# Help Me Awesome Grapplers! You're My Only Hope!



## Thesemindz (Jul 5, 2011)

I teach in a kenpo school and we've been doing a lot of ground work lately. A few of my students have been getting some friction burns from the floor, the mats, and their gi, and I wanted to ask you guys if you had any advice for how to minimize this or treat it. We try to train on the mats when we are specifically ground fighting, but our training often goes to the ground even when we're doing stand up work, and most of the time we are just training on carpet over concrete.

I think part of the problem is that these guys are fairly new to ground work, and it's been like 100 degrees almost every day for over a month so they're probably at least a little dehydrated too. I think the combination of dry, sunburned skin, and a lack of familiarity with moving on the ground is the major cause of most of this. I generally tell people that if they're hydrated, and clean, and keep their skin healthy, they won't have as many problems with these sorts of injuries. I'm only talking about small spots where the skin is worn raw or occasionally broken open, but then I've got scabby students with bandaids coming off and blood on the mats and that just won't do.

So I wanted to ask you guys. Is this a problem in your school? Personally, I've never had a real problem with it. In fact, I'm kind of surprised how much these guys are scabbing up. I grapple with them and don't have a single skin burn. But maybe I'm unusually tough. I've definitely been training a lot longer, maybe I'm more callused and just don't remember the awkward newbie stage. It seems like these guys are getting sores on their knees, elbows, feet, and arms primarily.

So what do you recommend? I mentioned that they could put vasoline on their knees and elbows under their gi to reduce friction there if that was important to them, but that's kind of slimy and gross. Of course, so is blood. And blood is also potentially much more dangerous. Is there a lotion you recommend they apply after training to help the skin stay moist and pliable? Or perhaps special gi they could train in that would reduce the friction to the wearer? I'm really looking for any advice. They came to me with the question and I told them I'd ask around.

Like I said, this isn't really a problem for me. I just don't get these kinds of sores very often, and when I do they tend to heal up pretty fast. But I've got a few students that are just covered with little raw burn spots and I'd really like to be able to give them something to help. And it's really inconvenient to be running through bandaids and medical tape and have to stop to wash off the blood and disinfect every two minutes during class.

Help?

Thanks.


-Rob


----------



## ATACX GYM (Jul 5, 2011)

Hey whassup Dan! I've used rash guards and yes even shin and forearm guards/pads  under these circumstances.I've made them wear MMA gloves too,despite the extra hand grip they provide.I've had a few wild gorillas whom I've made wear head gear,and a number of my friends are wrestlers so they'll periodically don that ear guard thing to protect against cauliflower ears.Lastly,I make THEM clean up their spills and scrapes on the spot,then we all as a class clean the training area before and after practice.This constant cleaning combined with the protection and my insistence on moderate force and technique really tends to keep the wildness low...and we can crank it up pretty safely whenever we want to.Hope that helps!


----------



## Thesemindz (Jul 5, 2011)

Thanks Ras. I use a rash guard and recommend it to my students, but most of these injuries are occurring on their feet and limbs. I do have them clean themselves and bandage up, but of course I have to clean the blood off myself and I clean the mats. We clean the mats regularly anyway. I use it as a teachable moment, tonight I stopped class and discussed the importance of proper blood procedure and hygiene.

I try to control the amount of force, of course sometimes students are going to get injured that's part of karate, but these injuries are all happening as skin burns. It's not so much a matter of the force between the fighters, it's the friction against the floor and inside the gi.

I don't know. It hasn't really been a big problem before. But tonight I had two guys who were constantly losing bandaids and bleeding on me. I don't mind the blood, I've been doing karate a long time and blood is part of the training, but it's really not safe. Mostly, I'm just looking for something to offer the students. I don't want the training to be an unpleasant experience for them.

Thanks for the help.


-Rob


----------



## Thesemindz (Jul 5, 2011)

I mentioned having them wear shin/forearm guards and even training shoes, but we generally don't wear that kind of gear and train barefoot. It may be the best way to go though.


