My son and I are BJJ newbies. My son joined a gi training for the first time with himself in his new gi. After the session, he had cuts or burns(?) on his fingers right above the nails. How do we avoid this? Or, how do we protect our fingers from this? I see some players with some kind of tape on their fingers. What are those? Thanks!
Remember to trim your nails, both hands and feet. Some guys wear tape for reasons unknown to me. I've never hurt my fingers grabbing a gi so I can only assume it doesn't happen to everyone.
I have seen people taping fingers for grappling to protect the tendons. I used to do it for grappling and rock climbing as I rely on being able to type in order to make a living. http://tapeyourfingers.com/how-to-tape-your-fingers-finger-taping-for-bjj-and-sports/ As you can see, this is purely for soft tissue injury prevention not for abrasions or friction burns. Personally I would say keep the injuries clean, cover open wounds with sticking plaster while training and eventually the skin will start to harden.
The friction burns is from gripping inappropriatly hard, you get used to gripping properly after a few weeks, if you tape over the graze for training you won't bleed all over people. Tapping for finger tendon injurys is a different thing, but again caused by gripping too hard.
It sounds injury due to friction when grabbing the sleeve and pant leg cuffs. As mentioned above tape will not help this. Gi and mat burn isn't uncommon but with time in training tends to happen less, I can't remember the last time I had either happen and was prone to it early in my BJJ training. Just keep the area clean and covered, head to a doc if you see signs of infection. On the subject of tape, some people use it to support recovering injuries to the fingers, some use it as injury prevention. I've even heard of some that swear it helps them grip better. I personally used tape on several fingers on one hand that got twisted up in an opponent's gi, which caused some damage. And I use it on those fingers when I expect a long period of intense rolling as it seems to help support them with a lot of grip fighting or spider guard play.
Some people get the finger burn, some people get the cauliflower ears, some get both, some get neither. I got the finger burn, but over time it stopped, and I got used to it. Eventually your fingers toughen up, and you get a kung fu grip. I'm glad I didn't get the cauliflower ears though. I see guys wearing wrestling gear to protect their ears, and it looks pretty uncomfortable.
When doing Hapkido my partner "kicked" the inside of my hand and gave me a little cut that way. Didn't hurt and really was a tiny little minor scratch actually - but shows as well, why they should be trimmed. Anyway, on topic: My fingertips feel strange and "used", when coming back to training after holidays - but it goes away pretty fast and the fingers get used to it. It's a little different to what you asked about, I know. But when I have "burns" on my fingers it's usually because I nibble on the sides of the nail, which makes it easier to get "hurt" there.
