Sparring gear questions.

This summer I am planning to put together a study group with some friends that will involve some heavy sparring.

The heavy/full contact sparring together with lack of referee means I want to play it really, really safe when it comes to gear, so there's budget for that. I am not going to be in a special position (merely organizing the study group) but I still feel responsible for my friends' health.

I've been looking around and the p2 gear from century martial arts looks very cool and quite protective. I particularly like the helmet. Considering we'll be punching with mma-ish gloves I really appreciate that it seems to prevent any nose and teeth related injuries.


Does anyone have experience with this gear? It definitely looks protective, but I can't tell without trying it in person. I'm also worried it might transpire too little. Also, I'd probably look like an armored lobster from space, which I'm not sure whether is good or bad.

So do you think those are okay? Otherwise what gear do you suggest for reliable protection?

On a side note: If we spend that much in prots, I might as well make sure I'll be able to use them at formal classes. Will that helmet be normally allowed in Sanda/Kickboxing/MMA sparring and the like? My current shifu doesn't care much about that but I don't know what other people might say, and I don't want to pay for gear twice.

Thanks!

EDIT: This one looks interesting as well...

 

I wouldn't waste the money on a helmet like that to be honest. If you're going or MMA sparring you have to expect to get a bit of wear and tear... and you have to expect to pull your punches. A helmet like that isn't going to stop the brain trauma... and will only get in the way of chokes and submissions etc. Ditch that and get wrestlers ear protectors and some off the more trad type boxing headgear maybe and go from there. Use training/sparring weight MMA gloves and have your guys pull their shots.

 

It isn't the brain trauma that bothers me. My friends and I won't spar so much to make that happen.

I'm just concerned about nose and mouth strikes. We would probably practice at an open space away from any kind of medical equipment so I want to prevent that stuff.

 

jwt uses some pretty nifty gear for his self-defense training. dunno how they'd factor into sanda (presumably in class it's all the same, and wouldn't competitions provide their own gear? ask your teacher, anyway), but they worked quite well when i trained with jwt in december, so you might wanna ask him about them.

 

also, you could always look into kudo's space helmets:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5AvCcLwaJQ&feature=related"]Daido juku MMA karate knockdown - YouTube[/ame]

http://www.daidojuku.com/eng/shop/s_index.html

they're a bit expensive, at 162 euros for the XL one, but they don't get in the way of chokes, and they're designed to withstand both giving and taking even headbutts, so they're definitely safe.

 

Any time you spar you are getting brain trauma. Anytime you land a shot flush on the chin or the temple or the nose... the brain bounces around inside the skulls (coup and counter-coup) and that is trauma. That adds up over the course of time. So no matter what nifty plastic shield you have... any shot to the head results in brain trauma on some level.

If you're training for MMA - the nose is what it is and eventually over time it flattens out a bit. Everyone breaks or flattens to a different degree. Comes with the territory.

The mouth? Well that's why you need a gum shield... most likely a boil-n-bite one but the more serious you get you can look into custom molded ones and the Shock Doctor type... but my guess is everyone will start with boil-n-bite.... cheap as chips and cuts down on split lips and teeth through lips...

This should be on your shopping list well before head gear.

 

Those definitely will get in the way of chokes! Ok well not in the way of chokes per se... but you'll have a much harder time to pull your head out when it's being attacked or triangled or guillotined... yikes. Many things you can do to set up chokes can't really be used if your man is wearing that type of helmet - eg. pressure to the jaw, maxilla and crossfacing. It's a massive and pointless cost for MMA sparring methinks. But everyone's mileage may vary...

Also have seen them used for some things and they fog up like a bar steward - despite being marketed as fog proof so best to hit the inside of the polycarbon with an anti fog solution (available where swim goggles are sold).

