Gi considerations for rank tests?

Question

My daughter will soon test again for her brown belt in taekwondo. On her first attempt months ago, she did not pass but they provided a "report card" of sorts. One of the notes written was that her belt was "well tied". Even so, in that category, it was possible to score higher.

I am considering helping her to do better in that category (this alone will not enable her to pass the rank exam).

I was thinking that a new gi specifically for tests might help in that regard. Something that looks nice. Can these (or should these) be ironed/pleated? Can/should these be starched, would that help with making her punches and kicks sound snappy?

Is there a specific type of gi that I should look for, for this? The only requirements her school has ever given is that during rank exams, the students' gis should be all white. She would be sparring, performing poomsae, and other drills/techniques without any pause to change (if that matters).

Answer 1

This is likely something highly dependent on her school. When I did Chun Kuk Do, the criteria for uniforms were:

• Clean
• Unwrinkled
• Bearing proper patches (we had specific patches that were required for our organization, and also a list of allowable additional patches)
• Properly tied:
  • Uniform ties tied such as to keep the uniform closed without the belt
  • Belt not hanging loose
  • Belt ends equal length
  • Belt tips (electrical tape tips showing that we'd passed interim tests during classes) on the correct side

For competing, we were generally advised to wear a starched heavy uniform for form demonstrations, indeed because it provided a "snap" with punches and kicks, and to wear a lighter-weight "soft" uniform for faster movement, but we were not graded on the type of material or whether it was starched for testing purposes, so I think I wore a heavy uniform for my first two years, and then a soft one for the rest.

Primarily, the uniform should be clean, unwrinkled, and neatly worn (and often this rolls in things like presentation and grooming). Unfortunately, this can be a very subjective thing, and one where my experience is that a lot of biases can creep in, from more well-off students being able to afford more frequent replacements and better cleaning methods to teachers "grading" on things like hair-ties, hairstyles, and whether the the student has bleached or re-dyed their uniform, and not applying those criteria to everyone. Not saying that would be the case for your daughter, but sometimes it is worth pushing back if you're not being provided a reason for a lower rating. Often, when someone is forced to justify their grades, they realize that they're not grading objectively (or in some cases, will inform you of what you're facing, if you find out that they downgraded for things like "ethnic hairstyle" or their reasons clearly weren't applied to other people).

Answer 2

We were always told to iron our uniforms, especially for a test. I never did, and always passed. And her instructor already probably knows whether she will pass, or they would not let her go up.

Yet different schools are different, and may stress different things. If she were told in advance some details to get right and did not get them right then she might fail. It sounds like her school has relatively objective passing requirements, with a scorecard. Though the marks individually may be subjective, the total score is perhaps a fair average.

Macaco Branco's answer seems to hit the correct items for getting the presentation well, though I cut my dobak strings off my uniforms, so that will vary per school as well. We also require girls to wear a light-colored (ideally white) t-shirt under their dobak top.