Friday 9 November 2007

How to fold a gi properly

Many people put their gi away into their bags after training as if the keikogi was a piece of kitchen cloth. Even if you wash your gi when you get home I think it deserves a "fair treatment" until it gets to the washing machine. I rather don't describe the look of the poor uniform if you just pull it out of your bag when you next use it. Despite these bad examples, I see many beginners who try to fold their gis but I also see a kind of confusion on their faces as they don't know how to do it properly.

My suggestion is that you can fold it anyhow you want but try to minimise the wrinkles. This will also show others how tidy you are. The next couple of pictures and bullet points illustrate how to fold a gi the way I learned it.
But before I get comments about how dirty my gi is as opposed to what I'm preaching above, please note that my gi is white and clean, I just photoshopped the images to emphasize the folds better ;).

  • Step one: put the jacket down onto the tatami (or any other clean surface) as shown.
  • Step two: Put the bottom of the gi on top of the jacket at its middle.
  • Step thee: Fold one side of the jacket onto the bottom and fold half of the sleeve back.
  • Step four: Do the same with the other side of the jacket.
  • Step five: Now fold the bottom part of the gi bottom up.
  • Step six: Fold the bottom up once again.
  • Step seven: Repeat this for again, and it will look pretty nice as the last fold will just fit on the rest of the gi.
  • Step eight: Wrap your belt around your folded gi and tuck the end of it below the already wrapped belt sections.




8 comments:

Anonymous said...

this picture widgit doesn't work.

Zolley said...

Sorry about it, it seems to be working for me. Please try accessing the pictures directly at http://www.flickr.com/photos/14704204@N03/sets/72157603030055806/

Anonymous said...

The slide-show doesn't work for me either; it's shuffling the order....

Anonymous said...

Thanks for reporting, Mel.

I've just created new post with working picture order at http://onlineaikido.com/blog/how-to-fold-gi.html

I hope that helps better if you want to fold your gi the way I learned.

Anonymous said...

Thank you Zolley, that's very helpful. :)

Zolley said...

No problem, I had to do this eventually :) Good to see I helped someone.

Anonymous said...

Very much so, thank you. :)
My fiancé just started studying Aikido and I would hate to lay his keikogi out incorrectly should I be the one to pull it out of the dryer some day.

Zolley said...

:)

Good luck to him in his aikido studies! He is certainly lucky with you :).

In case you have aikido-related questions, our http://onlineaikido.com site might help him (which might help you :)).