The Best Shoes for Traditional Martial Arts Today

The Best Shoes for Martial Artists

Since we can't be barefoot our entire lives, you will need to find a good pair of shoes that will serve multiple purposes and last a long time. I have personally been through many different shoes and these are the best I have found.

Without a doubt, I would recommend the FeiYue Kung Fu shoes as my first choice. These are the go-to shoes for Wushu practitioners, some wrestlers, and Parkour / Free runners. These have very minimal padding and support at the base, allowing for a natural feel and flexing of the foot arch. If you've run in Vibrams or a similar shoe, you'll be right at home running in these otherwise, I'd recommend a pair of solid running shoes (see the recommendation below for my favorite pair). I personally own these and use them daily for everything, and they are cheap enough to replace every couple of years if you wear out the soles from pivoting.

FeiYue Kung Fu Shoes

The next pair of shoes I would recommend are incredibly comfortable and for someone who wants to own a single pair of shoes for the gym, training, and long distance running. The Asics Gel Kayano shoes which I have personally owned and absolutely love, they are extremely tough. I took my own pair across 3 countries, numerous hiking, motorcycle, trekking trips and utilized them frequently during my own martial arts and parkour training sessions for about 3 years before I was forced to hang them up. The running community has some opinion on certain versions being better than others however I haven't personally noticed any differences between models.

Asics Gel Kayano 24

And for the female readers.

Disclaimer! I have only tried the mens version and can not speak first hand for the female version.

Lastly, for the performing martial artists, I would recommend the very comfortable and stylish Tiger Claw Kung Fu shoes. These have much more padding than the FeiYue and look nicer in my opinion. However, the extra padding definitely takes away from the flexibility aspect of the shoes, which some may not like. I think you will have to decide whether the tradeoff between practicality and style is worth it.

Tiger Claw Kung Fu Shoes