Information to help you!

The essential bits of kit for any contact martial arts, essentially for sparring, semi contact and continous.

Gloves (10 ounce) – 10 ounce gloves are ideal for sparring, for training I would recommend 16oz gloves, as if you get used to punching with a heavier weight then when sparring your hands will be a lot lighter and faster when you need them!

Gum Shield this is essential, it will only cost you a couple of pounds or at worst over £5 but there is no need to pay this much, look at it this way a few quid is a lot cheaper than a dental bill!

Headguard to absorb some of the impact you need a headguard, even if you are doing just light sparring, the normal headguards will cost only about £15 upwards, mine has the cheek guards on which is great as it absorbs some of the impact to the face and with wearing contact lenses also shelters the eyes slightly.

Foot Protection Im now on my second pair of boots, the fist pair I had for a few years and I was training about 3 times a week, these were the UPVC coated boots which looked better and are actually more expensive than the material type. The only thing with these is that they have a plastic kind of strap which goes beneath the foot which depending on the surface that you train on can be quite slippery and dont give you the confidence or speed to do high kicks due to the risk of slipping over. I now use the material kind and these are fantastic, I recommend these over the plastic coated boots, they allow more flexibility, ability to do high kicks and they are not as slippy under the foot. The best bit is, these are actually cheaper by up to about £5 than the plastic coated ones.

Shin Guards I used to do a lot of scateboarding as a kid and bashed my shins so badly, they are now quite dented and slightly crooked so I have to wear shin guards, there is nothing worse than kicking an elbow with your shin, thats one knock that you will feel for a while! There are 2 kinds of shin guard one that covers the shin, the other which is a shin ‘instep’ that also protects the foot slightly, however no where near as good as having boots.

Groin Guard for the men out there, you dont need me to tell you how important the ‘juniors’ are, so look after them! Again a couple of options here, the basic ‘box’ like a what you use for playing cricket which allows you to remove the ‘cup’ which can be handy when training as you can wear the elastic pocket then add the cup inside when sparring. I used to use one like this however found that it wasnt very comfortable at all. I now use the kind where it has almost a lower abdominal protector too so it is slightly larger and really does work. A lot more confortable however, dont wear this when doing training drills, circuit training, warm up etc as when doing sit ups it can be slightly uncomfortable, I would certainly recommend this sort though for comfortableness and function.