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

[ShoriKid]

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.

This. Very, very much this. Those who train without protective gear and make real, honest contact get injured a lot. And then they miss training time, work time or lose a job due to appearances.

[sensei8]

Pads are an important part of training in any MA because they protect one from some potential serious injuries. Especially with my students and there safety is paramount.

I use them still, and that's to make sure that my students are safe, however, I don't wear them when I'm training with fellow Shindokanists that are Rokudan and above. Why? Those aforementioned ranks had been with our Dai-Soke during a time when we never used pads whatsoever, not even a cup/mouthpiece. Don't want to get hit, then do something about it, and that's how we trained back then.

Dai-Soke started putting pads on us when he saw the importance of safety beyond the Do. Still, those that had been with him for a long time, still didn't wear any type of pads; it was foriegn to us. Change is enivitable, and wearing pads is no exception.

Greg, our Kancho, and I often will try to kill each other when sparring. That's how WE train...no pads.