-Rob


----------



## ATACX GYM (Jul 5, 2011)

Thesemindz said:


> I mentioned having them wear shin/forearm guards and even training shoes, but we generally don't wear that kind of gear and train barefoot. It may be the best way to go though.
> 
> 
> -Rob



We wear shoes alot for our training,and I think that adding the shin and forearm guards would work wonders here.The other thing...I only had to do this once for one poor soul who was energetic but uncoordinated...is that I also had a very few students wear football knee thigh and hip pads to protect them as they were bound and determined to leave a yard of their flesh and blood on the floor while we practiced shrimping.No matter what I did,these two guys in particular kept dropping hard on their hips and sliding/grinding their flesh on the ground.But when I added these protective measures,the Yoga Staff and Table Postures,and punishment calisthenics for doing the shrimping wrong to their routine? Not two weeks later they were evincing radically improved shrimping...and flexibility...and zero blood swaths trailing from them in a big capital "S" shape as they shrimped up and down the floor.Lol.


----------



## Thesemindz (Jul 6, 2011)

Eww.

Gladly, we haven't had that much of a problem. Just some blood swipes on my arms and my gi and some loose bandaids floating around the training floor. 

I think part of the problem is that these guys aren't healing very fast, so they stay scabby class after class and then the scabs get ripped off and then the sores stay open instead of healing over. I think part of this is just a hygiene/nutrition/first aid issue. If the students stay clean, and hydrated, and take care of their injuries with proper anti-biotic ointment and clean bandages I think they'd heal up a lot faster and this wouldn't be as much of a problem.

Does anybody else have any advice? I'm sure you guys that have pure grappling schools have come up against this before, haven't you? How do you handle it in your classes?


-Rob


----------



## texas_rebel_1980 (Jul 7, 2011)

hello. i am new to the martial arts world but one thing that struck me about your post was that you stated they are getting the burns on places like their elbows and knees. i immediately thought of those sleeves that football players wear, especially when they play on turf, to guard against burns. the sleeves aren't full lenght but cover the elbows and forearms. i don't know if this would be practical, just a quick idea i had. i don't do a whole lot of grappling myself so it hasn't been a problem for me yet. and add to that my instuctor was able to get two large wrestling mats for us to train on. 


and blood and body fluids are gross too....


----------



## ATACX GYM (Jul 10, 2011)

texas_rebel_1980 said:


> hello. i am new to the martial arts world but one thing that struck me about your post was that you stated they are getting the burns on places like their elbows and knees. i immediately thought of those sleeves that football players wear, especially when they play on turf, to guard against burns. the sleeves aren't full lenght but cover the elbows and forearms. i don't know if this would be practical, just a quick idea i had. i don't do a whole lot of grappling myself so it hasn't been a problem for me yet. and add to that my instuctor was able to get two large wrestling mats for us to train on.
> 
> 
> and blood and body fluids are gross too....



good one! As a former tailback defensive back kickoff and punt returner,I thought of that stuff too.Good one man!


----------



## Ybot (Jul 14, 2011)

Sounds like mat burns which are very common among beginners. As they become more experienced on the mats they will have fewer and fewer problems with mat burn. It's a combination of skin callusing up, and learning not to drag certain parts of the body on the mat. It really can't be specifically taught, from what I've seen, just comes with experience.

I have noticed that newer mats also tend to be tougher on people... again not much you can do.

My suggestion is to drill basic mat movements extensively until they learn to move naturally on the mat. More shrimping in all it's variations, sit out drills, jumping from knees to feet, butt scooting, etc.

Let me know if you want suggestions about varying your mat drilling.


----------



## Brian R. VanCise (Jul 14, 2011)

Ybot said:


> Sounds like mat burns which are very common among beginners. As they become more experienced on the mats they will have fewer and fewer problems with mat burn. It's a combination of skin callusing up, and learning not to drag certain parts of the body on the mat. It really can't be specifically taught, from what I've seen, just comes with experience.
> 
> I have noticed that newer mats also tend to be tougher on people... again not much you can do.
> 
> ...



*This is the answer!*  Your people just need to toughen up their skin!


----------

