Folding mats

[Cliff Hargrave]

I am thinking about moving my club. I need folding mats that I can put down and take up each class. I need 5' x 10", velcro on all four sides, and I will probably buy 8 to 12 of them. I will be covering 20' X 20' or 20' x 30' depending on how much money I can scrape together. I am looking for the lowest price. 2" would be great but I will go with 1.5" if I have to.

I thought about the Dollamur/Swain roll up mats but I don't know how much they will slide on the wooden floor. I really don't want to tape and re-tape them every class.

If anyone has some used ones they are looking to sell I would be interested in that also. Any suggestions?

[Abbax8]

If your worried about the mats slipping buy a carpet with padding and roll that out first, then put the mats on the carpet. The rubber backing cuts down on the slide effect.

Peace

Dennis

[rgoad]

Mike Wills has some of the Swain roll up mats. I played with them before he got them home. They are really good mats and he has them in his garage, i think, so he may be ablke to rate the slide-a-bility of them for you.

[rgoad]

The Judo club at our rec center has a regular Swain mats that are 1.5" from the one piece rubber. they are the traditional tatami dimensions and have the tatami texture moulded into the patina for traction. They haul them out for each class on a roll away cart.

Anyway, to keep them from slipping they use a closed cell foam that is about .25: thick. It's two big rolls that are not very heavy and cover the area about the size you mention. Adds a tiny extra bounce but kills all the slippage on the concrete floor. It is relatively inexpensive and keeps the real mats clean and untorn from debris on the floor. If I ever get mats of my own I'll get that stuff.

[Cliff Hargrave]

I ordered folding mats from http://www.orbring.com

Excellent customer service, free shipping, ordered on Monday and they were here today (Wednesday). I am only 150 miles away though :D

I had to pay Texas sales tax though. If you are outside of Texas you are free from that.

They look good. We will start using them next month and I will come back with a review eventually.

I bought 8 mats 5x10. I plan on buying 4 more soon.

[anewsome]

Do you need this for any specific type of training?

[Cliff Hargrave]

Do you need this for any specific type of training?

Well, yes:

Name: Cliff Hargrave
Martial Art: Gracie Jiu-Jitsu

From first post in thread:

I need folding mats that I can put down and take up each class.


One last thing, why does your profile say US and your IP address is from Australia?

[rgoad]

Cliff,

are you a cop or something?!?!?!?! ;)

[Rasputin]

Cliff,

Those mats look pretty sweet. Please let us know how they take falls if you could. I wouldn't mind a couple here in my office space instead of the puzzle mats I have down there now.

[Cliff Hargrave]

Cliff,

Those mats look pretty sweet. Please let us know how they take falls if you could. I wouldn't mind a couple here in my office space instead of the puzzle mats I have down there now.

I will keep you updated. They will probably not be the best for a lot of falls since I bought the 1 3/8" instead of the 2", but I couldn't afford the thicker ones right now.

The place I am going to is the same place I separated my shoulder 8 years ago with a bad fall on 1 3/8" mats :) I guess I am a slow learner.

[Rasputin]

Or maybe your ukemi is a whole lot better.

The 4x8x2" don't appear to have velcro on the sides, only the end. I am not sure how that would work out.

[Rasputin]

NM, that is just the ones I was looking at. The others have it on all 4 sides. The more expensive ones, of course.

[Eye4NEye]

Cliff,

Those mats look pretty sweet. Please let us know how they take falls if you could. I wouldn't mind a couple here in my office space instead of the puzzle mats I have down there now.

Please do. I've had Orbring bookmarked for years, but I've always hesitated buying from them because I wasn't sure about the quality. One good thing is that once you get on their mailing list, they'll send you 10% off coupons periodically.

Another thing, if you aren't worried about color, you can get some stuff from their mix-n-match sales. You may end up with a rainbow mat though!

[Cliff Hargrave]

The mats are still wrapped up in plastic in my garage right now. I am going to bring them to the new place this evening and lay them out and see what they look like. I might even take a fall or two and see how they feel.

[MilkManX]

Let us know how the quality of these mats are. I might get some to teach some throwing and ground techniques at my Saturday Kyokushin class.

[Fjolnirsson]

Cliff, how are the mats working for you?

[Cliff Hargrave]

The mats are firm and are serving our purposes well, which is just grappling. Some gis tend to feel sticky on them when your sweaty and seem to inhibit some pivoting. It just takes some getting used to.

They are easy to put up and take down and they clean very easy.

I wouldn't take to many falls on them.

My next move I will probably make these the wall mats. I will eventually get the Swain/Dollamur flexi-mats when I have a permanent place.

[John Bennett]

I'm looking at getting more Dollamur mats. I bought some 10 years ago. They are still going strong.

http://www.dollamur.com/sitemap.html

I just spoke with their representative in Fort Worth. He quoted me $5.35 per square foot for the 2" martial arts mats (6 foot width, no price difference on length of the roll).

He said I could pick them up at their facility in Fort Worth to save on shipping. That's what I did last time.

[Cliff Hargrave]

Jason's new school has the Dollamur flexi-rolls and they are great.

[John Bennett]

The price I was quoted is for Standard Roll mats.

Do you know if the Flexi-Roll® mats are the same price?

[Aaron T Fields]

A few questions about the dollamur mats.

Are they wrestling mats,

Are they good throw/takedown mats?

Are they ok on barefeet, ie not to tacky?

And finally has anybody had sambofki on them?


My club is a bit over 1200 sq ft of sprung floor with zebra mats. I am really happy with them, except they are a bit slick when wearing sambofki.

We are in need of a sambo mat for tournaments and they are really tough to get here, so we are thinking of other options.


Thanks fellas,

Aaron Fields

[Cliff Hargrave]

A few questions about the dollamur mats.

Are they wrestling mats,

Dollamur sells both. The rolls John are talking about are wrestling mats with a smooth surface. The Flex-rolls have a "tatami" like surface.


Are they good throw/takedown mats?

If you get the 2" they are. The thinner ones kind of suck.


Are they ok on barefeet, ie not to tacky?

The Flexi-rolls are great with bare feet. I don't have much experience with the smooth wrestling mats though.


And finally has anybody had sambofki on them?

We don't wear them there communist shoes down here in Texas :)

[Aaron T Fields]

HA!..thanks my friend.

I am expecting a mat sample from Igor in the next few weeks. Then it is who can produce here. Sambo mats are almost loose.

HA.. the Russians are coming..(You know, once you have worn a Adidas Sambofki you never go back, you understand this right Cliff.):D

Thanks again my friend,
Aaron

[John Bennett]

Yesterday I stopped by Carlos Machado's new place in Dallas on Alpha Road. http://carlosmachado.net That place is huge! I bet he has over 3,000 sq.ft. of mat space.

Here's a photo:
http://www.carlosmachado.net/gallery/albums/december_belt_testing/normal_Dec__Belt_Testing37.jpg

The whole place is done in Flexi-roll Tatami style Dollamur mats. I didn't dig them.

The tatami texture was a bit rougher than I'm accustomed to, but not really too rough. They didn't seem as cushy as the mats he had at the old place. I wouldn't like doing Judo falls on them, but they don't grab your feet like softer mats do, so throwing on them would be better.

I was afraid you'd be able to feel the spaces between the cuts where it "flexes" for rolling up, but you can't.

I don't know. I want to look at the wrestling style mats somewhere.