Who here still trains without pads in the old school ways.

[Bryan Sensei]

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I can still remember the days when martial artists trained in the dojo without pads.To this very day I still don't own any protective equipment ,partly because my sensei didn't train me with any and second because pads give one a false sense of security .I'm a film believer that martial arts is not a sport ,but is designed for self defense and protecting one's life on the streets.If a student of the martial arts trains with pads or other protective equipment they won't know how to take blows or direct hits in the streets .When I first starting training in Karate ,Karate was real not a sport.If you did not block or parry you got hit ,pure and simple.

[Karate_John]

Well in my GoJu dojo no white belts are permitted to spar at all, and we officially use pads with controlled contact during sparing class... It's an insurance thing with the kids. But after class the BB and a few adults tend to stick around and spar controlled with no pads with enough force to get a bruise here and there... We however do pull head shots and the like.

You have to remember we are in a dojo to train with each other not to hurt your fellow karateka, it helps no one if someone suffers an injury from training.

[Shizentai]

In my dojo we never train with pads. Instead we must learn and practice control. The kids use pads, but usually just small ones on their fists.

On the other hand, in recent years I've discovered that I have a congenital defect in my connective tissues that causes me to hemorrhage easily from blows to the stomach. I'm thinking seriously of investing in a torso guard lately, but I have no idea where to start.

[Kuma]

You can get by training without protective equipment if you're non-contact or light contact, but eventually if you want to go into heavy contact training you're going to need protective equipment. For our full contact sparring we typically wear a protective helmet, gloves, mouth guard, and shin pads. If we're sparring more knockdown rules style, we can forgo the gloves.

Training with heavy contact without protective equipment just means a lot of injuries and missed training time down the road. That's why even professional fighters train with protective gear when preparing for a big fight.

[Bryan Sensei]

I see the logic of where you guys are coming from,but my logic is this ,in the streets their are no pads available or rules.So in the dojo KarateKa should train as realistic as possible,but I agree kids and anyone lower than green belt should not spar or spar with some protective gear because of the lack of control.

[DWx]

I see the logic of where you guys are coming from,but my logic is this ,in the streets their are no pads available or rules.So in the dojo KarateKa should train as realistic as possible,but I agree kids and anyone lower than green belt should not spar or spar with some protective gear because of the lack of control.

No training is 100% realistic, pads or no pads. And IMHO neither is better than the other for realism. Even if you aren't wearing pads you must be reducing the contact levels somewhat or pulling your techniques otherwise are you routinely sending home training partners with broken bones and internal injuries?

As Kuma said, no pads is fine for non or light contact but for medium through to full you should be wearing it if you want to train consistently without time out for injuries.

[Wastelander]

We have all students under the age of 18 wear the usual dipped foam head/hand/foot gear and a mouth guard, and we highly recommend groin protectors but parents seem to ignore that. They are also restricted to light contact unless they are sparring adults, and then the adults still only use light contact on the youth students. Adults can wear that type of gear if they want, but most of us use MMA-style sparring gloves, groin protectors, mouth guards, and whatever combination (or lack thereof) of shin guards or foot gear they want.

We don't hit as hard as Kyokushin people in sparring--I would classify our kumite as "medium contact"--but we do hit hard enough that you can end up with bruises, bloody noses, or black eyes even with the protective gear. We also incorporate sweeps, throws, takedowns, joint locks, chokes, and general grappling in our sparring, so we spar on a padded floor.

While I understand where you are coming from, I don't think there is really anything gained by a lack of protective equipment. Generally, if you spar without protective gear, you will either pull your strikes more or you will end up with lots of injuries in your dojo. Neither of those is really beneficial to training--the more you pull your strikes in training, the harder it will be to overcome that in a fight, and if you get injured in training you might have to stop training for a while, or you could even get in trouble with your employer.

In my mind, traditional karate training was done with control instead of protective equipment because they didn't HAVE protective equipment. Until Mabuni Kenwa introduced it, anyway: http://www.shitokaihonduras.org/historia/kumitemabuni.jpg

[Kuma]

I see the logic of where you guys are coming from,but my logic is this ,in the streets their are no pads available or rules.So in the dojo KarateKa should train as realistic as possible,but I agree kids and anyone lower than green belt should not spar or spar with some protective gear because of the lack of control.

Is it more realistic to hit an opponent with a strong punch while they are wearing protective headgear, or is it more realistic to stop it before hitting them? Unless you're blasting each other in the face bare knuckle and without protection all the time, the former is much more realistic.

[CredoTe]

We wear sparring gear for insurance purposes, first, but also so we can go at it with more than just light contact. All of our non-Adult students (those 15 yo and under) spar black belts only (which means adults). We black belts spar at their level with light to medium contact (light in any of the vital areas or face, medium in other areas, and "light to medium" is according to their power scale not ours). When they get hit, the level of contact lets them know that they missed something (block, body shift, evasion, etc).

For our Adult students (non-black belts), when they spar black belts, we black belts spar at their level, and medium to full contact is allowed. Medium contact to face and / or vital areas, full contact to areas like chest / stomach / etc. Since they're sparring us black belts, we are conditioned to take shots to certain areas without incurring serious injury. When we strike them, our targeting and control is such that we rarely inflict serious injury (I can think of 2 in past 15 years of our dojo). For the Adults and older Youth, we allow grappling, takedowns, locks, etc. We encourage our students to purchase hand pads that allow use of fingers for this purpose. When the Adults spar each other (kyu vs kyu), light to medium contact is allowed to the same areas. No serious injuries yet, and most come away with some bumps and bruises.

But, again, we ARE using pads/gear. We require men & boys to have groin protection in order to spar, and all students to have mouth pieces. If we did not use pads/gear, with the level of contact we allow, I presume we would have many more instances of injury (...duh ). We aren't trying to prepare them for full contact competition, but we want them to experience hard contact so they have an idea of what it's like on the street when they're struck. This will help them react positively to the "fight or flight" switch and deal with the adrenaline rush.

Lastly, the way we do things in sparring means we black belts always go home with more bumps, bruises, blood, etc than our students!

[lowereastside]

In the old days -Karate sparring consisted of groin cups and a very few had mouth pieces and that was it - a far cry from Boxing where every one had a mouth piece - head gear - groin protector -and gloves. But in Karate blows were suppose to be pulled - however things always got out of hand - and injuries were very common. In today's world safety is a big concern for me. Many of my students are in their 40's - 50's - 60's and even though they have many years of Martial Arts experience in other arts - they not only bring the experience - but the many injuries. When drilling lets say low kick against low kick I use leg guards. My goal is to let my students take the Kung Fu that I teach them into their old age. That's why a few years back I got heavily involved in the study of Chinese Medicine.