Get the best from your gi

Take care of your gi and it'll look good longer

Karate suits are not particularly cheap, so you'll want to get the very best from yours. Treated carefully, your gi should last anything from two to five years, depending on how often you train. If you want your gi to last longer, rather than less time, and you want it to keep looking good too, here's some tips to help.

Ironing is the task that I hate most of all, but one way to make it much more gruelling is to tumble-dry your gi bone dry before starting. Ideally, your gi should be still a little damp before you iron it. If you've dried it too much, you could put a damp tea towel over and iron that, but an easier way now that the winter is here, is to leave it out on the line for a few hours, especially at night. It picks up the humidity, and that makes it a breeze to iron! Far better than depending on steam alone...

One of the things that wears your gi out the fastest is machine washing. You could wash everything by hand - no thanks! - or you could wash it less often instead - ewww!. Truth is, although you sweat a lot during a training session, it's usually temperature-regulating odourless sweat, rather than the smelly BO type. Therefore, provided you bathe or shower and use deodorant before you train, so your suit doesn't get grimy from the inside out, if you give your suit an airing, it'll be okay to wear another time. You can buy a fabric freshener such as Febreze, then just give the suit a quick squirt under the pits before re-ironing and you're away. In fact, with the kneeling and stretching and stuff, you're going to have to wash your trousers every time, so it's a good idea to buy two pairs.

If your gi is a little on the large side, and you don't roll up the bottoms, they'll fray, and after that, the suit soon looks tatty. Worse still, if the suit is too large, the sleeves and legs catch on your hands and feet and distract you, leading to poor technique. Don't be afraid to roll up the bottoms a few turns or even to put a few stitches in to hold the turn ups, up, then iron. If you have a heavyweight gi, you probably won't need to do any sewing - simply roll up the bottoms then iron.

Officially, you should never roll your gi any higher than your elbows or your knees, although even knee-height tends to look a little silly.

Speaking of large gis, mums and dads, why waste money on new gis every few months as your kids sprout up. Gis are available in 10cm (3 inch) height graduations, so don't be afraid to buy a couple of sizes large and roll the arms and legs up. Then you can let them down as they grow bigger.

Incidentally, gis come in a number of weights. The heavier the weight, the better the gi looks, especially during kata. I like to use a lighter gi for sparring and a heavier one for kata. If you do buy a heavyweight gi, you should hand wash it the first few times to avoid it becoming misshapen whilst any shrinkage occurs.