Martial arts discussion thread

[Bartrim]

Bare foot for me... Gotta toughen up

First lesson back on MOnday after a 2 week break... still sore in the gluts and theighs.

[GoktimusPrime]

Hurt my foot this morning cleaning the kitchen. Hopefully will recover before this Friday's lesson.

[Bartrim]

Hurt my foot this morning cleaning the kitchen. Hopefully will recover before this Friday's lesson.

See... you wear shoes and your feet are weak. I train barefoot and my feet are tough as (liquid) nails

[KalEl]

Yeah, this is getting hard to properly discuss in text - will have to continue this over Skype.

Onto another topic... shoes. What shoes do you guys prefer wearing when you train? (unless you prefer training barefoot, in which case this discussion may be moot for you )

My Chen Taiji teacher always recommended tennis shoes because they're designed for the sudden stop and turn plyometric ("explosive ferocity") movement that's used in both tennis and martial arts. He also said that some martial arts shoes, like Kung Fu shoes actually aren't that ideal for martial arts. Rather the treads on their soles are designed more for linear shuffling forward and backward which beginners are often taught, but of course, in more advanced practice (drills, sparring etc.) you're gonna be doing much more than that! The shoes I currently use in GKR training are Feiyues (view of front sole); but it's a Kung Fu shoe which typically is designed for basic linear shuffling rather than plyometric footwork. :/ But I got them now, so I might as well wear them out before buying another pair. I actually bought these Feiyues expressly for the purpose of training with barefoot fighters or in barefoot schools that don't allow hard sole street shoes. They've never been worn outside of a MA school.

But in my regular Tai Chi training I use cheap sneakers - I usually buy cheap tennis/badminton/basketball shoes (e.g. Kmart) because I don't wanna buy good shoes that are gonna cop a lot of physical punishment. I have a pair of Nike basketball shoes that my wife bought for me, but they're far too nice to use for MA training! The shoes I currently use for personal training are running shoes (my wife bought them without understanding the types of soles and footwork required for martial arts). So I'm still using them, but check out the soles...


After several months of training the treads have been completely worn out! And it's not just from plyometric sudden stopping, turning, hopping etc., it's also just from practising stances and doing forms - simple things like moving between Riding Horse Stance (Kibadachi) and Bow Stance (Zenkutsudachi) etc. - in fact, it's always the ball of the foot and heel that wear out first. In some of my previous shoes I've actually worn holes through those areas! Btw, these aren't cheap Kmart shoes - they're actually proper Adidas... which is why they still haven't completely fallen apart on me like Kmart shoes would have by now (actually, I would've had to chuck them out long ago).

So these shoes are already past expiry... next time there's a shoe sale I might see if I can get myself a pair of decent tennis shoes. But of course, these would probably be considered hard sole street shoes and may not be accepted by barefoot schools. So I'm wondering what I should replace my Feiyues with. Is there a soft-soled shoe (e.g. martial arts shoes) that also have soles designed for plyometric footwork? What about Taekwondo shoes? Looking at some images, it seems that the soles of some TKD shoes like these have treads designed for sudden turning on the ball and heels of the foot, but the "smooth" appearance of the rest of the sole leads me to wonder how well it caters for the other aspect of plyometric footwork - sudden stopping. But then these TKD shoes look like they have a sole that does cater for more plyometric movement. I've never worn Taekwondo shoes before, so I'm only guessing from images that I'm looking at - for anyone who's ever worn TKD shoes in training, what are your thoughts?

See... you wear shoes and your feet are weak. I train barefoot and my feet are tough as (liquid) nails

I used train 15-20 hrs per week barefoot. They were like concrete. Now not so much lol

[GoktimusPrime]

I fell off a step ladder.

There are pros and cons to using shoes and being barefoot; and I do train barefoot when I'm at home. But otherwise I prefer to train with shoes on... it's my personal preference. Barefoot training in Japanese martial arts didn't start because of podiatry reasons, but because of cultural reasons which - as far as modern Dojos are concerned - aren't relevant anymore (i.e. modern Dojo floors aren't covered with straw tatami mats anymore - they're either bare wooden floors or they have modern mats).

