What floor material does your karate school have?

[RJCKarate]

What floor material do you train on at your school, what are your opinions of it, and how do you rate it in comparison to other materials you have trained on, plus advantages/disadvantages?

Some of the basic materials for a karate school might be: wood, lino, tile, carpet, jigsaw mat. The main comparison I am looking at is between wood & jigsaw mat.

This is primarily aimed at karate school practitioners as I will be using this to help decide what floor I go with in my school. I'm used to training wood, as that is the traditional Okinawan way (and my school follows such), however the place I'm looking needs to have some floor material placed down.

My school trains in traditional-style Okinawan karate, therefore we focus on striking, however do do a variety of takedowns, sweeps and some minimal throws, but no 'rolling' as you would find in BJJ etc.

Any comments etc would be appreciated.

Cheers,

[quinteros1963]

hard wood. I'd prefer something softer but its what we have. Did i mention my feet hurt.

[Lupin1]

We have carpet as well as a section of wrestling mats that we don't use very often, but we use sometimes for certain takedowns. I like the carpet. It's soft and warm in the winter and provides good grip for your feet, much like you'd get if wearing shoes (chances are, if you get attacked you won't be barefoot on a wooden floor). Although I definitely prefer doing takedowns on the mat.

[jsteczko]

We train on some special mat. I don't know what it's called, it's soft but looks like grey wooden floor. It has some special material underneath it to make the floor even softer.

Well, at least I can guarentee it is not traditional floor

[Shizentai]

We have a hard wood floor in almost every place where I've trained. I have been thrown and taken down on wood floors many times over the years, but I was not injured. In fact, I find training on a hard wood floor to be a really good motivation to fall correctly.

[ps1]

Tatami style zebra mats

[conrad665]

The plastic one used in tournaments, I don't know its name. Some years ago it was hard wood, and some toes were broken as teachers told, so they changed it.

[DAZ]

Hard wood floor every time

[ps1]

I miss hard wood. I also miss the all sand floor I trained Kung Fu on. That was awesome. Dirty, but awesome.

[Rateh]

Our floor is padded but its not puzzle mats. Its long mats about 5 or 6 feet wide stretching out the length of the floor and taped together at the seams. The tape is obviously made for that purpose as it is the same texture and color as the mat and is a strong adhesive with no peeling.

Besides this, I have trained on hard wood floor, carpet, and puzzle mats. This is my favorite training floor. There is no risk of toes getting caught between mats. And the floor is plenty solid. But its much nicer on bare feet then hard wood, and its great for falling and grappling.