Kimono or a Gi?

[Robin Hood]

In our school we wear Gi's. In fact every Judo guy ive ever seen wears a Gi. Now I see people her talk about Kimono's??

I dont get it. What art wears a Kimono except maybe those gay Aikido guys? A Kimono is a dress worn by Japanese women and Kabuki men, it is not a fighting outfit.

Do the gays...I mean guys that choose to wear Kimono's to class also wear knitting needles in their hair and wooden sandals?

[SweepEm]

correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that both Gi and kimono are used interchangeably.

I'm sure that E1AM or someone else familiar with Japanese and the culture can shed some better light on this subject.

[Robin Hood]

Thanks Sweepem but I think the term is being used incorrectly. I think its some misinterpretation by the western Gi companies. Maybe Howard Cosell from Howards Kimono's and Sushi Bar could help me.

[Ryu (non-working password]

the proper term is judogi. Even "gi" itself is somewhat wrong. Kimono is completely incorrect.

Ryu

[E1am]

Actually you're all wrong.

Technically kimono just means clothes. But when people say it they generally mean the traditional robe worn by both men and women. Gi comes from dogi, the uniform worn by martial artists (judogi, karatedogi). The word gi does not exist in Japanese. We should all be calling them dogi if we wanted to be "correct." But who really cares. BTW, the KI in kimono and the GI in dogi are the same chinese caracter. It just means wear.



[Edited by E1am on 01-18-2001 at 09:21 PM]

[True Technique]

That was excellent information, E1am.

[SweepEm]

See, I knew E1 would know the correct answer.

How come the Chinese and Japanese characters mean the same thing, but of course, they are pronounced quite differently?

[Robin Hood]

My Judo teacher says KI is Japanese for Chi.

[E1am]

Sweep,

The Japanese writing system is a mix of characters borrowed from China (called kanji in Japanese) and two others (hiragana and katakana) both derived from Chinese characters. So what I mean is that both words, dogi and kimono, are written with the same character.

[Edited by E1am on 01-18-2001 at 11:05 PM]

[Karlinhos]

E... never thought you had it in ya! (lol)

great explaination... i love sh!t like that!