# Gear for sparring heavy/full contact



## Username Redacted (Jun 22, 2015)

My friend and I are studying jujitsu and karate under a man with experience in Kyokushin and some other stuff -- the upshot is, he's okay with us beating the tar out of each other if that's how we want to learn. What we are learning _isn't _Kyokushin, and I'm not interested in optimizing for competition, so I'm very interested in heavy-contact or even full-contact sparring, including hand strikes to the head.

I've gone ahead and bought some gear that aligns pretty well with our goals: MMA grappling gloves, which are a nice balance between padding and hand control, and some shin guards. What I'm not sure about is the headgear. My friend's recommendation is one of those thick, TKD-esque helmets with a clear face protector. My preference would be a kickboxing helmet like this. To be entirely clear, I'm not at all trying to be macho here -- I like the idea of not risking broken noses or whatnot. My objection is that helmets with face guards are heavy, uncomfortable, and obscure the vision. 

What would you guys recommend?


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## drop bear (Jun 22, 2015)

We use basic boxing headgear with mma gloves. It is mostly to stop cuts.

Although if I were you I would use bigger gloves.


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## Username Redacted (Jun 22, 2015)

So I don't injure my face, so it doesn't hurt as bad, or so my hands stay safe? We looked at some bigger gloves, but they seemed they'd be very difficult to grapple with or do any open hand strikes. I really appreciate the reply, by the way. It's very helpful.


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## drop bear (Jun 22, 2015)

If you don't want to hurt your face. Don't spar full contact. That is kind of the point of full contact.

And look up mma sparring gloves.


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## drop bear (Jun 22, 2015)

Everlast MMA Striking Training Sparring Gloves eBay

You can get a happy medium.


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## drop bear (Jun 22, 2015)

You can do this sort of thing. It just depends on how hard you want to hit vs how technical you want to wrestle.


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## Username Redacted (Jun 23, 2015)

drop bear said:


> If you don't want to hurt your face. Don't spar full contact. That is kind of the point of full contact.


Right, that's why I'm wondering what you meant by recommending the heavier gloves. What is the disadvantage to the gloves I already have?


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## drop bear (Jun 23, 2015)

Username Redacted said:


> Right, that's why I'm wondering what you meant by recommending the heavier gloves. What is the disadvantage to the gloves I already have?



Cuts mostly. You will get a bit more face damage. But it depends how hard you hit.

Sparring in mma gloves is good though because your defence changes a. Bit. The smaller gloves leave more gaps.

So if you have the mma gloves just get the basic headgear and you should be fine.


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## Username Redacted (Jun 23, 2015)

drop bear said:


> Cuts mostly. You will get a bit more face damage. But it depends how hard you hit.
> 
> Sparring in mma gloves is good though because your defence changes a. Bit. The smaller gloves leave more gaps.
> 
> So if you have the mma gloves just get the basic headgear and you should be fine.


Will do, thanks. 

If anyone else has some competing perspectives, I'd love to hear those as well.


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## Zero (Aug 10, 2015)

Username Redacted said:


> Will do, thanks.
> 
> If anyone else has some competing perspectives, I'd love to hear those as well.



Sorry for late post, agree with Dropbear on this.  From experience sparring pretty heavy with both mma and boxing gloves, the mma gloves sure hurt more when they connect (they go bang!!) and will cut you up more. I have never fought with head gear and only sparred infrequently using open face boxing style when at boxing gyms.  With you using head gear you probably will be fine with mma style unless you catch a strike front on - but please read the below.

I would add that you can do quite a few take downs and shoots with boxing gloves or more padded gloves when you get used to it, you can do quite a lot of judo throws, sacrifice throws and even supplexes with the boxing gloves - but then you are stuffed, as you say, when it comes to ground work and it sounds you are also working on that, so it probably has to be the mma gloves.  Shame you can't transition between glove types!!  : )   As from experience, just sparring full on with mma gloves is punishing and I definitely prefer boxing gloves to reduce the damage you will soak up.

Also, I just don't like the look of those closed face masks!!!  If I was facing someone with that gear on I would be even more tempted to be throwing kicks into the visor to try to break/fold the thing in, I never liked those! hehe!!  Although I would say from my old TKD days that the TKD headgear is quite streamlined and nice fitting - maybe go for that?

Some TKD test showed the Adidas TKD headgear was better at absorbing than other TKD and boxing headgear.

*Another comment*, the headgear will definitely reduce cuts - but there are various thoughts and studies out now that question the impact negation attributes of boxing headgear (and fewer studies re TKD, but there are some). Some think the headgear does not actually reduce the impact to brain and the increased repetition of strikes with gloves and head gear can actually result in long term brain problems and that the padding may actually increase the concussive effect!!

That's a big part of why Olympic boxing and World Champs have now dropped head gear from tournaments - it's counter-intuitive, I know, but it's to reduce concussive injuries!

So please keep that in mind when you are wailing down overhead windmill punches on your mate's skull!!   : )

Peace!!


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## MatsumuraKarate (Aug 19, 2015)

Username Redacted said:


> So I don't injure my face, so it doesn't hurt as bad, or so my hands stay safe? We looked at some bigger gloves, but they seemed they'd be very difficult to grapple with or do any open hand strikes. I really appreciate the reply, by the way. It's very helpful.


Master line makes some great gloves called the Cobra Chops. Great for grappling and enough padding to be safe but still hurt


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