Dorky Belt Wearing

When I recently wrote a gi review and mentioned that I thought all my gi skirts were too long on me, my good online buddy Andre, who writes the Portuguese White Belt blog, pointed out that I seemed to prefer to tie my belt above my iliac crest (hip bones) whilst other folk prefered to tie theirs around their iliac. I had never really given it much thought before. Surely one would tie their belt around the narrowest portion of their body? Obviously not.

Wha?

See the photo above: that's me on the left and World Champion Rubens Charles 'Cobrinha' on the right. We're both roughly the same height and wear the same size gis, so how come I look dorky with my seemingly longer skirt and he looks far cooler with an apparently shorter skirt? The answer, as Andre kindly pointed out, must be my belt placement. That picture alone was like a slap on the face...and this is what I did about it...




Well, what I did was to Photoshop a picture of myself with various belt height configurations. As you can see, it also turns into a handy cool guide for how to wear your BJJ belt:

And, as further proof, here's a few more famous low slung belt wearers you may know...

Roger Gracie and Victor Estima rocking the newly formed Masaru Fight co BJJ Kimono, which I'll be reviewing at some point very soon.

Andre Galvao rocking a low slung belt on a Storm gi - coincidentally, a gi I also will be reviewing soon

The upshot of this is that for the first time ever, I am sucumbing to vanity and have begun tying my belt lower. It feels really weird. Like the belt is going to slip downwards or fall apart easier. I literally feel like my trousers are falling down. Having said that, the belt doesn't seem to come undone any more than when I tied it above the hi bone, so I guess I'll soon get used to it.

So how do you wear your belt?


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