do you wash your belt? when i was a newbie, a fellow student told me not to wash my belt. i grew to the habit of not washing it. how bout you guys?
I do TKD, but I also don't wash my belt, because my instructor told me not to when I started, he said there was a superstition that the knowledge would wash out, and a more practical reason that the colour would was out, leaving you with a rather faded looking belt.
Your belt symbolizes your journey from innocence to master, and eventually back to innocence. Imagine there were no colored belts at all, just the white one you started with. When you begin your training, you are fresh and new. Your mind is innocent, untainted by knowledge or experience. Like the white of your belt, you are pure and empty, ready to absorb whatever you are presented with. As you progess, your belt becomes soiled from use and gradually darkens. Sweat and blood leave their stains. Eventually, the belt becomes so stained that it appears brown. After several years, it darkens even more and becomes completely black. Like your belt, you have absorbed a great deal now. You are no longer innocent and new. Now you are ready to begin a new journey. After several more years of hard work, your "black" belt becomes so worn that it begins to fray. Beneath the soiled black exterior, patches of white begin to show through as the fabric becomes tattered and worn. Gradually, the belt becomes so frayed and weathered that it again turns entirely white. Like your belt, you have come full circle from innocence, to master, and back to innocence. Even the shape of the belt is a circle. The circle is life, and the return to emptiness is enlightenment. This is why the martial artist never washes her belt. Washing the belt symbolically washes away your experience. It can also fade and age your belt artificially, which is even worse. It is not superstition, but strong tradition. Symbolism can hold a powerful influence upon the subconscious, however, and should be treated with respect. In my old school, we used belts and karate-style gis even though our style was kung fu. (You could wear a kung fu outfit if you wished; kung fu is typically more relaxed about uniforms than many other styles.) I never washed a belt under that system out of respect for the tradition. In my current style, we wear kung fu uniforms and sashes. I have to confess, I did wash a sash once because, frankly, it really stank! The "belt" system isn't actually part of kung fu, however, so I didn't attach much meaning to it. To us, a colored sash is just an attractive way of identifying one another's approximate skill level. If you encounter the same problem with a karate or judo belt (i.e., it really stinks and you just can't stand it)...I wouldn't worry too much if you have to wash it. Just try to do so in the gentlest possible way and with a good deal of respect. You won't wash away your experience. Just don't make a habit out of it and you'll be fine.
wow, thats profound. i've heard of people washing their black belts in bleech and putting them in a tumble dryer with rocks and stones to make them look beaten and well used. my black belt is fairly new, i bend and twist it and stuff to make it more flexible but i'd never wash it. especially now i've read ruby's post.
I washed my belt last month. I left it in my bag with my kit, along with my swimming kit, which I didn't realise had fallen out of the plastic bag it was in. I left it for a couple of days cos I had stuff on with work, and when I opened it, it had mould growing on it!! I think that, because I hadn't washed it for so long, there was tons of sweat and juicy stuff for the mould to grow on, and that's how it took hold so quickly. Yuk!!! I never usually wash my belt, mind. When I was grading up to a new belt, I used to wash it once in cold water when I got it, because otherwise they often used to 'leak' onto your gi and stain the back of it when you sweated. I remember one lad when we'd just started, put his yellow belt in with his gi in the washing machine. He was known as 'bananaman' for some time afterwards.
nice! lets keep the tradition! about the vommit and mold thingie, ill be "extra" alert for those things. also, nice post RubyMoon.
the whole white belt turing black is an inspiring story but it is wrong, wrong wrong! http://www.e-budokai.com/articles/belts.htm black belts were not devolped until kano(founder of judo) invented them.
