The Karate Belt - Length and Width
How long and wide is a Karate belt?
Karate belts are typically 1.5 inches (slightly less than 4 centimeters) wide and about 100 inches (2.56 meters) long. Your first belt is white and usually comes with the Karate Gi (Karate Uniform) that you purchased.
An interesting tidbit is that Karate belts usually have 8 lines of stitching running lengthwise along the belt. Cheap uniforms may come with belts that have only 6 lines of stitching. For some reason, black belts have usually 10 to 12 lines of stitching which makes the black Karate belt a little bit wider.
White and colored belts are usually made of cotton, whereas black belts often have a layer of satin over it. After all, the master has to look slightly more impressive than his students, and a little bit of satin may just achieve this :-)
If I need to buy a belt, how long should it be?
When you buy a Gi, the length of the supplied belt depends on the size of the Gi. Later on as you progress through the Karate belt ranking system, you will need to buy new ones in a variety of colors. Should your girth be out of the usual range for your height, you may need to purchase a longer or shorter belt to be able to tie it correctly. A good rule of thumb to calculate the length of belt needed is: required belt length equals approximately 3 times waist circumference.
mike said:
dear all karate.com, osu,i just want to know what are the rankings in karate(like black 3). pls let me know more information about karate.e mail addr […] more
mike wells said:
hi, i’m a student of gkr karate…i beleive i have unlocked secrets pertaining to certain katas and hidden contexts in which they are performed…woul […] more
McDojo said:
HAHA! This makes me crease with laughter Mike. Is the secret ‘How to annoy the hell out of people by knocking on their door and using strong-arm (sorr […] more
Alex said:
Hi i bought a new karate suit and its a bit big but i works but the belt is so damn long does anyone know who i should tie it when its long thanks
paul said:
There are a couple of ways to tie a belt, you should use the “wrap around” way, you can wrap it a couple of times till you are happy with the length.
rebecca said:
keep training because it makes u better so keep at it
Chris said:
there has been a change in the format that they are doing down where we are even with a yellow belt you can become a techer how the hell are you supos […] more
Luke said:
Hi my name is Luke, I have Ten years training in GKR karate. im not sure of any such thing as black three, though once you pass your kyu grades (C […] more