Two quick facts: first, my gym shares a space with Cageside Fight Co. Second, I’m a huge gi nerd. I don’t buy many, but I covet a lot of them, especially the ones with innovative fabric.

(I buy most of my gear from Cageside — they don’t pay me to say this, but they have great products at great prices with terrific service. Plus, their Genesis gi is right up there with my Moya as my favorite kimono, and it’s much less expensive.)

Bamboo is one of the fabrics of the future. It grows quickly, so it’s sustainable, it’s super-soft (I have bamboo sheets) and it’s also durable. But only Lucky makes a bamboo gi at this point as far as I know. Since Boomer (Cageside’s owner) makes gis, I asked if he’d ever considered adding a gi made of bamboo to his line.

“I’ve considered making a gi out of mink,” he deadpanned. A droll wit, that Boomer.

Hence, I had to do this:

Looking back at this one, there are definitely things I’d fix about this Photoshop — it’s one of the first ones I did when learning the program. But I still chuckle looking at it, and that counts for something.

For the record, I would totally buy a bamboo gi. I would jump all over a hemp gi. But no, I would not actually buy a mink gi.

At least one of my training partners would, though.

 

[Edit: And here’s a quick close up on the gi, which should give all you fake fur entrepreneurs out there some fashion concepts to work with.]