Elvis wore patches on his gi.
We all know that some arts love to put patches on their uniforms. Mainly kenpo, TKD and karate people (like Elvis). What I want to know is who started this? My guess is, and I'm totally speculating, is that some military people who learned martial arts overseas started the idea of patches since it dovetailed in with their military uniform traditions. Am I off base here?
We got your patches right here
Patches
I've always found tha patch phenomena interesting. The whole point of uniforms in the martial arts is to eliminate ego and identity, to make every one equal. Somewhere along the line, someone thought that was too bland and started adding patches to show affiliation and rank. It just spiralled out from there, I imagine. You don't see patches so much on traditional uniforms, but then again, patches were a lot harder to make back in the day. Perhaps you're right about the military thing, Judge Pen, but the patches today are so ridiculous.
You know what? I have a bag of absolutely hideous TKD patches right behind me that I was going to throw away. If you send me a SASE, I'll send you one. ;)