How Martial Arts Sparring Shoes Saved My Marriage

Summary: If you do any kind of martial arts sparring, you know that protective gear is of the utmost importance. Any man who has the stones to go into a sparring match without a cup on, won't have them for very long. There's protective gear like the heavily padded "foot gloves" that I wear when I'm teaching, so I don't accidentally do a spin kick and take someone's head off when they miss a block. But the protective gear I want to sing the praises of today are the martial arts sparrin...

If you do any kind of martial arts sparring, you know that protective gear is of the utmost importance. Any man who has the stones to go into a sparring match without a cup on, won't have them for very long. There's protective gear like the heavily padded "foot gloves" that I wear when I'm teaching, so I don't accidentally do a spin kick and take someone's head off when they miss a block. But the protective gear I want to sing the praises of today are the martial arts sparring shoes. Now, I use the martial arts shoe for two very simple reasons. The first is that after I did a series of practice bits against a wooden "sparring dummy", I walked out of the dojo on several bone-deep bruises in my feet. Now, bruises are the price you pay for any contact sport, including martial arts. Even a little bit of padding would've kept me from walking funny for two days. My friends and co-workers were making fun of my little mincing steps to avoid putting weight on the tops of my feet from a particularly nasty bruise - almost a break in the bone. The foot has so many small bones. And almost no meat. No fat. No protection. Poor bloodflow. At least mine do. Pain sticks attached to my ankles! I guess I'm a slow learner. Two weeks later, I did the same practice drill and about pulped my big toe when I mis-judged the distance to the wingchun wooden dummy on a kick - instead of hitting it with the arch of the foot, I did a direct "full force kick" with the point of contact centered on the toe. The joint popped, the toe swelled up to twice its size, and only pure blind luck kept me from having a fracture. OK, so kicking wooden dummies in bare feet is a dumb idea.... I went looking for things to save me from my own stupidity and found martial arts sparring shoes. Now, those sparring shoes are different from tourney foot pads. They're light enough that you won't develop compensatory habits to adjust for the weight