In all the decades I have done the martial arts I have never worn body armour, meaning of course boxing gloves, headgear and so on. Have you done the same? In fact the thought of wearing such protection never even crossed my mind. I even trained all my students without any protection right up until I retired from teaching.
The wearing of body protection does of course go way back into the mists of time, or at the very least maybe a hundred years or so, however, unlike these days with all that somewhat special impact absorbing material used, back in those days head, body and leg protection was not that really very good. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s it was somewhat more common to see students of the traditional striking martial arts training and sparring, (now often called Kickboxing by the way), without any body protection at all. You could easily compare that situation to bare knuckle boxers who would punch with their bare fists unlike regular, modern day, boxers wearing boxing gloves in the ring. I started to learn the martial arts back in the early 1970’s and many clubs back then, but not everyone of course, taught the combat arts bare-fist with no protection at all. Punching a heavy hanging kick bag was always done with the bare fist and the same when it came to kicking with the bare feet. Sparring with a fellow student was also the same. No shin guards, no padded protection head gear, no padded foot protection, no mouth guard and for sure no boxing mitts or gloves. This situation was also very much the case when it came to local or regional competition events. I often saw some young lad take a kick to the unprotected head and get totally knocked out. But of course that was all before people became far more aware of the risks, and those health and safety rules came into force. It is also worth mentioning that back in those days classes were often held in church halls or community centres, on hard wooden floors, that had for sure seen far better days and no soft mats to fall on. The only real exception to that situation was Judo and Aikido classes of course. Those Judo white mats were more than a bit heavy to move out of the local community store room before the class started and even more of a hard job putting them back again after a tiring lesson. Many of those now regarded ‘old school’ teachers of the martial arts in fact started out training and teaching others in those community and church hall places under those conditions back in the day. These days of course many martial art classes are held in rented, or owned, buildings for the sole purpose of being a Dojo or a Kwoon. Martial art classes can also often be found within full time gyms these days in addition. When I think back now to those somewhat barbaric training conditions, compared to how things are now with those nice well lit smart training rooms with those colourful mats, and not covered from head to toe in all that protective body armour I really do wonder how we all survived back then. The one thing that is for sure is that without any body protection to give you a false sense of security against being hit or kicked, so you could just stand there and not worry about blocking someones strikes, being totally unprotected really did make you far more aware of getting badly hurt, which is a good motivational thing when it comes to learning how to avoid and block your opponent if finding yourself in a real street fight. These days due to health and safety regulations, and the risk of legal action if a student gets hurt, it is more than understandable that body armour is now a vital thing to have within martial art classes, even if only gloves and shin pads are needed or used. It is worth noting at this point that the wearing of boxing gloves, if taking part in street self defence classes in the main, is not practical. The wearing of any padded protection restricts body movement and the hands cannot be used for controlling techniques that are often needed in such situations. Sadly these days those new rules on safety, and any legal problems that martial art teachers now have to face, have made some martial art classes somewhat softer and less combat effective compared to those days. But that, as they say, is so-called progress? For a related article on the subject of padded headgear protection and brain trauma click >HERE< Comments are closed.
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