Martial Arts Equipment (Martial Arts - Equipment)

Member Name: GuruOnAMountain

Product:	Martial Arts - Equipment
Date:	11/05/06 (869 review reads)
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So, you've decided to become the next Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee, you've searched around for a club and have maybe even started training. Well most likely the next thing on your checklist will be getting your hands on some gear.

For a start, most martial arts clubs will have no problem with you training in ordinary gym clothes for your first month or so, but if you study a more traditional art such as karate or kung fu, you'll probably want to invest in a karate 'gi' or a kung fu uniform. Martial arts suits tend to be sold in heights and not chest measurements or standard sizes, so a size 1 is for someone 140cm tall, a size 2 for someone 150cm etc.

For your first suit, you'd probably be best speaking to your club and seeing if they have any you can try on. They'll probably be able to give you a bit of a discount on the suit since they'll be bulk buying.

Failing that, look around to see if there are any martial arts suppliers in your area that would let you try a suit on for size.

Once you know what size you need, there are plenty of websites you can buy from where you can get a good price. Karate suits also tend to be sold in weights. For a beginner a light weight suit should do fine and these are also cheapest. However, if you are starting out in a grappling art like Judo or an art that involves a lot of throwing and pushing and pulling at the suit, don't be tempted to buy a karate suit just because they look the same as Judo suits as Judo suits are designed to take more punishment than karate suits.

You can also look on eBay, although if you decide to do this, I advise you to ask around for some good brand names first to make sure you know your are bidding on a reliable suit.

Depending on how often you are going to train, its advisable that you invest in more than one suit, and it might be a good idea to buy two different brands to see which you prefer. Sometimes you might even find you prefer the cheaper of the two. My first suit was a Blitz suit which done the job, but when I tried a Playwell suit that was half the price, I found that I actually preferred that. However, I prefer Blitz belts to other brands, so its worth trying different brands and seeing what you prefer.

Groin guards or chest guards might be needed if you participate in a lot of sparring. Both male and female groin guards can be bought, although as a girl I've never actually found any reason to use a groin guard myself, so I'm supposing that most women would feel the same, although men might prefer to spend an extra tenner to protect the family jewels. Chest guards for women are also fairly expensive and not particularly necessary, in my opinion.

A mouth guard probably wont be needed in the early days of training, and depending on how much you trust your classmates, you may or may not want to use one during sparring training at all. However, if you decide to compete you'll need to invest in one. You can expect to pay about £2 for a bottom of the range mouthguard and about £15-20 for guards that are designed to protect your jaw. You can even get flavoured mouth guards! Lots of people find that shop bought mouth guards are uncomfortable or slip out their mouth no matter how many times they drop them in hot water and remould them, and if this is the case you have the option of asking your dentist to take impressions and from these you can get a mouth guard specially made. Of course, that is going to cost a pretty penny, so is probably only an option if you're a serious competitor.

Gloves are also important, not just for sparring but for pad and bag work, too. Again, this is something you might want to ask for your instructor's advice over. For just general sparring training, you could get by with a cheap pair of elasticated gloves which you could buy for about a fiver, but if you're interested in taking part in competitions you might want to invest in padded gloves which are often a competition requirement which will probably set you back about £15-20. Keep in mind that sparring mitts aren't ideal for anything other than sparring. If you use a heavy bag, especially, you want to make sure your gloves are protecting your hands and wrists so invest in a pair of bag gloves in addition to your sparring mitts.

Padded protection is available for almost any area of your body, including your feet, shins, arms and head, although a lot of clubs will not utilise this. Some clubs may let you wear light weight martial arts footwear if you don't like doing drills up and down the floor in bare feet.

Another essential piece of equipment to try to get your hands on is something to hit. If you have room for a heavy bag, then that might be an option for you, although I prefer something that someone else holds so I can get their feedback on my punch or kick. Hanging punch bags can be obtained relatively cheap, but freestanding ones are much more expensive. A lot of clubs train with hand held pads, which you can buy for about £20 although I feel that these put a lot of strain on the wrists and prefer using a strike shield. There are plenty to choose from, from thinly padded vinyl covered shields to others that you fill with air.

Of course, this list is not exhaustive and there are plenty of other things that you might want or need as a martial artist. Obviously, if your art uses weapons, you'll want to buy practice weapons and you might want to buy some tiger balm for aching muscles regardless of your art.

There are plenty of martial arts websites out there, and if you do a Google search you'll have no problems finding a place to get your supplies, but two of the best websites I've used are www.blitzsport.com and www.playwell.co.uk.

Blitz products are consistently good quality and the last time I ordered off here their postage and packaging were free. However, they can be a little on the expensive side at times. With their cheapest student karate suits coming in at about £25. Their site is easy to navigate and they have almost everything you could possibly need all in one place.

Playwell has a messier site and extortionate postage and packaging charges, so you might want to double up with someone on an order from here. I've had some problems with them before when I ordered posters off them that arrived bent and torn and although I complained, I never heard anything back off them. However, I have ordered an air-filled kick shield off them, two karate suits and a photo frame without any problems whatsoever, and they often have special offers on the site that can make up for the high P+P. I managed to get a medium-weight karate suit off Playwell for under a tenner and its a great suit, so its definately worth checking Playwell out.

Summary: See review.