Safety equipment questions

[Kittan Bachika]

In Kendo they are covered in equipment but I have noticed in FMA particularly when they are using sticks they do not wear any equipment when they are doing their drills.

Are there a lot of injuries in FMA when using sticks?

In certain styles I have noticed that safety equipment is used usually in sparring. In WTF TKD they are covered in gear from head to toe. Kyoksuhin they are barely covered.
Shotokan is the same way. But it still looks like they go all out. From what I have seen on youtube, the Karate fights have the same injuries like knockouts but they don't seem to be more damaging without
the safety equipment.

Does having safety equipment really make a difference?

 

[Cyriacus]

Yes and No.
Its mostly a difference in Confidence, and a reduced chance of Broken Bones.
The Force still gets You, just about as much as it otherwise would.
Some people argue that Helmets reduce the chance of Brain Injury, and so on.

So, kind of sort of not so much I guess?

 

[ACJ]

Part of the reason why boxers tend to get more brain damage than other sports, particularly similar sports like mma, is attributed to the gloves that boxers wear. The glove spreads the force of each blow and allows the receiver to end up accumulating more damage than they would be able to withstand without gloves.
So there's at least one case of safety equipment being responsible for more damage.

I think you'd find that having more/less/different safety equipment may not change the injury rate that much. Instead the style of competition and training will have adapted to the safety equipment. For instance a competition style with lots of protective gear, you may find they utilise more attacks that would usually result in injury without equipment.
Tl;dr more equipment = more risks taken = same number of injuries (more or less)

 

[geezer]

I'd say that safety equipment can be very useful in training. You mentioned FMA. Well drills are one thing, sparring full-on is another. Watch some Dog Brothers videos. Those guys go at it hard, and with a minimum of equipment, but they do wear fencing masks and gloves. To fight that hard totally unprotected will result in a very short career as a martial artist.

Other FMA groups use more protection... check out the WEKAF rules for example. And some don't do much contact work at all. Each has it's place.

As for empty handed work some thought must be given to the particular system and their approach to combat as well. In my empty handed system, WC/VT, folks like to blast aggressively forward with a flurry of vertical fists to the face. Since our offense often is our defense, you have to make decent contact and drive your opponent back, or you are too vulnerable to a counter. If you want to spar with contact, that means giving and taking a lot dead-on shots to the face, often to the nose and mouth. For us older guys who have to show up at work the next day looking "presentable", a headgear with a face grill is a good thing. Not so much though, if you are seriously preparing for all out fights, I'd guess.

Either way, it's a strictly academic question for me since I seriously injured my back a couple of weeks back. Nowdays, It's all I can do to conduct a class as a "coach" standing off to the sides. I'm hoping with therapy, time, and even surgery --if nothing else works, I'll be able to spar again... with or without a lot of equipment.

 

[MJS]

In Kendo they are covered in equipment but I have noticed in FMA particularly when they are using sticks they do not wear any equipment when they are doing their drills.

Are there a lot of injuries in FMA when using sticks?

In certain styles I have noticed that safety equipment is used usually in sparring. In WTF TKD they are covered in gear from head to toe. Kyoksuhin they are barely covered.
Shotokan is the same way. But it still looks like they go all out. From what I have seen on youtube, the Karate fights have the same injuries like knockouts but they don't seem to be more damaging without
the safety equipment.

Does having safety equipment really make a difference?

We don't wear that much in Kyokushin so yes, you do feel the hits..lol. As for FMA...during regular training, we don't wear any protective gear. Alot of the things we do, is stick on stick, however, sometimes, we'll target the arms, hands, body, lightly, with the stick. We have padded sticks that still sting, yet a bit more protection is offered. Sparring...like geezer said, check out the Dog Bros. Full contact, and limited gear.

 

[chinto]

Part of the reason why boxers tend to get more brain damage than other sports, particularly similar sports like mma, is attributed to the gloves that boxers wear. The glove spreads the force of each blow and allows the receiver to end up accumulating more damage than they would be able to withstand without gloves.
So there's at least one case of safety equipment being responsible for more damage.

