  The poly/cotton sashes do not move around. Because Bold Look carries both fabrics, at http://www.mas4less.com,  both types of kung fu sash fabrics are available.  

In my next post, I will discuss the different available belt sizes, belt maintenance and care, and other belt issues and secrets.  For more information about martial arts belts, please visit http://www.mas4less.com/belts.