How To Tie A Karate Belt

Understanding the right way to tie his or her Belt will be the very first thing an aspiring Karate student needs to learn. This photo tutorial (from all-karate.com) will demonstrate in a few steps how to tie a karate belt.

Place one end of the belt near the navel. For most of the belt tying procedure, this end will remain static.	Start by holding one end in place and winding the other, longer end around your body.
Place the longer end over the shorter end while still holding the shorter end in place at the center of your body.	Now wrap the long end around your body a second time.
Bring the longer end of the belt towards the center of the body.	Now, place the long end of the belt over the short end.

Push the long end under both layers of the belt.	Now position the long end over the short end (from your point of view, to the left).
Next grab the short end and move it to the other side (it was on the left, from your point of view, now pull it to the right).	Move the short end over the long end, just like when you tie a knot.
Pull the long end through the loop you formed in the previous step.	That’s pretty much it, we now have the right type of knot!
Now tighten the knot firmly so it doesn’t loosen during the training session.	Done! This is a perfectly tied Karate belt.

There are several methods to tie a Karate belt. What a lot of Karate trainers agree with is as follows:

* The belt should sit over the hip bones and should be tied tightly, to ensure that it does not loosen or come off during the training session.

* The edges of the belt should be of the same length, with both ends of the belt exiting the actual knot downwards. This decreases the likelihood of the belt to hinder any kind of movement or your hands or fingers becoming trapped in it.

* Don’t let the belt cross itself on the back. A number of Dojos (Karate schools) make a point from not letting the belt cross itself on the back, mainly for visual reasons and possibly also with regard to comfort reasons. Other Dojos don’t pay much focus to belt tieing, and many schools teach tieing the belt in a way that makes it literally impossible to not have the belt go overcross