I think you'd find that having more/less/different safety equipment may not change the injury rate that much. Instead the style of competition and training will have adapted to the safety equipment. For instance a competition style with lots of protective gear, you may find they utilise more attacks that would usually result in injury without equipment.
Tl;dr more equipment = more risks taken = same number of injuries (more or less)

OK the boxing thing works out to the brain injury do to how hard they can hit. tape a hand and you can hit several times as hard with out injury to your hand, then put that large glove that is more about hand protection and reducing cutting then any thing else... end result is that now KO equals brain injury rather then pain. boxing KO is normally done by contra-cue or the brain sloshing in the skull and being injured! before that it was mainly pain. look at the difference in where they hit to KO the opponent! used to be just under the nose and just under and behind the ear, now its the chin point!

so less gear in boxing would result in less injury. the helmet in most MA uses is more to protect the back of the head if you are taken down or fall then to protect you from strikes.
its a trade off. I think less gear is better for most injury prevention. Gear i think breeds false confidence in not hurting or being hurt in a lot of cases.

 

[ACJ]

OK the boxing thing works out to the brain injury do to how hard they can hit. tape a hand and you can hit several times as hard with out injury to your hand, then put that large glove that is more about hand protection and reducing cutting then any thing else... end result is that now KO equals brain injury rather then pain. boxing KO is normally done by contra-cue or the brain sloshing in the skull and being injured! before that it was mainly pain. look at the difference in where they hit to KO the opponent! used to be just under the nose and just under and behind the ear, now its the chin point!

While the ability of the boxers to punch harder without having to fear extensive hand injuries due to the gloves they wear is certainly a contributing factor, it is more than that. Less on the number of KOs, but on concussions and brain injuries due to sub-concussive forces. The glove allows the punchee to receive more sub-concussive blows that still sustain brain injury before being unable to continue fighting, while simultaneously enabling their opponent to deliver these more readily and with more damage. It is not the one KO punch that is the worst in this case, but the accumulation of injury.

so less gear in boxing would result in less injury. the helmet in most MA uses is more to protect the back of the head if you are taken down or fall then to protect you from strikes.
its a trade off. I think less gear is better for most injury prevention. Gear i think breeds false confidence in not hurting or being hurt in a lot of cases.

I don't think it's so much a false confidence; at least compared to contact without protective equipment. When a fight has no protective equipment, a lot of the time the participants will have an over-confidence in their ability to not be harmed. The equipment does have an effect on the prevention of injury, and this over-confidence just grows to within the bounds of that protection.

I couldn't say for certain what the effect safety equipment actually has on incidence and severity of injuries in every sport, but I'm sure their are statistics and statistical comparisons out there.

 

[chinto]

While the ability of the boxers to punch harder without having to fear extensive hand injuries due to the gloves they wear is certainly a contributing factor, it is more than that. Less on the number of KOs, but on concussions and brain injuries due to sub-concussive forces. The glove allows the punchee to receive more sub-concussive blows that still sustain brain injury before being unable to continue fighting, while simultaneously enabling their opponent to deliver these more readily and with more damage. It is not the one KO punch that is the worst in this case, but the accumulation of injury.
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I don't think it's so much a false confidence; at least compared to contact without protective equipment. When a fight has no protective equipment, a lot of the time the participants will have an over-confidence in their ability to not be harmed. The equipment does have an effect on the prevention of injury, and this over-confidence just grows to within the bounds of that protection.

I couldn't say for certain what the effect safety equipment actually has on incidence and severity of injuries in every sport, but I'm sure their are statistics and statistical comparisons out there.

Yes that is the point the point I was making. I wanted to keep it simple and point out that the KO and going for it results in brain injury now. Before the heavy gloves pain was the main factor of KO in general. The so called "safety equipment" makes that kind of force and injury the norm rather then a rare exception.

I think it does breed a confidence in many newer people to sparring that they are more protected then they think and the other is too. In our dojo we have every once in a while spared with out equipment. the level of force used by the fighters is markedly lower in many cases. I base much of my statement on the false confidence based on that. I can not say its universal, but I suspect its more common then many would think.