Dojo Floor

Hi Larry,

My opinion is that you want your mats to be a bit hard, and you want the floor under the mats to have a little move give than concrete. The physics really make a difference to people who don't have great ukemi skills and are taking a lot of koshinage - trying to get great at it. Kyu type people generally take the typical Judo breakfalls where they land on the mat and slap as their entire body lands all together. If you do this a lot on a mat that is soft the energy of that goes into the mat (a good thing). However, if the mat is on a very hard floor like concrete, the energy tends to bounce back into your body causing more discomfort than when things are the other way. So, I like to see dense jukado mats on an old hard wood floor. The energy of the breakfalls goes into the floor and not back into your body. Of course, the real answer is teach great ukemi so that you could land koshinage all day long on tile floors - but that's not beginner-friendly. My 2 cents. - Rob

Does anyone (in Australia) know where I can source suitable training mats - preferably Queensland?
Thanks.

Ignatius Teo wrote: Does anyone (in Australia) know where I can source suitable training mats - preferably Queensland? Thanks.

Hi Ignatius,
Give Acromat a try (www.acromat.com.au).

Their mats are very good (a little on the expensive side but well worth it) and are easy to maintain, setup and move as needs be.

A large number of dojo in Victoria use these mats (as well as a number in NSW) and they seem to be very durable and good to practice on.

Their mats are like a light weight tatami (seating the mats correctly and putting them in some kind of block frame is sufficient to stop them moving). You will find the mats are similar in look and feel to tatami, but at a fraction of the weight.

Cheers,
Sean.

Thanks Sean,

I have this thing about acromat....and having trained on it, suffice to say, I don't think it is suitable at all for what I am looking for.

I would prefer tatami or imitation tatami, but am open to options (other than acromat - which is ok for gym, but not what I want - both practically and aesthetically).

I was looking at Zebra mats, and similar stuff like the safety mats used in kids playgrounds. But there doesn't seem to be many options available in QLD.

Thanks anyway. If you do know of anything else, please let me know.

I was wondering, that Acromats you describe, are they the soft rubber landing mats, or the hard tatami-style mats? They manufacture many types, and the landing type you often see in gyms are of totally different construction and resilience (they are also markedly cheaper).

Aikikai Australia recently had a training camp in Sydney and had both tatami and Acromat mats for the duration (the tatamic mats came from different dojo); I found that while the tatami mats were slighly harder (and heavier - they were very difficult to move and put in place), the Acromat mats held up very well side-by-side the tatami.

Ignatius Teo wrote: I was looking at Zebra mats, and similar stuff like the safety mats used in kids playgrounds. But there doesn't seem to be many options available in QLD. Thanks anyway. If you do know of anything else, please let me know.

This is going to sound really silly, but Clark Rubber have a range of mats similar to the Zebra mats (having said that I've not actually seen Zebra mats). I know these mats are of very similar construction to the safety mats you described, and are also similar to the jig-saw type mats you seen in many places.

Shogun martial arts out of Sydney have a good range as well, and they delivery Australia-wide (http://www.shogunmartialarts.com.au). They are a reputable company and very good at sourcing equipment like this.

I'm from a regional area so I understand the pain of not having local sources for everything

Larry,

How is the Dojo project coming along? Do you have pictures of the process? What kind of floor etc did you finally decide on using?

Dan Botari