Belt Tying Demonstration

My teacher, Tom Flynn Shihan, of Green Mountain Dojo in Vermont, once said there’s two ways to tie your belt. My first karate dojo was in Japan, and he asked me how I did it. After I showed him, he said, “I guess there’s three ways to tie your belt.”

That’s not a brag. It’s just to tell you that there’s multiple ways you can do it, and as long as it ends up correct, you need not worry about which is “the best way.” Ideally you want an easily remembered method that consistently gets any stripe you may have on your belt on the right side of your body, the correct shape of the knot, and ends of the belt that are even. Belts are common not just in Kyokushin karate, but also in other forms of karate, judo, Tae Kwon Do, and other martial arts.

Here at Aranami Dojo in Honolulu, Hawaii, some parents of my younger students asked for a demonstration so they could practice at home, and so I promised a video. Here it is. One final note I want to add is that you should always have the left lapel over the right one when putting on your dogi.