I am afraid this is not going anywhere. I believe it's a matter, not just of gear, but also of attitude. Safety gear is important, yes, we all agree with that (though maybe not on the amount of it) and I compliment you on your video, which is very well done and encourages people to play safely.
I also believe it is a matter of attitude. I feel that your attitude is that Padding is not necessary if you disallow stabs and use mid grade blades. This is not true. Full protection is needed for sparring, even in restricted sparring. How many times do we have to reiterate that accidental strikes are the ones you are protecting from and those cannot be predicted or prevented. You MUST gear up to protect yourself.
When learning and with the kids we also disallow stabbing. And still people poke each other by accident. All the time.
However, I believe that attitude and enforcing a proper technique (which I believe you do, I am not saying you don't, mind you) is as much as important; without it, more armor just lets the combatants apply more violence, which is not what sports is about, IMHO. Combat, yes, sports, no.
So explain boxers doing it. And Fencers. And Stick fighters. practice is practice and putting yourself at risk during practice is foolish. You get injured in practice and you cannot compete. That is sport. That is reality.
The entire point of a martial arts school is to teach technique. I guarantee i spend more time on technique than anything else. Technique is training and done in isolation at first. When you spar the conditions are different, so the technique is different. In actual martial art, not wearing pads while sparing will harm your technique. You will stay out of range too long, never being able to close the gap. You will start to ignore vital targets like the head, neck, and hands. Disarms and throws become more dangerous, and novices are then prevented from training in sparring.
From my experience, working with light gloves and just a pair of glasses while free sparring or competing will destroy your technique and make it play fighting rather than proper martial arts.
In sports they wear pads. In contact sports they wear heavy pads. Their technique is often flawless, but that never stops them from protecting themselves.
Going "full speed" to me doesn't mean "do whatever I want", it means "employ safe techniques", and stabbing is not. We are not recruits in training at a boot camp, and a move that is inherently dangerous should not be allowed in practice.
That defeats the purpose of what I am trying to do and do not accept that as a viable option to give safety. Restricting strikes in practice is a common thing. It trains precision not safety. Going full speed means moving at the natural speed of combat. The real speed these techniques are to be performed.
Yes, incidents do happen even if you employ safe techniques, but I move that they are not a function of how much armor is worn: take two full-contact sports, rugby and american football; both have heavy contact between athletes, but only in one they have armor and helmet, and rugby doesn't come out as the one having more serious incidents every year: I wonder why.
Your information is wrong. Professional sports even boxing and wrestling, pad up in practice, even if they don't in competition.
Rugby is getting tons of criticism for it's astronomical injury rate of late. The increase in professional play, the size and strength of the competitors and new ways of playing keep an estimated 25% of England's rugby athletes out with injuries. 25%! Thats huge. Conversely, the NFL and other sports have instituted protective gear and are continually evolving it, together with proper training and fitness regimens, the injury rate for some NFL team is ridiculously low.
Rugby is not the best thing to bring up in this conversation. It supports our point about wearing gear.
It's worth thinking about, IMHO, because gear, while important, doesn't seem a panacea to me.
I am not saying it is a panacea. I am saying it is vital to safe and effective practice. You cannot train proper technique with out it, you cannot use your techniques as they are intend with out it, and it is simple and easy to get and use.
While using gear will not protect you from everything, wear none will protect you from nothing.
Gear up.
