Training with protective gear.

[drop bear]

So the conversation of gloves came up again. It is not uncommon. It is the sort of thing that gets hashed about iin different forms. Sometimes it is mats. Sometimes it is rules. Ultimately the question is asked.

If you are going to fight in an environment without protection then does training with protection hold an advantage or disadvantage?


For us the other day at the gym it was shoes. We were all bitching about mangled up toes and were considering getting wrestling shoes to give out a bit of support.

Now to cut a conversation short the point was made by one of they guys.

"You know why you should get shoes?"

"Because then you can train relentlessly. You can train techniques all day and not have to stop because you are wearing the tops of you feet away or having to stop due to mangled toes"

Think about this idea. To get good I have to repeat an action thousands of times more than i will ever use it. This means I have to ajust my training so that I can engage in these actions for extended periods of time without suffering injuries.

So even if I can take a fall on concrete. I dont train on concrete because I cant physically take a thousand falls. This actually reduces my ability to practice falling in the relentless manner that is required to become proficient.

When I box I wear gloves. Not because my hands explode during a 10 second bare knuckle fight. But because I can then use my hands as impact weapons for hours. This enables me to spend hours honing my boxing techniques.

When I worked with a belt kit.Fought bare knuckle. on hard and dangerous surfaces.I could take a fall on my back. A bare knuckle hit and fend off a bite or an eyegouge. What I could not do is train the techniques that allow me to achieve those results If I trained with a belt kit on a hard surface.

I just could not train relentlessly.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I agree, but with the caveat that occasionally you need to train without the protection (or at least less of it). Take a fall on concrete. Hit some stuff with your bare hands. Do some training with your belt kit or around hazardous obstacles. Not all the time, just often enough so you understand the differences between that situation and your normal training environment. You don't want a real fight to be the first time you learn the difference.

It's the same thing as full-contact sparring. I don't recommend going full blast trying to take each other's heads off every day. It's not sustainable in the long term. But if you never get hit for real in training you're not going to be prepared when it happens in an actual fight.

 

[marques]

If you train for self defence, it will be useful doing things without gloves, with casual shoes and clothes and on concrete at some point (with the respective safety limitations). If you train for sport, say boxing, so keep your boxing gloves all the time...

About the wrestling example, shoes can increase the volume of training, but then if in the fight shoes are not allowed thus one should train also without shoes and develop a technique that prevent injuries without it.

 

[Buka]

Great thread, Drop Bear.

All roads lead to Rome. And I think it best to explore and map each and every one of them. Then....go do Rome, baby.

 

[Juany118]

I agree, but with the caveat that occasionally you need to train without the protection (or at least less of it). Take a fall on concrete. Hit some stuff with your bare hands. Do some training with your belt kit or around hazardous obstacles. Not all the time, just often enough so you understand the differences between that situation and your normal training environment. You don't want a real fight to be the first time you learn the difference.

It's the same thing as full-contact sparring. I don't recommend going full blast trying to take each other's heads off every day. It's not sustainable in the long term. But if you never get hit for real in training you're not going to be prepared when it happens in an actual fight.

This was pretty much what I was going to say. I see three kinds of training, "power" training, conditioning training and fight training. For power I wear protection but I have been told less than I should (just the Everlast wraps with neoprene and a little gel right at the knuckles) because it also allows for more natural palm striking. Conditioning is rice bag work, fight training is basically like power training but bare hands.

As you said I will also sometimes do some of the training with my vest, duty belt and boots on. Kicks especially feel very different with the belt and composite shank and kick toe boots on. What I keep forgetting to do is asking my instructor if I can wear all that for sparring someday, without the kick toe 5.11s though, but I have other 8 inch boots.

Sent from my SM-G920P using Tapatalk

 

[JR 137]

When I first started, we were bare knuckle. All we wore was a cup and a mouthpiece. I sparred bare knuckle my first full class (the intro class doesn't count). We got bruised and lumped up quite a bit. Being 18-21, the recovery time was pretty short. There were people in their mid-late 30s who spent more time being injured and/or recovering than training. It was rare to see anyone over 40. The older guys (in their 30s) were getting hip and knee replacements, and even a shoulder replacement.

