BJJ gi, Shohei blue, 550 GSM

Shohei blue BJJ gi, 550 GSM

The Shohei blue BJJ gi is the heaviest in the range at 550 GSM. Plain royal blue, cut to meet IBJJF rules, with embroidery drawn from the Japanese characters for jiu-jitsu.

550 GSM, and who it suits

Most competition gis sit between 350 and 450 GSM. At 550 you are in another category: the cloth resists pulling, barely bunches in your partner’s hand, and takes years to open at the armpits.

That comes at a price. A 550 dries slowly, weighs on your bag and runs hot in summer. If you train three times a week in a gym without air conditioning, a 450 will be more comfortable day to day. If you want a weave that lasts and grips that are hard to break, this is the one.

One detail not to overlook: at the weigh-in, the gi counts towards your weight. Check your margin before showing up in a 550.

The embroidery

Two characters on the jacket skirt: 柔術, read jūjutsu, the origin of our jiu-jitsu. On the pants, in katakana: マット上の選手たち, literally “the athletes on the mat”, the Japanese rendering of Athletes on the Mat.

The knee reinforcements are visible on the pants, stitched across the whole ground contact area.

Royal blue in competition

IBJJF rules allow three gi colours: white, royal blue and black. The Shohei is plain royal blue, jacket and pants matching, which rules out the most common reason a gi gets turned away at the uniform check.

Size and care

The size finder further down works from your height and your weight. Wash at 30 °C inside out, air dry, never in a tumble dryer: on a 550 weave, heat shrinkage cannot be undone.

THE STORY BEHIND THE MODEL

In Japanese martial arts, perfect technique is not a performance, it is a discipline. Placement to the centimetre, timing to the tenth of a second, a movement drilled thousands of times until it becomes invisible.
That standard, the one set by high-level judo, is what inspired the Shohei.
At Athletes on the Mat we wanted to carry it into a Brazilian jiu-jitsu gi: tough enough to take the hardest sessions, comfortable enough to be forgotten, supple enough never to hold back a movement. Without losing the restrained elegance of Japanese martial arts.