Are you supposed to wash your karate belt?

[jks919979]

Y'know... I just reread the entire thread.

It's almost mind boggling how often the same myths and ideas (wash the luck/strength/experience/wisdom out, belts became black through embedded grime, they don't wash them in the Old Country...) come up and persist -- even when very authoritatively debunked. Like from someone in Okinawa or Japan...

 

[hungfistron]

Wow... all this attention just for an Obi?

I just had to add to it

 

[seasoned]

I washed my first belt and ended up with two little nubs after tying it together. Very shrinkable.

 

[MrGalt]

I'm going to have to disagree with several myths here. First of all I don't believe the tradition of not washing your belt. It just appeals too much to the "inscrutable Japanese" stereotype to be true. I can see how Americans could eat it up though.

Second, I'm going to disagree with the "Japanese people are obsessed with cleanliness" thing I keep hearing. I see guys in my dojo whose gis are covered with black spots of mold (yes, really) and smell indescribable. I also know that I and several of the other students wash our uniforms and belts regularly. Japanese people are *gasp people. There are disgusting slobs here and neat-freaks and everything in between, just like in every other country. Look up "outgroup homogeneity bias" in a social psychology textbook sometime and you'll see why you don't understand that if you're one of the ones who don't.

I wash my belt every time I wash my gi, which is every time it gets worn. I don't do that to my black belt, but I've always done so with my colored belts, and it hasn't hurt them at all or faded them significantly.