 

I highly recommend Rival or Title, their gear is fabulous and well made and would be suitable for most sparring training. http://www.titleboxing.com/
http://www.expertboxing.com/boxing-equipment/boxing-headgear-review

 

re: fog on the spess helmets: according to the store they're sold with an anti-fog thing, not marketed as anti-fog per se. point on the escaping chokes thing, but then again, that can also be drilled separately without headgear (either in drills or in grappling-only sparring)

 

My biggest worry with headgear with the polycarbonate mask is that my sweat glands will produce so much sweat that I will end drowning inside my own mask.

 

tape sponges to your cheeks. should also give extra protection

 

Just to clarify, neither me nor my friends are training for MMA. None of us plans to compete.

The objective is self defense under certain style parameters, while keeping it real with realistic sparring. Trying to make some underrepresented arts work, more or less.

So the comments about "roughing up" and getting used to taking blows to the face... It doesn't really apply to us. We just want to learn and develop the technical aspect of these arts in realistic fighting scenarios, not to become apt fighters.

 

That makes no sense. Either you're allowing punches to the face or your not. Call it whatever you want... but if you want realistic... then a punch to the nose doesn't discriminate between MMA or whatever title you want to put on it.

 

We are allowing them. But we want to make sure the nose receiving them is as padded and protected as it possibly can.

That's the thing: It appears our choice is between toning down the level of contact we want to practice and restrict punches to the face and similar, or purchase protective gear that will make us able to go full throttle with minimal risk of injury.

I think the sensible solution for us is the latter.

Perhaps what you're saying is that nose breaks will happen regardless of what face protection is worn. If that's what you meant, I misinterpreted you. But it looks like the face masks I posted and the ones that you guys recommended would prevent those most of the time, right?

 

It sounds to me as if you want to practice / create your own style based self defence repertoires using each other and degrees of contact as a testing medium.

My advice:

1. Ditch the sparring. Replace it with HAOV attacks. Sparring bears no relation to real attacks.
2. The most common attack is a hit to the head, therefore you will need headgear if you are going to have anything that actually tests you. Kudo are great for protecting the nose and teeth, abysmal for protection anywhere else, and direct most force through the chin - as a result they are knockout prone. I would recommend a caged head guard or a Spartan Training Gear Head Guard - the latter flexes and is a good shock absorber. Even with this, a mouthguard as Slip recommends is a good idea.
3. Linked to 2, you will need MMA gloves for their small size, but choose ones with good padding. Unless you are experienced, choose ones with thumb support.
4. Mitch is on the money. There should always be a non participating safety supervisor observing, and a safe word anyone can shout.
5. Buy the best you can afford.

 

I take you guys on the advice about a referee. It makes sense, so we'll do that.

Sorry for being obscure about the specific focus of our study group. I just didn't want to deviate the thread to another version of "is it possible to learn XXX in study group format?".

This idea comes from the fact I wanted to practice the ideas and principles I learn at a Baji "seminar" I plan to attend, and some friends volunteered to form a study group. This evolved a bit once one of my friends told me about an obscure art he was practicing, and asked if he could borrow some time to spar under that style too.

So the end result is that we'll assemble a loose study group, to try and apply principles from obscure/rare martial arts we pick up around. Most of us train formally in other stuff (in my case Sanda now), but we wanted to give those rare arts a chance.

So as you can see, "learning to fight" isn't our main focus but rather experimenting and having fun. We didn't want it to deviate into LARPing so that's why the intention of doing full-contact, because we want to get a little of valuable experience out of it at least. Sorry if saying the focus was "self-defense" was misleading. I meant it as opposition to competition, which we aren't interested in.

Anyway, please don't take this thread into the "you won't learn anything without formal training/that is useless" region. I know that. We just want to have fun and hopefully discover some interesting principles in the way, possibly inferred from the fact we'll be sparring hard.

 

if there is going to be grappling forget headgear, if there isn't don't wear mma gloves use boxing gloves. Also if you buy mma gloves make sure there mma sparring gloves. I recommend fairtex, allot of mma sparring gloves even expensive ones are horrible to wear, these arent cheap either but they are very well made, you barley notice they have extra padding on them.

 

Those look huge!

If you want to hit the ground I recommend the Blitz cage headgear, very nice and snug on the head.