Training on Different Surfaces

[ashworth]

Trained on many different surfaces, mostly wood floor now, but did go through a period of a couple of years only training in a dojo with a matt floor, then going back to a wood floor, I found for the next 8ish months I was getting blisters, so either my feet went soft training on the matts, and jumping back on a harder floor was a surprise to them... Or I just got better at moving around on a floor to avoid blisters... 

Side note... when I first saw this topic I thought it was going to be about outside surfaces, uneven ground, slopes etc... Obviously most of our training carried out in the dojo is on nice level floors... from a self defence point of view we aren't always going to be attacked in our dojos... I used to do some training in the woods where the ground was particular uneven, practising the ability to adapt to the uneven surface and not too be caught too off-guard when moving around an uneven surface that can knock us off-balance.

[ryanryu]

Funny finding this thread, I was just talking about this in class.

Right now I train on two surfaces – the standard high school gym floor which is wood covered in some sort of polyurethane sealer and a concrete floor covered by those thin stick-on carpet tiles. The concrete floor is unforgiving on my feet and knees and I was hoping to get some tile mats to cover the space, but I don’t want to drop the cash right now. The space is also in my home so I use it for shorter training sessions and can always put on shoes if I want.

BUT I’ve trained in two dojo that both had beautiful floors that I’d consider to be the gold standard for each style of training. The karate dojo I grew up in had a “sprung floor”, which was a thick (~1.5’’or so) gray foam pad underlayer on top of which were wooden slats, maybe ¼’’ thick. So the floor felt solid and firm for kata, but had some give when you did throws, breakfalls, or even a hard stomp. For karate, I thought it was the best of both worlds. You didn’t even realize the level of support it was giving you.

I also trained briefly in an Aikido dojo which had a central training area bounded by this wooden frame. Inside the frame was a thick pad, maybe 3 inches?, but still firm, covered in a canvas that was pulled tight and lashed to the wooden border frame. It was solid enough to walk on and move around easily, but had the right amount of give for the rolling and falling that was the bulk of the training. And I thought the canvas cover helped prevent sticking or sinking into the padding itself.

I think you have to tweak the training to fit the surface and other features of the training space. Seems like another aspect of being aware of and adaptable to our surroundings.