Blisters and calluses

Ashi-sabaki (kendo footwork), intensive trainning, etc. These are reasons enough to let your feet as if you had walked barefoot on tarmac. Many kendoka have calluses and blisters on their hands and feet. In my first month of training, every day I left the dojo with blisters on my feet and on my hands. Those blisters were already burst... Sometimes they bleed, other times they don’t. Today, this doesn't happen, except in very intensive training sessions. But there are some ways to prevent and to treat them. Thinking about this, I decided to write this post, that might be useful to anyone starting kendo or, to anyone who, like me, is affected by this little problems.

Blisters

Blisters emerge due to the constant friction of the skin on the floor. Since the organism percieves this as an agression, the imune system starts to act increasing the blod flow on the affected area. Thus, the blood vessels dilate and the transparent part of the blood accumulates between epidermis (the surface layer of the skin) and dermis (skin layer immediately below the epidermis) forming a blister. This liquid contains inflammatory properties that fight the invasive agents. This is why we shouldn’t burst the blisters.

How can we treat them?

• As I said, we shoul not burst the blisters. But kendoka know that this is almost impossible because they burst during the kendo practice... If this happens, please, don’t cut the skin!
• First, we should clean the affected skin with an antiseptic (I use liquid Betadine). If the blister didn’t burst we should wash the feet with water and soup.
  
  
  
• In any case, it is important to protect the area with gauze.

Can they be prevented?

I don’t use any of these methods because blisters aren’t that frequent on my feet. But if it happens a lot to you, you can try two things:

• Wear a feet protector like the one in the picture below. You can find it in almost every online kendo equipment stores and it is not too expensive. 
  
  
  
• You can tape your feet. There are several kinds of tape that you can wear to prevent blisters and they are sold at any pharmacy. Keep in mind that this tape shouldn’t be used if the skin is already injured.
  
  
  
  All I’ve said about the feet is valid for the hand blisters as well!
  
  
  Calluses
  
  
  
  Calluses affect almost every kendoka. They appear on feet or on hands (or both; I have calluses in my hands and in my left great toe). It is a part of the skin that became hard/rigid in order to protect that area from the constant pressure against something. In kendo, calluses appear on the left foot due to the constant pressure it exerts on the floor and they also appear on the hands due to the pressure exerted by the shinai. Calluses can be treated but they can’t be totally/permanently removed unless we completely exclude their cause (for us, this means stop doing kendo - yeah... of course...).
  
  
  How do we treat the calluses?
  
  
  There are many types of treatments for calluses. The kind of treatment I do only treats the symptoms, not the real problem. Also, my calluses don’t give me any pain. If they did, | would see a doctor instead of doing home pedicure :P
  I know that there are people how cut the calluses but this is absolutely wrong.You shouldn't do this because it can get infected or bleed a lot.
  
  
•  First thing I do is soften the feet/hand skin. I put my feet/hand in worm water with camomile tea for 10/15 minutes.

• Then, without drying the skin, I apply some baby oil (like Johnson’s Baby Oil) and I gently press the towel on the feet just to absorb the excess water (don’t rub).
• Now it’s the time to gently massage the calluses with a pumice (no not scrub!).

I do this routine once a week and, also, put baby oil everyday after bath and moisturizing cream before going to bed.

Prevention?

Well... There isn’t much to say about this. You can’t avoid calluses (I will not quit kendo because of some calluses - lol). I think the solution is to deal with them in the better way you can. That’s what I do.

And you? Do you have many blisters and calluses? How do you treat them?

* Images taken from the internet.