Combat Skin spats and rashguard review

I'm a big fan of the "Combat Warrior" rashie and spats, designed by Meerkatsu and made by Combat Skin.

I'll start by saying I wore the rashguard and spats in a lot of nogi classes as well as under my gi, for a few months.  I had my teammate Joseph wear the spats for pictures just so you could see a different body size and shape.  But then at the end of April I suffered an injury (pinched nerve and bulging cervical disc). This injury made typing and mouse usage really really painful, so every moment I was capable of typing, I had to spend it on my real job.  Fortunately, I'm better enough now to spend a little time on a keyboard for this review (Plus I'm sitting out a rainstorm on Memorial Day, how appropo.  Not training, not barbequeing, sitting on the couch.)

So this is the rashguard (though I'm wearing Ok! Kimonos spats).  It's a size medium, and it's a comfortable fit (I'm 5'2", 140 lbs, wear a 34C and an A1 or F3 gi for reference.)  It's dye sublimated so the image won't flake or peel.

Meerkatsu drew a qilin for this piece.  A qilin is an ancient Chinese heavenly creature who Combat Skin describes as "benevolent and kind, but transforms to a fierce and powerful beast if good is threatened by evil so it is the perfect analogy of a true martial artist and represents the warrior spirit within."



My only gripe is that it is a little long in the torso for me, so it rides up to my waist... but on the plus side, it doesn't show my belly skin, even so.  It was really smooth and comfortable material, with soft, interlock stitched seams.  Usually I don't like a high crew neck, but this one never felt like it was choking me, and the arm seams didn't irritate or feel tight.

Here's Joseph, wearing the medium size spats.  He's 5'11" 180lbs, and wears an A3 gi.  The spats have a waist drawstring and you never feel like they'll slide over your hips while rolling.  They fit me fine, a little long as you would expect, but I liked that they didn't look see through (even though the inside of the fabric is white, so when stretched, they do have a little white in the background.)

I was comfortable wearing them alone, without board shorts, for training, but Joseph was not and had to be bullied a bit to pose for these pictures (hence the blur, and the awkward expression.  Also dig the photobomb in the background.)

I have washed these in the machine on hot and dried in the machine on hot, a bunch... at least thirty times... and noticed no shrinking or wear.  There was a little fuzzing on the forearms, but that's pretty expected and not bad after a few months' worth of wear and tear.

The rashie is $59 and the spats are $55 on the Combat Skin website.  You can get 20% off your whole order, if you use the discount code "BJJSCOUT" when you check out.

Other reviews out there:

Breaking Muscle (Sally Arsenault)

Slideyfoot

Survive BJJ (Brody)

Hail Mary Reviews (Aaron)

Science of Skill (Dan Fagella)