Here's an article that will hopefully help students, that other schools, martial arts supply stores, martial arts manufacturers, and even a few martial arts magazines, won't likely appreciate me doing...LOL. But once again, I think students who just want to learn and be treated fair are more important than money grubbing instructors, or other money grubbing entities (martial arts manufacturers, supply stores, and magazines)?

Over the years I've found that sparring gear has a tendency to get a little torn over time and use, which once that happens can quickly lead to bigger tears and eventual early (or premature) replacement. Last thing students want to do is purchase a new $20-$30 set of foot or hand gear if they don't have too. Yet it seems many an instructor, and company, now-days would rather make $10-$20 off selling their students a new set of foot gear, versus exploring or telling them ways to repair their old gear for a fraction of that! Yet I believe if one catches tears early enough, they can fix them and prevent them from becoming bigger tears, thus extending the life of ones gear and frequency of replacement.

These tears usually happen in places that someone in engineering might call stress points. I've typically found this to first happen in the feet gear, on the bottoms, coming up through the side of the foam, often in the creases, where the foam hooks to the supports that hold your feet to the gear, and in locations where the foam is curved, or where there isn't that much foam (i.e. between ventilation holes designed in the foam, etc). In the oldin' days, people would resort to using grey duct tape to repair their gear. Some felt this kind of made their gear look ugly, while others felt it was kind of a way of showing ones battlefield experience...lol.

Ideally, a glue would certainly make the repair of the foam look better than duct tape, but I've never found good old Elmer's to cut the mustard, and I would question the effect a Super Glue might have on the extremely porous foam infrastructure of the gear. In any case, I recently came across a glue that seems to work great on Sparring Gear. It's called "Shoe Goo" as seen on their website www.shoegoo.com. I would compare the consistency of this type of glue to an extremely strong rubber cement.

In any case, I found if you peel back the crack/tear in your sparring gear, liberally applying the glue deep into the tear and a liberal amount on the outer surface of the tear, then squeeze or clamp the torn areas together, that within a few hours it hardens and seems to make the torn area stronger and more resistant to tearing than it was before. Real "curing" of the glue is stated to happen in 24-72 hours, and I'd encourage waiting that long before putting your gear through the paces afterwards. For some martial artists, gluing between your longest breaks inbetween classes might be best (i.e. over the weekend?)

I got my "Shoe Goo" in a 3.7 ounce tube at Walmart for under $5, next to where they sell replacement shoe laces. Looks like doing a Google seach a person can also get "Shoe Goo" at various places on the internet, even at Amazon.com. I found the 3.7 ounce tube to be larger than I expected and looks like one tube might last a person a long time. FYI - I've actually found Shoe Goo to work better on sparring gear than for what it was originally designed for, shoes!

So if you are a student who finds themselves financially struggling, trying to figure out how to pay for your martial arts lessons, and you can't pony-up to replace your old torn sparring gear, I'd strongly encourage you to give "Shoe Goo" a try.

And to Century, AWMA, Lightning Gear, Macho, all the other sparring gear manufacturers, and money grubbing instructors, who it seems would rather have you buy new gear to put money in their pockets, here's yet another helpful hint to your students you can go ahead and hate me over. Yet, why not do the right thing and tell students it's cheaper to repair ones old torn gear versus buying new gear? Does everything in martial arts have to be about money with some of you guys? You can't tell me that some of the sparring gear manufacturers and distributors/suppliers haven't been approached by a glue company or two that's said to them "please sell my glue, it will fix the sparring gear you sell when it tears, so students don't have to puchase another set so soon".

Heck, I've even spent time looking in many of my old "Black Belt Magazine" issues and still can't find an article in them about using any type of glue to fix sparring gear. Hmmm, maybe an article about a glue that fixes sparring gear might upset advertisers like Century, AWMA, Lighting, Macho, who would rather have martial artists buy new gear versus repairing old gear?

If anyone has tried other glues and had success with them, please let me know.

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