What kind of headgear/gloves are you guys wearing?

Will

In this video, we are wearing hockey helmets for protecting the head.  On the hands, we have a light hockey gloves.  This is to help protect the bones in the hands, while allowing a significant amount of the blow from the weapon to be felt.

Other times, we may have a 16oz boxing glove (the type used for sparring) on the left hand.  For even more safety, you could have elbow pads (or guards; the type with a hard plastic shell) and knee pads for added protection in these areas.

If you can afford it, I'd recommend an Eskrima type helmet; this offers the best protection for the head and has added protection for the throat and neck and collar bone areas.  The price of these starts at about $80.  (Where a hockey helmet can be gotten for as littl as $9 dollars if you buy "out of season".)

We can minimize the equipment being used because the padding has been moved to the stick.

The sticks used in this video were made from PVC pipe as the core, pipe insulation for the padding material and duct tape wrapped with complete coverage to give support.  These are relatively cheap to construct, but don't last more than a few sessions of hard sparring.

What we use today is LAMECO padded sticks.  These have a rattan core, pipe insulation for the padding and a canvas cover.  Because of the rattan core, the overall thickness is a lot less than the PVC core version.  The canvas allows the sticks to "stay together" a lot longer and these that have lasted for years of sparring.

I've looked into some of the other alternatives and haven't been that impressed.  They do offer a lot of safety for sparring and require almost no additional protection; however, becuase of their flexibility (the core of the "sticks" are not rigid), you are unable to work any sort of disarms and some of the blocking attacks on the stick aren't extremely effective because these sticks are too flexible (bordering on the line of being a flexible weapon - such as a riding whip).

In my mind, the LAMECO style stick is the best tool for sparring stick fighting since it offers a minimal amount of padding, has the rigidity of a real stick and stands up to a good amount of abuse.  They just have that right balance between safety and that special sting needed to keep sparring honest.  In addition, these sticks aren't all that hard to repair when they do wear out or break.  You can find these sticks at the Inosanto Academy website and they can also be purchased directly from us as well.

Thank you Cory for your answer. I've been trying to find a padded stick that is durable and not too expensive. I also have the eskrima helmet along with the body armor but would like to use less protective padding. Have you ever used the Actionflex stick? They are expensive and was wondering if they are worth the price.

Will

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the ActionFlex sticks.  They seem to flexible to me.  They are OK for some types of training or where safety is paramount (such as with children).  The key to why I don't care for these sticks is in their very name; Flex.  ;-)  The other reason, as you point out, is their price.

I was at the Inosanto Academy last weekend and noticed they had a lot of them in the corner where (at least while I was there) they were conducting one of their childrens classes.  I don't know (and didn't have time to ask) if they used them during sparring and how they liked/disliked them.  But I did get to pick them up and examine them very closely and thus the resulting oppinion I have of them.

Just to point out, I'm also not a huge fan of using rattan sticks for sparring either, as there is a huge risk to *perminant* injury.  My oppinion is that I don't need to have the bones crushed in my fingers to know that I should get my hand out of the way. ;-)

I should point out though that I do some sparring without headhear and gloves using the LAMECO sticks as well... if... and only if... all particpants exhibit a good level of control in their strikes.