The joy of a big mat

As a judoka you love a big space to play on. When the mat area is big, you can move around freely and have a more enjoyable time doing randori. But there are many barriers to having a big mat area.

In KL, it's very hard to find a suitable space for judo. Most gyms don't have big mat areas and even if they do have a substantial area, the mats are usually not very thick (3cm is common, 4cm is very rare and 5cm is unheard of). That's because their mats are not meant for judo but more for grappling, MMA, BJJ etc. For judo we need thicker mats. At least 4cm but ideally 5cm.

Since going to an existing gym is not feasible the solution would have to be to rent a place of your own and putting in your own mats. Renting a big place is usually expensive and proper judo mats are pretty expensive too.

Pretty spacious mat area. It's great to train on.

We were lucky to have come across a suitable location that's affordable and the club has enough members to justify getting some decent mats. The result is what you see above.

Whenever I look at it, I marvel and delight at the thought that we've finally gotten the dojo we want. Not only is the mat area sizeable with the right type of thickness, we don't have to share the mat with anyone.