Posted by: jasculs
Swain Flexi Roll Review - Gym Mats Home Mats - 03/15/10 02:34 PM
How’s it going everyone,
Just wanted to share my experience with a particular mat company that I use. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the Swain Flex-Roll mats or not. If you have I’m sure you’ve heard many positive reviews and if you haven’t now is a chance for you to get some info about them.
I’ve had experience with all types of training surfaces from wrestling mats, tatame mats, folding mats, and flexi-roll mats. I have to say that I pick the Swain Flex-Roll mats over any other mat on any day.
I purchased Swain Flex-Roll mats almost 4 years ago and I don’t regret it for one second. Before then I had a mix of different brands of the rectangular tatame style mats at my academy.
Some things that I didn’t like about the tatame style mats was:
- If they needed to be moved for any reason it was bit of a pain to move each one as each individual mat isn’t extremely light.
- If you don’t have them on a good surface or bordered they will move around a lot and having 40 to 70+ mats with creases and cracks is very annoying and on top of that very unsafe.
- If you have them on carpet you need to beware too, even if they are bordered because they may still slip and bunch up.
- When mopping because there are so many creases, the water would run into the creases and will eventually collect, creating bacteria and make it even dirtier in the long run. So if you did a routine cleaning and you picked the mats up it might not be so clean on the floor underneath.
- Based on price quotes I’ve received the tatame style mats are more expensive then the Swain Flex-Roll
- The tatame surface is pretty rough and causes mat burn very easy.
- The surface is more on the firmer side them most other mats
- When I had the traditional tatame mats after time they started to get moldy and even collected some water inside of them from the bottom.
As for wrestling mats, in my opinion they are personally best suited for middles schools, high schools, etc…where you can store them and they pay for them with the school budget. They are really heavy, crack and crease, very slippery when used bare foot, and don’t have as long of a shelf life.
What I like about the Swain Flex-Roll.
- Extremely easy to set up
- For setting up a tournament or big gym you only need TWO people!
- Very easy to store in a corner of needed
- Extremely light depending on the size one person or usually two the most can carry one mat alone.
- Less spaces and creases. For my gym now I would need at least 40 tatame mats. That means more mats to move at a time and more creases. With my Swain Flex-Roll I only have 4 mats that can be rolled up in a couple of minutes and put to the side if needed. Sometimes I like to host parties at my facility and may want to roll the mats up so people can walk around the facility with shoes on.
- They roll up very easily. With wrestling mats it takes a lot of work to roll the mats up and multiple people. With Swain Flex-Roll you only need one person and then you just strap them up.
- Even with the tatame style surface you will get less mat burn then traditional rectangular tatame mats.
- The surface is more forgiving then the traditional tatame style mats I’ve experienced.
- While they are thinner then traditional grappling tatame mats they do just as good if not better in absorbing impact.
- They are very strong. After 4 years of consistent use they are still going strong with virtually no wear and tear.
Some Pics (The first 3 pics are of my mats which are 4 years old):
Additional Details:
- Comes in light-weight, custom sized 6ft wide rolls
- Available in 5/8 in, 1.25 in, and 2 in thicknesses
- Textured vinyl or smooth MMA vinyl surfaces
- Treated with Bio-Pruf™ antimicrobials to guard against mold, mildew, fungi, and odor-causing microorganisms.
- 6 Year Limited Warranty
You’ll see that more and more facilities (especially the mega gyms) are starting to use Swain Flex-Roll and my facility is one of them. I’m expanding my facility and going to be increasing my mat space by 1,500 square feet and I’ll be using Swain Flex-Roll so my students have more training space. I have the 1.25in thick mats and they work perfect for my BJJ school.
If you need home mats, they also make extremely portable home mats too. One person can carry them easily and you can move them anywhere. They are much easier to move then any other home mat I’ve ever seen.
You can check out the mats here: http://swainmats.com/flexi_custom.asp to get a quote and more details.
