“I'm not really satisfied with the pairs [of stick-fighting gloves] I have. You had mentioned the one pair was too thin for stick fighting and the other gloves I have are slick and it makes it tough to hold on to a stick. Any suggestions?”

-Sean

Lacrosse gloves are the best knife fighting trainers, and I believe that is what you have. Some of them offer good grip, some good articulation, none of them offer good thumb protection, which is a must for stick-fighting sparring. I have broken my thumb twice, once cleanly—both times in lacrosse gloves—and it does suck.

The hockey glove is usually stiffer and comes in a variety of styles. You want the short hockey glove with the cuff wrist protection rather than the lace joining the wrist pad that you see with the goalie gloves. The main thing is that you want a solid thumb splint, which is metal or plastic. I do not compete in hockey gloves, but use them for sparring with anyone who can get to my hands. The hockey glove does not protect fingertips any better than the lacrosse gloves. I’ll get back to this.

The best hockey gloves for stick fighting are the Easton brand, as they have a soft leather palm pad.

For competition—but not for sparring with a dude who is at your level or higher—I like the WEKAF competition mitt, which gives the best fingernail protection, but must be worn with batting gloves. Of course, I wear batting gloves under the hockey gloves as well. This glove-mitt combo sacrifices knuckle protection for maximum handling, weapon retention, and disarming grip.

I recommend, and I use:

1. Soft lacrosse gloves with a soft leather grip for knife sparring and shield handling

2. Easton hockey gloves for stick sparring

3. WEKAF competition mitts with batting glove underneath for stick fights against people below your level or even with you.

With all of these options I like wrapping the wrist in a Mexican style boxing wrap, to protect the nerves against those shots that sometimes sneak in behind the cuff of the heavy gloves or blow throw the fixed but thin cuff of the WEKAF mitts.

Also, for bruised finger bones, use athletic tape and makeup removal pads to build a cushion on the finger before sliding it into the glove.

Fingertip protection comes best from batting gloves, but can be had by tapping over trimmed fingernails with a little gauze pad on the fingertip. Since this is a pain in the ass I wait for the fingertip to get painfully bruised before resorting to this.