Gi

The white uniform worn by Karate people is properly called a Karategi, or commonly a gi.

They were originally copied from the Judogi. Being less involved in grappling, the Karate version requires less reinforced stitching. The Karate variety typically comes in either lightweight or heavyweight. This refers to the weight and strength of the cloth. For lightweight think pajamas, for heavyweight, think canvas.

They are white, and pretty much unadorned. Many people have an association crest sewn onto the left brest. A really fancy gi might have the owner's name, embroidered in small Japanese lettering along an edge where it will rarely be noticed.

The gi is really not a billboard for self expression. The colour is always white. Judo has white, and has recently added blue, for tournament identification purposes. Karate has white.

This doesn't mean every Japanese martial art wears white. Iaido and Aikido have tops similar to Judogi, and wear almost-black hakama pants. Of course there are many more arts, and many variations.

I don't attempt to judge arts other than my own, and my art is Karate. If one went to Japan where the art originated, and trained in a thousand dojos (schools), he'd find a thousand classes wearing plain white Karategi. If he then went to Okinawa, the prefecture within Japan where Karate was born, and visited a hundred dojos, he'd find a hundred classes wearing plain white Karategi.

Why do so many in North Americas insist on wearing black, or blue, or red, or tie-dyed uniforms, emblazoned with sequins, nicknames, slogans, and lightning bolts? I am not against MMA guys doing this, or kickboxers, or most anything. I am annoyed by those that do so, and who claim to be doing Karate.

Karate is not a generic name given to anything with kicking and punching. It is a specific family of martial arts that came from Okinawa in Japan.

It would be as if you signed your kid up for baseball. You show up on the field, and they pass out uniforms. All the kids end up wearing multi-coloured spandex tights. The coach tells you that he found baseball gear dull, and he wants the kids to express themselves. You try and be reasonable, and tell yourself that the clothing doesn't matter. Then the training starts, and they aren't doing baseball at all. You politely ask why the kids are swinging cricket bats near sticky wickets, and are told that cricket is really the same as baseball, so they've chosen to mix the two and call it baseball for marketing purposes.

The clothes don't matter, which is precisely why they do.