Is it true?

[RichardZ]

Is it true that Jhoon Rhee, worked on inventing the first safty pads?

[bushido_man96]

That is what I have read. He came up with the design for them..but I don't recall if it was the foam dipped ones, or the cloth ones with padding.

[RichardZ]

Here says for Karate Glove, you see "Rhee";

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6711747.html

But here you see Mitch Carlin

http://www.patentgenius.com/patent/6412114.html

Although it looks like Mitch had simply re-designed it and was far later than Rhee.

[IcemanSK]

I think he had his had in invented the dipped foam sparring gear. He had a line called "safety-gear" as far back as the 70's.

[JohnASE]

Wow, I feel old. Has Jhoon Rhee gear drifted into legend?

If I remember correctly, Jhoon Rhee developed dipped foam sparring gear, and I believe he is credited with inventing it. His brand even used to be called Jhoon Rhee. The original stuff had laces for the fingers and toes instead of the plastic straps used today. IcemanSK might be right about the 70's, but I'm not sure. Later, they changed the name to RheeMax. I'm a little sketchy on the details, but I think a few years ago, the Rhee family sold the business to another company. I think it was just last year that RheeMax brand sparring gear stopped being produced.

I'm a little annoyed that I don't have a more complete picture of what happened near the end. As a RheeMax distributor, I would have thought we would have been better informed. To be fair, our purchasing had dropped way down, and I'm sure the people involved had a lot on their minds. I should've made an effort to keep in closer contact.

We still have some old RheeMax stuff in stock! Eventually, we'll get around to closing it out, but we still have customers for it. I just looked, and we even have some old stock with the Jhoon Rhee labeling. It's marked "Jhoon Rhee Saf-T." We'll probably ebay it eventually.

Jhoon Rhee/RheeMax gear was good quality, and all the people I had contact with at the company were a pleasure to do business with, from warehouse workers to sales staff to Jimmy Rhee.

[IcemanSK]

Thanks for filling in details John! I started MA in 1982 & Saf-t gear was big stuff then. Macho had just come on the scene & was more popular. There's a photo of Jhoon Rhee kicking Muhammad Ali (his student) I think from the late 70's or early 80's. Both are wearing Saf-t gear.

[bushido_man96]

That is nice history, guys. Thanks for sharing it.

[IcemanSK]

I went through a box full of old MA magazines from as far back as '81. Many 2-page ads for Jhoon Rhee's gear in them. Ground-breaking stuff back then!

[RichardZ]

"Ice", How far back do your mags go?

[IcemanSK]

"Ice", How far back do your mags go?

I've got a few from 1981. So, not too far back. (Sorry, it doesn't seem that far back to me) I had a few from as far back as 1976 (TKD magazines, not BB) but I threw them away when I moved a few years ago. I'm kicking myself over that!