What kind of flooring does your dojang have?

[IcemanSK]

I've trained in several that had a thin carpet over concrete. I've trained on wooden dance floors & a very few schools with mats. How about your's?

[searcher]

My own school, my TKD school, and the one I recently joined have mats. My first 2 karate schools I trained in and taught at had carpet, though we often trained outside in the parking lot.

[terryl965]

Puzzle matts and flooring under them.

[igillman]

Puzzle mats for the practice area and carpet for the entrance area.

[granfire]

puzzle mats on concrete.

We had a tournament on a lovely swinging basketball floor once...dreamy!

[Gordon Nore]

It's a combination of what appear to be low-pile vinyl mats and puzzle mats, the latter of which I've never worked with before. The experience is unique for me, working on a fully-matted surface. In my past Hapkido classes, we had about three quarters hard floor, and the rest velcroed mats, which slipped a bit. Working on mats all the time is great. Adds a little more bounce to my step.

[ATC]

We have two sections of flooring for training. One is puzzle mats over concrete. The second is puzzle mats covered by a vinyl tarp pulled tight and tacked down around the edges.

The entrance and viewing or sitting area is wood.

[karatemom]

puzzle mats over concrete

[Laurentkd]

Currently we have puzzle mats.
Back in the day it was carpet on top of concrete.
While in college I taught on a wooden floor. I liked that the best.

[Miles]

Swain mats on the striking arts side of the dojang, and a blue/grappling rolled mat on the other side.

[jim777]

puzzle mats for us as well

[mango.man]

Puzzle mats for us now also. It was not that long ago, that we were practicing on a concrete driveway though:

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/60/l_52c23224a02ca34da44f81b7185ee625.jpg

[chrispillertkd]

My instructor's school has a nice wooden floor.

I've trained on mats, concrete, carpet, etc. and really prefer wooden floors. Easier on the feet and you can still do take downs without having to drag out pads.

Pax,

Chris

[jim777]

I personally find it a lot easier to do pushups, especially on your knuckles, on wooden floors. I'd love to train on wooden floors all the time and pull out mats once in a while for throws and breakfalls and the like, but we are in a 4H club barn so we're lucky to have a place at all :)

[Kacey]

It depends. I teach at a YMCA, and we are in two rooms, one on Monday, one on Thursday. The Monday room is a dance studio with a rubber/plastic tile floor of a type I've never seen anywhere else; the tiles are about a foot square and are raised from the surface they are attached to, which I think is cement - the bottom of the tiles looks almost like a bathtub mat, the type with the suction cups, but closer together. It's an odd surface (and slippery when dusty) but fairly gentle on the feet. The Thursday room is also a dance studio, but converted from a racquetball court, and still has the racquetball court wooden floor.

My sahbum's class is in a gym, which has a rubberized floor which took some getting used to; it's slightly sticky, but with very little give for the type of surface, not quite as good as a wood floor, but not bad at all. When I started, we worked out in a room that had a cement floor, so almost anything else is an improvement.

My basement workout space is puzzle mats over cement, which is nice, but almost too soft in some ways; it's hard to pivot on them, especially as I'm used to harder surfaces everywhere else.

[IcemanSK]

I once taught in an aerobics studio (in the late 80's) that had a wooden floor that was specially designed for aerobics. It had a rubberized underlayment that gave it bit of "give" to it. It was fantastic to train TKD on.

[Daniel Sullivan]

Puzzle matts and flooring under them.
Same with ours. Most places I've trained at have had either the puzzle mats or school gym style mats over either tiled floor or thin carpet. I did train at one place years ago that had sprung hardwood.

Daniel

[Marginal]

Raised, tile floor.

[terryl965]

The best place was a wooden floor that flaoted, it was so nice but the cost is way to high to justify for me.

[Daniel Sullivan]

I tried to talk GM Kim into getting the puzzle mats that look like hardwood, but he decided to go with the red and blue. It looks very nice, but more modern.

Daniel

[MasterWright]

The location we are renting right now has tlie flooring on concrete.

Our new location will have Hardwood with puzzle mats. We will be on a second floor to make it even more "springy".

We are moving there this summer and can hardly wait.

[phatbway]

wooden floor, I like it that way. great for pivoting.

[IcemanSK]

One school where I trained for a number of years had a wooden floor. We were told it was a former dance studio. But it had much more varnish on it than I've ever seen on a dance floor. It would get wet & you had all the slipperness of an ice rink.

[JadeDragon3]

Carpet over concrete. Back in the day at my first kung fu school we just had a concreste floor with a piece of thin worn out carpet reminant(sp?) that covered only half the school floor. We would do techniques where you had to drop to the ground and believe me, it hurt. To have (real) carpet with a foam mat under it at my second school was a luxery. :)

[sadantkd]

I've never worked on the puzzel mats. How are they for pivoting and do they get sticky at all? Also, do broken boards nick them up. It's a pretty big investment, and I want to know what I'm getting into before I put them in my school.