About my 3rd year in, a guy at a dojo that used to be affiliated with us was ko'ed and hit his head pretty hard on the wood floor. Fractured the back of his skull. He was messed up for quite some time.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Our organization mandated protective gear. They went with dipped foam gear. It had the organization's logo on it and had to be bought through them. It wasn't a cash-grab thing; they charged a few bucks less than catalog price.

One or two dojos left, with the CIs refusing to wear sparring gear.

Mandating sparring gear was honestly for the better. We still hit hard. We trained more; people weren't nursing injuries constantly. The atmosphere changed - we didn't have the mentality of "hurt him before he hurts me." We weren't sizing up every new student nor betting when they'd quit.

My CI held "bare knuckle Friday" every other week behind the organization's back. The first rule of fight club was you didn't talk about fight club There was a group of us college aged guys who'd been there a while and wanted to go "old school" every now and then.

My current organization (Seido Juku) mandates protective gear. Coming from Kyokushin, there was a time when it was bare knuckle too. When I was looking to get back into karate, it was either a local Kyokushin school or the Seido school I joined. Watching the Kyokushin guys brought back the memories of my early days. Been there, done that. I knew I wouldn't last more than a year or two like that.

I think full contact is a great thing. Everyone should do it at some point. But I don't think it's a long-term sustainable way of training. Late teens-late 20s is the is the ideal time IMO. It builds character. It lets you know what it's like to get hit. It lets you know what works for you and what doesn't. Learn that stuff, then take it down a few notches. Martial arts are supposed to be a life long endeavor. People needing joint replacements in their 30s and 40s is just absurd.

 

[Juany118]

When I first started, we were bare knuckle. All we wore was a cup and a mouthpiece. I sparred bare knuckle my first full class (the intro class doesn't count). We got bruised and lumped up quite a bit. Being 18-21, the recovery time was pretty short. There were people in their mid-late 30s who spent more time being injured and/or recovering than training. It was rare to see anyone over 40. The older guys (in their 30s) were getting hip and knee replacements, and even a shoulder replacement.

About my 3rd year in, a guy at a dojo that used to be affiliated with us was ko'ed and hit his head pretty hard on the wood floor. Fractured the back of his skull. He was messed up for quite some time.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Our organization mandated protective gear. They went with dipped foam gear. It had the organization's logo on it and had to be bought through them. It wasn't a cash-grab thing; they charged a few bucks less than catalog price.

One or two dojos left, with the CIs refusing to wear sparring gear.

Mandating sparring gear was honestly for the better. We still hit hard. We trained more; people weren't nursing injuries constantly. The atmosphere changed - we didn't have the mentality of "hurt him before he hurts me." We weren't sizing up every new student nor betting when they'd quit.

My CI held "bare knuckle Friday" every other week behind the organization's back. The first rule of fight club was you didn't talk about fight club There was a group of us college aged guys who'd been there a while and wanted to go "old school" every now and then.

My current organization (Seido Juku) mandates protective gear. Coming from Kyokushin, there was a time when it was bare knuckle too. When I was looking to get back into karate, it was either a local Kyokushin school or the Seido school I joined. Watching the Kyokushin guys brought back the memories of my early days. Been there, done that. I knew I wouldn't last more than a year or two like that.

I think full contact is a great thing. Everyone should do it at some point. But I don't think it's a long-term sustainable way of training. Late teens-late 20s is the is the ideal time IMO. It builds character. It lets you know what it's like to get hit. It lets you know what works for you and what doesn't. Learn that stuff, then take it down a few notches. Martial arts are supposed to be a life long endeavor. People needing joint replacements in their 30s and 40s is just absurd.

Tbh I think, for some things the protective gear is a benefit beyond protection. Example, my Kali. Right now, for full sparing, we are using lightly padded Kali sticks, plastic knives, fencing helmets and hockey gloves. You get bruises (and since we have a couple older students I have to keep begging my instructor not to get the full torso armor, more on why at the end) but you can basically go full speed and even force on slashing (thrusts are another story). This makes for not only good attack training but makes your defensive training more realistic as well.

Why does my Guro consider the torso armor? One of our older students has been getting more than a little banged up of late and it's making him feel like a bad Girl I think, which he is not. Why do I fight the armor? So long as someone doesn't thrust full force there is little to no chance of permenant injury BUT the pain is an incentive to actually practice defense. The full torso armor, imo, encourages people to just attack, attack, attack because even with rattan sticks you basically don't feel a dang thing through the armor.