Here are some other customer reviews that I found about the Swain Flex-Roll home mats:
http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f67/review-dollamur-swain-flexi-roll-mats-607664/
http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=17740
http://mmagearguide.net/slider/dollamur-flexi-roll-martial-arts-tatami-home-mats%E2%80%8F/
Just wanted to share my experience with a particular mat company that I use. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of the Swain Flex-Roll mats or not. If you have I’m sure you’ve heard many positive reviews and if you haven’t now is a chance for you to get some info about them.
I’ve had experience with all types of training surfaces from wrestling mats, tatame mats, folding mats, and flexi-roll mats. I have to say that I pick the Swain Flex-Roll mats over any other mat on any day.
I purchased Swain Flex-Roll mats almost 4 years ago and I don’t regret it for one second. Before then I had a mix of different brands of the rectangular tatame style mats at my academy.
Some things that I didn’t like about the tatame style mats was:
- If they needed to be moved for any reason it was bit of a pain to move each one as each individual mat isn’t extremely light.
- If you don’t have them on a good surface or bordered they will move around a lot and having 40 to 70+ mats with creases and cracks is very annoying and on top of that very unsafe.
- If you have them on carpet you need to beware too, even if they are bordered because they may still slip and bunch up.
- When mopping because there are so many creases, the water would run into the creases and will eventually collect, creating bacteria and make it even dirtier in the long run. So if you did a routine cleaning and you picked the mats up it might not be so clean on the floor underneath.
- Based on price quotes I’ve received the tatame style mats are more expensive then the Swain Flex-Roll
- The tatame surface is pretty rough and causes mat burn very easy.
- The surface is more on the firmer side them most other mats
- When I had the traditional tatame mats after time they started to get moldy and even collected some water inside of them from the bottom.
As for wrestling mats, in my opinion they are personally best suited for middles schools, high schools, etc…where you can store them and they pay for them with the school budget. They are really heavy, crack and crease, very slippery when used bare foot, and don’t have as long of a shelf life.
What I like about the Swain Flex-Roll.
- Extremely easy to set up
- For setting up a tournament or big gym you only need TWO people!
- Very easy to store in a corner of needed
- Extremely light depending on the size one person or usually two the most can carry one mat alone.
- Less spaces and creases. For my gym now I would need at least 40 tatame mats. That means more mats to move at a time and more creases. With my Swain Flex-Roll I only have 4 mats that can be rolled up in a couple of minutes and put to the side if needed. Sometimes I like to host parties at my facility and may want to roll the mats up so people can walk around the facility with shoes on.
- They roll up very easily. With wrestling mats it takes a lot of work to roll the mats up and multiple people. With Swain Flex-Roll you only need one person and then you just strap them up.
- Even with the tatame style surface you will get less mat burn then traditional rectangular tatame mats.
- The surface is more forgiving then the traditional tatame style mats I’ve experienced.
- While they are thinner then traditional grappling tatame mats they do just as good if not better in absorbing impact.
- They are very strong. After 4 years of consistent use they are still going strong with virtually no wear and tear.
Some Pics (The first 3 pics are of my mats which are 4 years old):
Additional Details:
- Comes in light-weight, custom sized 6ft wide rolls
- Available in 5/8 in, 1.25 in, and 2 in thicknesses
- Textured vinyl or smooth MMA vinyl surfaces
- Treated with Bio-Pruf™ antimicrobials to guard against mold, mildew, fungi, and odor-causing microorganisms.
- 6 Year Limited Warranty
You’ll see that more and more facilities (especially the mega gyms) are starting to use Swain Flex-Roll and my facility is one of them. I’m expanding my facility and going to be increasing my mat space by 1,500 square feet and I’ll be using Swain Flex-Roll so my students have more training space. I have the 1.25in thick mats and they work perfect for my BJJ school.
If you need home mats, they also make extremely portable home mats too. One person can carry them easily and you can move them anywhere. They are much easier to move then any other home mat I’ve ever seen.
You can check out the mats here: http://swainmats.com/flexi_custom.asp to get a quote and more details.
Here are some other customer reviews that I found about the Swain Flex-Roll home mats:
http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f67/review-dollamur-swain-flexi-roll-mats-607664/
http://www.budoseek.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=17740
http://mmagearguide.net/slider/dollamur-flexi-roll-martial-arts-tatami-home-mats%E2%80%8F/