Your Dojo is privately owned by your Karate school, is it not? And I assume that it doesn't get used by anyone else? If so, then you guys have full control of your training hall's floor - in terms of hygiene and hazard prevention. Many other classes are held in hired venues, like school halls or function centres, and don't have that level of absolute control over hygiene and hazards. During last Friday's GKR training one girl pricked her foot on something sharp during warmup. Sensei stopped the exercise and tried to look for what had pricked her foot, but couldn't find it. Now fortunately for the student it was only a slight pricking sensation - Sensei checked her foot and there was no blood. But it could have been worse. Our Karate class is held in a school hall used not only by the Karate club, but by other sports clubs too (e.g. indoor soccer). So from a practical health and safety POV the best way to prevent injuries would be either:
(a) Establish your own exclusive training facility.
(b) Have your students wear shoes during training. Every Tai Chi class I've been too has either been held in a carpeted hall or outdoors in a park or basketball court etc. - not the kind of places I would trust walking barefoot on.
(c) Have your students clean the halls themselves. That's what they do in Japan - every student lines up against a wall and are given a large wet rag. They then get down on their hands and knees and go up and down the hall cleaning the floors. I used to wonder why they don't just use mops, but being on one's hands and feet does mean that you can get a better view of any small hazards that could potentially injure someone during training.

I'm happy to train barefoot at home where I know my floors are clean and hazard free; and I'd be willing to do so in a privately run exclusive martial arts hall - but in a publicly shared hired venue where we can't control what other hirees are doing in there... hrmm... you wouldn't believe the number of times I've been in a hired venue that's been left an absolute mess by previous hirees -- sometimes school furniture/equipment left strewn about, but the worst times is when they leave food scraps around and it's covered in ants, maggots etc.! <shudder>

Anyway... any advice/comments on the use of Taekwondo shoes?

[KalEl]

I fell off a step ladder.

There are pros and cons to using shoes and being barefoot; and I do train barefoot when I'm at home. But otherwise I prefer to train with shoes on... it's my personal preference. Barefoot training in Japanese martial arts didn't start because of podiatry reasons, but because of cultural reasons which - as far as modern Dojos are concerned - aren't relevant anymore (i.e. modern Dojo floors aren't covered with straw tatami mats anymore - they're either bare wooden floors or they have modern mats).

Your Dojo is privately owned by your Karate school, is it not? And I assume that it doesn't get used by anyone else? If so, then you guys have full control of your training hall's floor - in terms of hygiene and hazard prevention. Many other classes are held in hired venues, like school halls or function centres, and don't have that level of absolute control over hygiene and hazards. During last Friday's GKR training one girl pricked her foot on something sharp during warmup. Sensei stopped the exercise and tried to look for what had pricked her foot, but couldn't find it. Now fortunately for the student it was only a slight pricking sensation - Sensei checked her foot and there was no blood. But it could have been worse. Our Karate class is held in a school hall used not only by the Karate club, but by other sports clubs too (e.g. indoor soccer). So from a practical health and safety POV the best way to prevent injuries would be either:
(a) Establish your own exclusive training facility.
(b) Have your students wear shoes during training. Every Tai Chi class I've been too has either been held in a carpeted hall or outdoors in a park or basketball court etc. - not the kind of places I would trust walking barefoot on.
(c) Have your students clean the halls themselves. That's what they do in Japan - every student lines up against a wall and are given a large wet rag. They then get down on their hands and knees and go up and down the hall cleaning the floors. I used to wonder why they don't just use mops, but being on one's hands and feet does mean that you can get a better view of any small hazards that could potentially injure someone during training.

I'm happy to train barefoot at home where I know my floors are clean and hazard free; and I'd be willing to do so in a privately run exclusive martial arts hall - but in a publicly shared hired venue where we can't control what other hirees are doing in there... hrmm... you wouldn't believe the number of times I've been in a hired venue that's been left an absolute mess by previous hirees -- sometimes school furniture/equipment left strewn about, but the worst times is when they leave food scraps around and it's covered in ants, maggots etc.! <shudder>

Anyway... any advice/comments on the use of Taekwondo shoes?

1 gripe a have with Gkr is that they should supply the branch sensei each with their own dust mop(broom) so that floors can be swept prior to training to help about issues. I small cost that they should cop if they want to use hire venues.

[5FDP]

I remember the first time I started training bare-foot... I'd dab my feet with metho to toughen them up. After about 2 weeks, all of the skin underneath my feet pealed back and came off like one massive insole. Should've kept them as trophies

[KalEl]

I remember the first time I started training bare-foot... I'd dab my feet with metho to toughen them up. After about 2 weeks, all of the skin underneath my feet pealed back and came off like one massive insole. Should've kept them as trophies

lol

[GoktimusPrime]

Eewww gross!!!
My feet are as tough as nails

[KalEl]

how long have people been training?