Wear your damn cups

by Meredith

This article is a 'mate' (if you will) to Mike's Wear a Damn Cup article below.

Ladies. Wear your chest protectors, PLEASE.

I know all the reasons why you might not want to. I put it off as long as I could, personally. I didn't want to look all 'busty' while I was working out. I liked the flatness of the sports bra. "It hasn't been a problem so far." "I never get hit there." Suck it up. I did.

My new favorite place to plant a thrust kick is square in the chest of my opponent. And you know how it is, we're all moving around, sometimes things don't hit square. I'm sick of feeling guilty for landing a good shot on a partner who wasn't wearing the proper equipment. I don't care if you're big or small. I'm a 32C, so I'm right there in the middle. What, it doesn't hurt you? Too many hits to the chest can cause damage. We don't want breast cancer do we? No. No we don't.

For more impact, here's what Dr. Dill says:

Lumps, scarring, deformation can all be the result of continued trauma to breast tissue. This can make detection of tumors more difficult resulting in more mammagrams and potentially more surgical procedures than would normally be expected. "Protect the girls!!"

Also, these babies can be an advantage! Ever grapple a guy in class and manage to put your full weight on him in a cross body position? Generally they will yelp or squirm if you're wearing your boob armor! Personally, I wear the turtle shells. I landed a shovel hook on a girl wearing that full torso stuff and hurt my thumb. A lot. Like, I had to stop.

So wear your shields. I'm not going to feel bad for kicking/punching your girls anymore.

And another thing, this can go for both sexes, don't go live if you forgot your mouthguard.

The one time I made a guy's lip bleed during a grappling class, I felt really bad. Until I realized he wasn't wearing a mouthguard. By choice. I mean, c'mon. Don't we all like our teeth? Especially during something like grappling where you never know where things are going to land half the time.

If you forget it, then let your partner know, and just drill. Sit out during anything live. Obviously the same goes for boxing and kickboxing. I get very annoyed when someone forgets their mouthguard, and then it's ME who is handicapped by not being able to punch them in the face. This happened once on my end, and I told my partner I wouldn't punch her in the face either since she couldn't punch me. Fair's fair. But what a drag when you were counting on all out sparring. At least offer to sit out and time until someone wants an easy round. Go work the bags.