What kind of flooring does your dojang have?

[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.

 

[CDKJudoka]

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 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!