First Impressions

by Dave Lowry

Karate and judo practitioners rarely wear them, but for exponents of martial arts like aikido, kendo and kyudo, the experience of getting into a hakama for the first time is often memorable. It’s something like being enveloped in a cloth sea of pleats.

Hakama are skirt-like pants that were part of daily wear for men during Japan’s feudal age. Now they’re worn primarily on formal occasions like weddings and during the practice of traditional arts like the tea ceremony or the budo. Because of their billowing, often-confusing array of pleats and creases, more than one beginner has put his hakama on backward so the koshi-ita, or stiff hip board, is around his abdomen. (Watch for this in old Chinese kung fu movies where the Japanese are inevitably the bad guys and are often portrayed in an unintentionally comical way.)

Today, hakama used for martial arts practice are often made of polyester blends that hold their creases well. But the training hakama worn in the dojo when I was a youngster were made entirely of natural cotton. They held their creases as poorly as Madonna holds a tune. They had to be folded exactly right after a workout to keep the creases and pleats straight and neat and to prevent wrinkles from forming. Since I wore one almost every day, I got good at the art of folding the hakama. One of the first expressions I learned in Japanese was orime tadashii, which roughly means “correctly creased.”

It isn’t just in folding a hakama to put it away that its creases must be kept in order. While wearing one, there are ways of sitting and standing that will keep it neat. It’s not a coincidence that these same postures and motions all have a martial application in that they tend to be the best ways of maintaining a relaxed state of vigilance. And so I eventually learned that orime tadashii has a connotation beyond its literal meaning: By paying attention to small things like the creases in your hakama, you develop a sense of propriety.

It may not be one of the most pressing problems in the martial arts and ways right now, but it seems to me that most practitioners are neither cultivating within themselves nor encouraging among their fellow practitioners a sense of orime tadashii. There is too little emphasis on neatness or attention to detail—not only in the dojo, but also in life outside it.

Not long ago, I was walking through an airport when I saw a martial arts celebrity, who was apparently catching a connecting flight. I’d never met him, but I recognized his face from the many photos I’ve seen. It took me a moment, however, because I was so surprised by his appearance: dirty sneakers, no shirt and a pair of farmer’s overalls that were ragged and stained. He looked like a bum. Now, my wardrobe hardly qualifies me to be among the gods of fashion, but that’s not what we’re talking about. What we’re talking about is having enough self-respect to keep yourself clean and presentable in public. What we’re talking about is a sense of orime tadashii.

Orime tadashii is not the same as being foppish. It’s not, as I have seen some martial artists do, about insisting on training in a silk kimono and a hakama. I’m afraid those folks have confused the martial arts with kabuki performances. I was recently told about a fellow who came to a seminar devoted to some form of jujutsu. He arrived wearing the costume I just described, along with a folded fan stuck in his belt. That’s dangerous to be wearing while taking falls, he was warned, but he insisted that this was “proper” and set about practicing. Then he took a fall that caused his knee to come flying up, striking the butt of the fan and stabbing it into his stomach. He turned white and, gasping for breath, staggered off to the sidelines to observe the rest of the session.

There’s a common male mentality in this country which holds that too much attention to one’s personal appearance is not masculine. I share it. Orime tadashii, however, isn’t the same as prissiness or vanity or sartorial affectation. It’s a simple, unassuming dignity that’s reflected in the way you dress and conduct yourself. It’s a preference for neatness. I knew a karate student who, for some reason, could never figure out that his uniform needed washing just as would any other garment that gets dirty. He’d train hard, and his uniform would be soaked with sweat. It would go directly into a bag, which was dumped into the trunk of his car. It would sit there until he retrieved it a couple of days later when he returned to work out. He wasn’t a slob in general; it was just that he couldn’t see there was anything wrong with wearing a stinking, wrinkled uniform. He had no concept of orime tadashii.

To reiterate, I won’t be posing for the cover of GQ anytime soon. But whether I like it or not, I’m a representative of the martial arts in the eyes of the public. And so are you. If we’re known among friends and family members as martial arts exponents, they’ll arrive at certain conclusions about our arts based on us. That can include our general appearance.

There are those who will insist it’s nit-picking to be concerned with superficial details. “Maybe I look like a slob on the outside, but inside, I’m neat and tidy, and that’s all that counts,” they insist. Orime tadashii, they might argue, can be a deserved pejorative to describe those who fuss too much over trivialities. Perhaps that’s the case here.

However, maybe paying attention to the creases is a small step in the right direction for our arts. If you’d seen that guy at the airport, I think you’d agree that a little more attention to orime tadashii wouldn’t hurt anyone.

About the author: Dave Lowry is a free-lance writer who has trained extensively in the Japanese and Okinawan arts. He started writing Karate Way in 1986.