why take your shoes off ?

Question

why do people take their shoes off when start training i dont get it ?
Do you take your shoes off in the street when someone picks on you ?

Answer 1

Because when you train at a "dojo" your training in somthing other than real street fighting ability. You don't wear shoes in a contest of tag or while doing kata. Now if your training for real life combat you should train as you will fight. There should be a good balance of training in comfortable and loose gear, so as to get the most from the training. As well if you train for real life you should train in your street cloths. Any system that doesn't train in street cloths and train as it would be on the street they your losing out on some real good stuff. But to answer the question: Most trad. martial arts come from the orient and in that culture it is trad. and respect. Not to mention you can tear the crap out of real expensive mats with shoes. 99% of "dojo's" out there, today, teach kata and tag, not self defense. Those systems are nothing more than ways to "express a spiritual meaning" or to get a good workout. They have nothing to do with reality.

Answer 2

You take your shoes off so that you develop an understanding of how the kick should actually be done and to see if you understand what part of the foot you should actually be making contact with and have your foot, ankle and toes flexed correctly. Any skilled, well trained martial artist will have several kicking techniques that he can utilize with or without shoes on. There are some techniques that are more diffficult to execute like a round house kick with the ball of the foot if you have combat boots on. At my studio students periodically practice in street cloths just for that reason as well as a few others once they have shown that they can do their kicks correctly. Try throwing a high round house kick to the head with tight jeans on for instance. Its much more difficult than with a gi on. Also the extra weight of a shoe slows kicks down and does put more stress on the knee.

Answer 3

Well for one because street shoes can really scuff up the floor pretty good and I doubt you would be too happy about your instructor jacking up his prices to pay for increased floor maintenance.

Secondly training is not the same as actual fighting. Your goal is to learn the right way to do the moves not so much to injure your opponent. Having shoes on can injure someone and many martial arts school are already paying far out the ass on their insurance as it is.

Also in Japanese culture it is considered a sign of respect to remove your shoes before entering someone's home or a dojo.

Answer 4

The shoes are taken off for both respect and practicality of training.
Shoes tend to have dirty stuff on the bottom, I don't want to get hit by that. I also would not want to risk injuring one of my training partners from the shoe itself.
The foot position can be seen better with the shoe off. If you can kick hard barefoot, you can kick harder with your shoe on. Also, if you practice barefoot you know the proper striking surface because it causes pain if you are wrong, with a shoe on it doesn't matter as much, until you kick real hard the worn way and sprain your ankle or break a bone.
Also, the heavy bags would not last as long if people kicked them with shoes on.
In the street you would be foolish to take your shoes off while you are being attacked.

Answer 5

cause that's the ancient way of training
i guess i might take off my shoes if someone picks on me on the street cause i always wear loose shoes or shoes that aren't suitable to get into a fight
but another thing is it's a sign of respect for the martial arts place, people walk on crap on the time, and it'd be nice not to have those on the carpet that people train on

Answer 6

You take your shoes off in a modern Japanese-style dojo for a couple of reasons.

1) It gets the mat very dirty. Some Judo schools allow their students to wear wrestling shoes, but these schools also do not allow the students to wear these shoes outdoors.
2) Tradition. The only reason it is tradition is due to the types of shoes the Japanese used to wear. They wore either zori sandals (tatami material flip-flops) or geta sandals (wooden platform sandals). Neither of these shoes were ideal for training, and again, it gets the training floor very dirty. (In traditional schools the students had to scrub the floor after training.)

It is also customary in Japanese culture to remove ones shoes before entering a house. Again, it keeps the dirt of the road outdoors.

At my dojo we have traditional days and "real" days. The traditional days are practiced in the gymnasium in karate gi and barefoot. The "real" days are scenario training in normal street clothes that takes place sometimes in the parking lot between cars or anywhere else one might get attacked.

Train how you fight.

Answer 7

Take you shoes off to throw them at your attacker? lol... Although I do say to my g/f that if she is attacked when I'm not around and she's wearing heels to smash the pointy heely bit into the dudes eyes, throat, balls, arm pit or anyother soft target area that he exposes, even a 6 inch heel to the hand or arm I imagine wouldn't tickle, and the throat shot would likely be fatal.

It's usually a japanese thing so it's cultural or a sport thing too ie, judo ect. I suspect from the sporting end it's so that you don't hurt each other as much, trust me you def kick harder in shoes. I train in a chinese system and we wear shoes, boxers wear shoes, krav wears shoes ect... You could argue that maybe bare feet are more accurate or have a better feel for the ground, but if you wear a flat, low cut thin sole shoe then there is no real difference in my opinion and the benefits of wearing shoes are much greater, ie not having to worry about glass or other dangerous surfaces, protection of your foot from stomps or when kicking, good traction, if they're runners then there's an obvious one there, get running lol.

Having bare feet can limit some kicks, I wouldn't toe kick bare foot but with shoes on it can be effective, even if just to distract an opponent.

Answer 8

Traditionally it's a respect thing. Anytime you enter the dojo you bow in and take off your shoes. Your just showing respect for the ground or place where you train. A trained martial artist can kick someone just as hard with or without shoes, maybe harder without

Answer 9

We train on mats so it would ruin them quickly to train with shoes on all the time. However, we train without shoes so as to learn how to kick properly and then when we do kick with shoes it is even more effective.
You can learn in shoes, yes, but what happens if you need to defend yourself in your home? You don't usually wear shoes indoors. And if you're used to shoes all of the time you could end up damaging your foot because it hasn't been conditioned properly.

Answer 10

because the training mat would get filthy in shoes. Also, training barefoot builds strong foot muscles and tendons.

Some shoes don't help with balance on a training mat, since it's soft.