Rentig gym mats? (for rent, loan, home)

[shadowfax]

So my dojo is working on hosting a very important Shihan for an aikido (martial art) seminar next year. This would be a really big deal for us and a very special event, as I would be taking my black belt test that weekend. I will be the first student that my teachers have trained from the beginning up to shodan and to have that test at our home dojo would be the icing on the cake. Otherwise I will be testing at another dojo next spring in front of this shihan. Everyone in the dojo is eager to find a way to make this seminar happen. However, we have a small problem that I though maybe CD members could help me with.

Our dojo is a very small space and would simply not be large enough to handle the 30-50 people who would turn up for the seminar. We could get a larger space in our building for the weekend which would work well but have the trouble of needing additional gym matting for the floor. In aikido we take a lot of falls so training on a hardwood gym floor without mats is out of the question.

We would prefer not to buy mats since we rarely host such large events and would have no need of them in the future, not to mention we lack a place to store them long term. We would ideally like to find a local place we could borrow or rent them from but are so far coming up empty on such places in the area.

So I thought I would put the question out there and see if the helpful people here had any ideas on a good source of some gym mats for rent or loan.

Thanks in advance.

[Pitt Chick]

Can you borrow some from other dojos?
High school wrestling mats.... are they similar? If so, would that be a source for you?
Gymnastic mats?

[Hopes]

I'd call other martial arts studios, gymnasiums, and schools.

If you can't find any who will rent the mats, look for a place that will let you rent the room with the mats. I'm thinking Catholic schools could be the ideal place to rent mats or rent the gym with the mats. Don't call the school. Call the pastor of the church affiliated with the school. They are all about making a buck every way they can. For example, St. Raphael in Morningside uses its old church as a gym. They hold the bingos there and rents it out to anyone for events, including an adult basketball team. They rent out chairs to people to use when they need extra seating at home for holiday dinners. I don't know if they own gym mats, but I'm certain they would rent them out if they do. Check any school. Even the private schools like Winchester Thurston might help you out.

[Hopes]

Good luck on your black belt test!

[Tallysmom]

We used to work with a small indie wrestling outfit and we always ran out of local high school gyms. You pay rent, and in turn your get to use their facilities and rest rooms. You have to leave the place as clean as you found it, but it never cost us more than a couple hundred bucks. And they usually have tons of mats.

[shadowfax]

Thanks for the thoughts. We already considered checking other local dojos but this probably would not work since it would disrupt their own weekend class schedules. Checking into high school gyms seems like a good idea. I will mention that to my teachers.

[Tallysmom]

Originally Posted by shadowfax

Thanks for the thoughts. We already considered checking other local dojos but this probably would not work since it would disrupt their own weekend class schedules. Checking into high school gyms seems like a good idea. I will mention that to my teachers.

The other plus -- we used to get local pizza or sandwich places to work the concessions for the cash and the free advertising. That way there was food and drink, and we didn't have to pay for it. We'd make a program (really inexpensive to do with your own computer and nice paper) and sell some ad space here and there and sometimes make enough to break even, after paying the guys.

Most often, we'd end up a couple hundred in the hole. We could afford that.... although I was really happy to get out of it.