While I’m sitting here at home, waiting for a visit by a someone to service our refrigerator, thought I’d send out a short story about a couple of brand names that one finds on certain karate uniforms (gi’s) and belts.  No, don’t rush to look at the brand name on your karate stuff, haha.  Items from these brands typically cost more and are favored by many black belt karateka.

The brand name that us old-timers are familiar with is Tokaido.  It was the brand that all of our sensei’s and sempai’s bought, so naturally, we made sure to buy this brand when we started training – despite the hefty price tag.  I guess that the creation of the Japan Karate Association (JKA) in 1949, coupled with the fact that one of its black belt members, Sugiura Motokuni established the Tokaido Company in 1958, resulted in each brand becoming closely associated with the other.  And, as the JKA became known as the premier karate organization world-wide, the Tokaido brand became equally famous for its quality – worn by hundreds of thousands of serious karateka.  Cost-wise, a Tokaido Shikon middle-weight uniform will run you about $229 plus shipping…about the cost of a suit (and yes, purist/stylish Sensei Peter usually wears a Tokaido gi):

https://www.tokaidousa.com/index.php/uniforms/tokaido-middleweight-kata-gi-shikon-taw.html

The “silk” black belts from Tokaido (actually cotton core with satin exterior) will run $90 before shipping and embroidering with your personal and club kanji.  So I don’t want all of you to go running out to buy one right this minute!😉   The silk black belts cost extra, as with time and use, they begin to “age gracefully” into white strands and the whole belt becomes increasingly white haha.  All of your sensei’s have more than one black belt…mostly because we seem to have needed bigger sized belts as we…er, matured.  Nowadays, I don’t pay much attention to brand – I just look for decent quality at a decent price.  With the black belt, however, if I ever bought another one, it would definitely be either Tokaido or Hirota.  Hirota??…I actually own both Tokaido and Hirota black belts, though I normally wear the Tokaido silk belt.  I received the Hirota belt during that “warring” period back in the 1990’s when there were two JKA’s battling in the courts and a brand loyalty decision between Tokaido and Hirota….but that’s a story for another day. 😱👊

P.S. I actually thought about Tokaido because we recently decided that whenever one of our students made it midway through the kyu (color belt) ranks to 5th kyu (purple), we would order them in a Tokaido color belt versus all of the other brands.  Please note that the Tokaido purple belt is such a rich deep purple…it almost looks like a blue belt from other brands.  The Tokaido blue belt, by contrast is a light blue color.   But you’ll recognize it by the Tokaido brand tag.