Speaking of equipment...

[WTG]

Great question Gerry! I too had wondered about that, for our gym $$$ plays a major role in these decisions LOL!

So I figured that I would get the cage so we could stick spar, right now we are limited to hand and leg sparring, so it will be nice to open it up to include the head.

Nice to know you can blast kickboxing with the cage as well.

I have another equipment question... Right now, we do drills and pad work with bag gloves from Vut Kamnark and a mouth piece.

But when we spar, we use 16oz gloves from ringside which works fine in stand up. But when we do "all ranges" it is a bit of a problem in clinch and a major problem on the ground!

What we end up doing on the ground, is we pull them off, but then we are forced to end it on the ground...

What do you guys suggest for the best all around "all ranges" full go sparring glove? Do you think it is a good idea to have some standard gloves for kickboxing and another set for all around sparring?

Thanks in advance!

-Rick

[Jim McRae]

Rick:

The gloves that most of our guys use here in Honolulu are the Century Chuck Norris Wristwrap Gloves (or the exact copy of the Century gloves made by Harbinger). They provide good, all-around hand protection and let you grapple freely. I even use them for padded stick and knife sparring (though they offer little thumb protection). They also double as good bag gloves (which is actually what they were designed for). However, there are two small drawbacks: (1) they are pretty hard gloves, so you have to use headgear to avoid shredding your partner's face (2) they have an annoying pad in the palm allegedly designed to give you a nice grip. All the pad does is force you to form an incorrect fist, make grappling difficult, and make holding a weapon nearly impossible. The good news is that you can cut the little buggah out in about 30 seconds with a knife with no damage to the glove.

For straight-up boxing or kickboxing, many people prefer to use traditional boxing gloves, especially since the face cage has a nasty habit of scraping one's knuckles when using grappling gloves.

Take care and train hard,
Jim

[WTG]

I'll try it.

Hey!

Thanks again Jim for the right on quick replies.

I'll check into that glove. After I decided to go with the cage, I was concerned about hitting them with my leather Ringside gloves for fear of tearing them up.

I guess the best deal if you have the Money, is to use the 16oz with boxing head gear and these Norris gloves with the cage depending on what you are training. But it sounds to me the best bet all around is to go with cage and Norris gloves.

Thanks for the input.

-Rick