By the way, at one school I used to teach at, we used cardboard boxes as padding under the carpet.

[granfire]

I've never worked on the puzzel mats. How are they for pivoting and do they get sticky at all? Also, do broken boards nick them up. It's a pretty big investment, and I want to know what I'm getting into before I put them in my school.


By the way, at one school I used to teach at, we used cardboard boxes as padding under the carpet.


not all puzzle mats are equal, shop around and get samples!

In the old school we had the solid blue kind, some older than others, they gave pretty good grip, but not so much that you twisted something on the pivot (we work out barefoot)

In the new school we got a different mat, as I recall it some sort of a sandwiched construction. The surface is much smoother and slicker than the old mats. It can be a bad thing...but you get used to it.

Definitely worth looking into it. I mean, after an afternoon of teaching my joints still scream but it's a far cry from the fatigue I had from standing on concrete all the time (a real job ;) )

[sadantkd]

I was at the Virginia State Championships today, and they had the puzzle mats. They seem pretty good, as the only people that seemed to slip were wearing those slip on shin/instep pads. I'm still curious about how touch the surface is though. When boards fly from speed breaks, for example, will the jagged edges cut into the mats?

[granfire]

I don't think we did speed breaks in the school, but had bored kids sitting with boards in hand poking and playing. You get some scuffs, but they held up for a long time. Talking about the blue ones. The other ones, are still new, only a couple of years old.

But after breaking you gotta break out the broom and vacuum and get up the debris! ;)

We also took them up and moved them to test and tournament locations quiet a lot. they held up great for most parts.

[DarkPhoenix]

We have Swain mats in our dojang, and they take a lot of getting used. They are softer then the ones where I train BJJ, and make performing multiple kicks more difficult due to the lack of balance. They make great takedown mats though.

At the home dojang it's a hardwood floor with a 30 year old non-padded vinyl mat. Bad for takedowns, great for everything else.

[Laurentkd]

You will definitely have knicks in the mats from boards (or from kid's finger nails or even from chairs sitting on them). You have to have the mind set that it gives your floor character to have the blemishes.
Anyone have a problem with the mats bubbling up, especailly in the summer? don't know if it is the heat that makes them expand or what, but we are contstantly having to trim them down so they still fit, and then have gaps when the weather chagnes.

[granfire]

well, one section was put together from old mats, and taken up many times, at least once every 2 month. each time we put them back together there was at least one big bubble somewhere, usually tripping me up :D but a lot of that was that these mats also did not come from the same batch, when you turned them over you could see many previous owners....and yes, a few gaps and a couple missing 'teeth' interestingly enough, when folks caught a toe on the mats it was on the 'good mats' with no bubbles and gaps....(I did it to both big toes in one class, I think even the same exercise...teaches you well to keep them back....)

[Aefibird]

My current TKD school trains on a wooden floor. It's not a "nice" wooden floor, though, as it belongs to a very old and not very well cared for church hall.

The majority of people wear TKD shoes to train in as the floor is very rough and quite uneven with gaps between the floorboards. Not the best of surfaces to train on, but as the hall is free then it's better than nothing!!

At my old TKD club and my karate club it was jigsaw matting on the floor; concrete flooring underneath at TKD and hardwood sheets under the mats at karate.

Best flooring I've trained on was a specialist 'sprung' floor in a University gymnasium where we used to hold courses/gradings etc from karate.

The worst was when I did Wing Chun & Taiji. The downstairs hall was fine (it was in a converted shop) and had puzzle mats on the floor. That was primarily used for the TKD/Kickboxing classes the school also offered. Upstairs (for WC & Taiji) was a different matter. Rough concrete flooring with a very thin carpet over the top. It had been the old storeroom for when the place was still a shop and had never been done out/renovated. Horrible on the feet. :(

[Stac3y]

One night a week I train on a wood dancing studio floor, which is pretty decent. My other weekly class trains in a middle school cafeteria, which has a tile floor (linoleum, I guess.) It would be okay except that it's not always very clean. At that one I frequently find things on my feet that I can't identify. :barf:

Since my club has a lot of different locations, I've also gone to classes that were on stained concrete floors and on low pile carpeting. Of all of them, the carpet was the worst. My feet wound up pretty raw.

I haven't ever trained on mats, except when we are working on extracurriculars (grappling, judo, etc.)

[Jphtkd]

My dojang has the Kwon WTF approved puzzle mats over thick carpet padding. We do Hapkido and BJJ as well so having a little extra cushion is nice. I get mat burns occasionally when we are doing ground fighting though lol.

[granfire]

It would be okay except that it's not always very clean. At that one I frequently find things on my feet that I can't identify. :barf:

HAHAHAHAHA, when we do demos for the local schools, I ended up with about an inch of crud in the bottom of my feed, and that in the gym! :)

Wet whipes are your friend!