Club Gear: Where to Start
By Julie Gaunt
Contributors: Sigmund Werndorf
It’s hard to sword fight without swords. The topic of club gear is one that comes up early for many clubs. There are two deciding factors for what kind of gear to get and how to get it: what type of training you do, and what your budget is. Answering those two questions will help you decide how much and what kinds of gear to purchase for your club.
What Type of Training Do You Do?
Let’s start with the first factor: type of training. The higher the intensity of contact, the more gear you’ll need as a baseline. Even for non-weapon based arts like wrestling and boxing, the upper levels of contact call for protective equipment like mats and gloves.
How Intense Will Your Training Be?
How you train will dictate the type of gear your students need before they participate. Do you see your students being outfitted in full kit for full contact sparring? Do you have more of a study-group-type organization where you do slow, cooperative drills with minimal spontaneous contact? Do your lesson plans fall somewhere in the middle? The more intensity you want to be able to access in your training, the more gear you’ll need to do so safely.
What Weapons Are You Training With?
The type of weapon you train also affects what gear you need. It’s hard to study rapier if you don’t have any rapiers. Higher impact weapons like longsword and saber call for more protection as the intensity ramps up. Lower mass weapons like smallsword, leather dussacks, or singlestick can be used with less protective gear.
Which Body Parts Do You Need to Protect?
Most training beyond solo practice requires, at a minimum, a mask and gloves to protect the most vulnerable parts of your body: the face (and in particular, the eyes), and the delicate bones of your hands. After that, the next most commonly recommended piece of protective gear is usually a jacket of some kind. If your club is more on the full contact side of the spectrum, however, you’re looking at the following gear requirements:
Mask (with back-of-head protection for certain types of heavier weapons)
Gloves suitable for the weapon you’re using (e.g. for longsword you want heavy gloves with a hard protective shell; for smallsword you only need a simple padded gauntlet)
Neck guard/gorget
Jacket suitable for the weapon
Elbow guards
Leg guards (knees and shins)
With this gear you can safely train with most any synthetic or steel trainer on the market. However, remember that gear is not a replacement for respectful sparring practices, safety-oriented club culture, and skillful fighting.
What is Your Budget?
A quick internet search will reveal how expensive a full, high intensity gear kit can be. Most clubs have to work within a budget, and few provide a comprehensive set of safety gear for their students.
Buying Gear Within Your Budget
If you have an operating budget already, then this will most likely dictate what you can afford to spend on loaner gear. However, many clubs start generating funds specifically to buy gear, so either way, you’re going to want to prioritize your purchases based on the question asked in the prior section: what kind of training do you do? Once you have an idea of what to get, simply buying these things is the most straightforward way of doing so, if you have the money for it. For more on this topic, check out When and How to Start Thinking About Money.
Finding Discounted Gear
If your club falls short of its ambitions because of your budget, there are a few things you can do to get the gear you need:
Buy in bulk. See if the vendors or providers offer any kind of club or bulk discount. Saving up and buying large quantities at once, rather than piecemeal as you can afford them, can sometimes save you money.
Buy used. You can also reach out to other clubs to see if they have any old or extraneous gear they’d be willing to sell you (so long as it’s safe and still in working order).
Find equivalent gear from other sports. There are some sport gear equivalents you could use that could further reduce the bill. However, a word of warning: don’t skimp on safety. Many fingers and ribs have been broken in tattered, worn out, ill-fitted gear, and sometimes the illusion of safety offered by inappropriate gear (such as lacrosse gloves or motocross pads) lead people to practice at levels of intensity that are not safe for the protection they actually have.
Raising Money for Gear
Another great way to fund the gear you need is by raising additional money beyond your current budget:
Ask for donations. If you’re an established club with an existing student body, consider setting up a donation or in-house resale programs to let senior students donate or sell off their older but still usable gear at affordable prices. While people are capable of arranging this amongst themselves, setting up a formal program will help encourage participation and facilitate it happening more.
Include the cost of new equipment in class fees. Use the money from new beginner cohorts (groups of students beginning a set program at the same time) to purchase masks for them to use through their beginner’s class cycle. At the end of the program, the students can then purchase the mask from the club if they are going to continue study at the club, or donate it if they aren’t, allowing the club to clean and re-use them for the next cohort. This requires a beginner’s program with a ‘cohort’ structure and the financial flexibility to devote funds to the mask purchase rather than, say, rent, but is a tidy system that assures all students have at least a mask, if your club has those options.
How Much Gear Should You Buy?
The Basic Kit
The most common approach to club gear is to have masks, trainer weapons, and gloves to lend, as this is generally the minimum needed to introduce people to their training. This kit allows students to go through an introductory or beginner’s program, lets people get a taste to decide whether they want to invest in the hobby further. These pieces are a good place to start in your priorities.
Expanding Your Gear Selection
However, some clubs do like to be able to offer people more, either out of a desire to increase the accessibility of the hobby, or just to allow newer practitioners access to a wider range of training experiences. Most likely the primary restrictions on how much to offer will be budget, as discussed above, and the logistics of storing and maintaining whatever club gear you have. Remember, the more you want to have for people, the more space it’s going to take up. Don’t forget to ask:
Where are we going to keep it?
Who’s going to clean it?
Who’s going to be responsible for checking to make sure it’s still safe?
Who’s going to do the maintenance on it?
Whatever you decide to buy, prioritize getting it in a range of sizes. People (of all genders) come in a wide range of shapes, and making sure you have gear for a diverse array of body types helps promote a culture of inclusion within your club.
Balancing Inclusion and Safety
Deciding what gear to buy requires you to balance a number of factors, including participants’ freedom to customize, the cost burden, safety, and your goals.
On one hand, buying gear can be a lot of fun for participants. The process of customization, exploration, and expression that can be found in gear is an activity of its own for some. Allowing people to find setups that work for their particular style and body is a strong reason why clubs rarely provide full kits for people.
On the other hand, requiring participants to provide their own gear creates financial barriers to participation, which should be kept in mind for your club.
The most important thing to note is that safety cannot be compromised. If your club finds itself with many members shut out behind financial barriers or unable to fund the loaner gear you want, remember that there are low gear training options. Low intensity training can have enormous value, Boffers (which are often cheaper than steel or even synthetic trainers) allow for more intensity with less protection (though still require some), and many games, drills, and exercises can be done with no gear at all, or common objects like socks.
Choosing the Right Gear for Your Club
Gear is a topic that can take up an enormous amount of attention and money. Purchasing gear (or not) for your club can only be made based on a variety of factors: the experience you want your students to have at your club, the type of training you’d like to facilitate, and your available budget. The better you answer these questions, the better you can decide what gear to buy.