After months or maybe years and years of contemplation and difficulty in making a decision, you or your friend have finally taken the step to sign up for karate lessons. With your excitement, you watch videos of techniques and other things you might learn, and then you start getting all the things you’ll need for training. One of the only things necessary for karate training in most places is a gi.
The gi is the traditional outfit worn by most practitioners of oriental martial arts and is also the standard for training these arts anywhere around the world. However, there is a problem that you may encounter. If you are overweight, it is really hard to find your gi.
East Asians consist of some of the shortest and most slender people in the world, which is most likely the cause of this problem. Most often, martial arts practitioners are seen as a lean and muscular Bruce Lee, but this is not often the case. Read on to learn more about finding the right gi for yourself, even if you’re overweight!
How should karate gi fit?
So the first thing we have to talk about is how the karate gi should fit optimally. As with any other type of uniform for any job, hobby, or indeed martial arts, there are certain standards that can be found throughout the industry, which determine how a particular uniform should be worn. These standards can be found in the Karate world as well, and we will do our best to provide you with a summary of them.
First of all, we have to mention that there are 3 different types of GIS:
- Lightweight (0.31lb to 0.44lb),
- medium weight (0.56 lbs. to 0.81 lbs.),
- Heavyweight (0.81lbs to 1.06lbs).
Lightweight is most often used by children, while middleweight is most commonly used by adults in karate. Heavyweight GIS is used almost only at highly ceremonial events or events where teachers are performing demonstrations for a large group of people.
Within the middleweight category, there are two main types of gis. One is somewhat heavier, shorter at the ends, and more durable. This is used in katas, which are similar to fighting ghosts, or like an episodic performance of a series of striking and defensive techniques. The other type is somewhat longer at the ends, more flexible and appears less upright and hard. This is for Kumite, which is sparring.
Since the lighter version is usually used in karate training in the West, we will focus on that. The first and most basic rule is that Kumite gi should feel very comfortable and should not limit movement in any way. Neither the high kick nor the split should make you feel like my machine is having a hard time. At the same time, it has to be strong enough to withstand months and years of abuse without tearing, which isn’t easy to do.
The perfect balance of durability and flexibility is the hallmark of a well-built gi, and according to tradition, the way to tell if gi pants are well-made and right for you, too, is to try to perform a high kick. If you need to adjust the pants before taking a kick, this isn’t the best fit for you. Any type of move should be easy in ji, especially kumeet.
The pants should also be made of strong material in the thigh area to withstand all the kicking and stretching you’ll be doing. It’s not a good idea to buy a gi for hundreds of dollars just to have it after a week of laying around in it. The groin area should also have enough room to fit a groin guard, which is a very important piece of equipment that you can’t afford to carry around. The height of the pants should be about 10 cm above the ground, as stepping on your pants can cause severe injuries and also a lot of inconvenience.
The belt you own should be able to reach twice around your waist so that you can tie it properly with some room left, in case you gain or lose weight, but also it shouldn’t be so long that it dangles between your knees. This type of belt is also prone to injuries, so stay away from it.
The tunic you own, or the gi top, should be long enough to hang below your waist even when belted, but definitely not long enough to reach your knees, because it would look like a skirt. It is also more likely to cause injury. In the same way, 10 cm below the waist line is the optimal length.
Your sleeves should never reach farther than your wrists, as this also increases the possibility of injury, and also makes wearing the gi uncomfortable.
Do you wear karate uniforms?
So you may be asking what clothes to wear under your gi because wearing them across your skin is probably not a good option, the worst offender is wearing a gi without underwear. Never do that. The basic and standard thing about this is to wear any type of undergarment that you feel comfortable wearing in addition to a T-shirt or at least a tank top.
This will be more than enough for most places because it doesn’t really matter what you wear under your gi unless it doesn’t restrict your movement and doesn’t look flashy or out of place (wearing a bright pink or red shirt or a neon colored tank top might be frowned upon or not allowed straight in many places).
What other options do you have other than a simple white T-shirt and underwear? Well, the sky’s the limit, although that shouldn’t be what you focus on so much because a good gi is more important than good underwear.
If, on the other hand, you want to up your game in this area, we have some recommendations. You can wear compression underwear or shorts, which helps keep things more in place, absorbs less sweat, and can also help stimulate circulation, which may have a small but beneficial effect on your endurance.
You can also wear a Thompson T-shirt instead of a plain white T-shirt or tank top, which are designed to absorb sweat much better than regular T-shirts and not smell bad. You can get as premium as you want with what you wear under your gi, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter as much when your pockets explode when you’re doing a high kick.
Best karate guy for weight gain
It is very difficult to find karate for an overweight person, but it is not impossible. There are a couple of websites where custom sized orders are available from time to time, but these are very rare.
However, karate gi is available on Amazon, and is not only high quality, but also affordable and available in sizes up to 8, which is generally (karate gi sizes vary from production company too). She has a height of 6 feet and a weight of 275.6 lbs.
It’s Ronin Karate Gi – Student Lightweight Karate Uniform. Ronin Karate systems have been used worldwide since the 1980’s and are known for their high quality and reliability.
A colleague of ours is also the main inspiration for writing this article because he is overweight and does karate training. We asked this gi to test it in a couple of training sessions and tell us if it worked for him or not.
He ended up changing his old Jie into this one, and he’s been wearing it ever since. He said it’s the best G he’s owned so far, it’s very comfortable and easy to move around in.
The only adjustment he had to do was to shorten the sleeves and pants by a few centimeters, since the Gis are not only larger than the waist but also the length, which is somewhat shorter than the people these gis target.
However, the shortening was done in less than two days by a local tailor, and he continued to use a gi with higher efficiency after that. If you’re overweight, check out this great karate kickstand on Amazon, so you don’t have to worry about not having training equipment to fit you when you start karate training. Here it is Amazon link.