Never tie judo belt again

Photo: Contributed

Kathy Hubble left competitive judo more than 30 years ago after winning several Canadian championships and coaching for a few years.

Kids couldn’t tie their belts when she left, and they couldn’t tie them when she came back to coach the sport a few years ago.

“If you’ve ever had kids or ever done it yourself, it’s the biggest nightmare ever to constantly be tying your belt,” Hubble says. “I don’t know why, for 500 years, that things never changed.”

So the Kelowna resident decided to take her idea and get to work. Hubble, whose main job is stunt performer for movies and television shows, came up with the idea for the Never-Tie Martial Arts Belt when she started teaching martial arts in the 1990s following her competitive career. She cut up her black belt, put some hook and loop fasteners on it, and all of a sudden tying your belt was a breeze.

Nothing really came of that, however, because it was at that point she left the sport to focus on her main career: stunt performer for movies and television, which she still does today.

She resumed her coaching career four years ago, however, and she was still spending most of her class time tying youngsters’ belts.

“The kids just can’t do it,” Hubble says. “There’s just no way. It’s a convoluted knot, and to do it correctly is a chore. We usually do a lesson or two with the parents, and then finally we give up and we just grab a blue belt (student) and get him to sit on his knees the whole class and tie belts.”

Hubble spent the last four years giving Never-Tie Martial Arts Belts to students and to other martial arts instructors in an attempt to perfect the device. Her fellow coaches loved that it freed up class time.

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