Tattoos and sparring/rolling

Yo yo yo! I’m about do some more work to my sleeve, so I want to take a general consensus from those who have tattoos:

How long do you wait to do any hard sparring after getting some fresh ink?

How about bjjers, how long do you wait before going to class and rolling? The fresh cut is highly suceptible to infections, so I imagine it would be good to take at least a week off, right?

At least. Two weeks off ain’t going to hurt you either, probably come back stronger from having that time off for recovery (muscle wise as well as skin wise, did for me).

I took two weeks off just because I didn’t want to fuck up my tats, training goes in waves, your tats are forever.

People heal at different rates. So when you get a tattoo it is basically a scratch, the bodies natural reaction to a scratch is to make a scab. So you want to keep the area moist so that the fluids secreted by the body don’t get a chance to dry before you get a chance to wash it off. So if you keep to the cleaning with soap and water and constant layer of ointment then your tattoo should heal to the touch in about 3 to 5 days. I would think that you should be ready to spar or roll again after that. Really it is just depending on how your body heals. If it has any scabs or is still tender to the touch then wait until it aint. If you do a weight training program you also want to lay off that for the same amount of time. Due to the fact that when the muscles get pumped it stretches the skin and may cause the tattoo to spread. Making lines that were once thin not so thin if that makes any sense. Well hope I have helped.

I’d wait at least a week.

My ink on my back got fucked up when I went back too soon, some of the black is just a shade of dark gray now because the scab got ripped off.

Pissed me off too, because I wasn’t even training, I was just demonstrating something and the guy went all mongo on me.

So take at least a week. Like Steve said, ink is forever.

If you play your cards right, it shouldn’t scab at all.

When I had my ink done, the tech told me to keep it super clean and dry until it peeled. Lots of air (it’s on my back, and no, it’s not a skank stamp), so I had to adjust my shirt to give it lots of air for a few days. I washed it with mild soap and water about 5 times a day (even when I could just feel that slight slick of sweat forming), then use a blow dryer to make sure it got completely dry fast. Repeat as needed, until it gets itchy and starts to peel. Then you can rub in baby lotion or that tattoo goo they give you and massage it in to remove the dead skin flakes. Voila - beautiful ink healed up in about three days.

Until it is completely healed, a tattoo makes you vulnerable to infection, so not only should you avoid rolling and sparring where you might be exposed to someone elses germs, but also avoid swimming and hot tubs and stuff like that.

Cheers!

Talk to your artist and describe the things you want to do to a fresh raw piece of art … he or she should give you some ideas …

they should be something general like :

avoid sun exposure
do not abrade
no scratching
no rubbing
no slapping it
no hitting it
no grinding foot fungus on it
treat it like an open wound

avoid most of those things for two weeks or so .

As others have said, AT LEAST a week off to ensure you don’t get any infections and the scab (if there is one) doesn’t get pulled off and the colour fucked up.

As an aside, I have found that Hemorrhoid cream is easily the best thing to put on a new Tattoo. The tat that i used it on was healed within a few days.

Carmex ( thick lip balm ) or A & D Ointment both work very well just wash your hands and the tattoo with soap and luke warm water everytime you apply it ( two three times a day ) . You should only do that for about 3-7 days depending on healing ( as was said earlier ) .

I found that bepanthen worked well. It’s a rash cream that’s marketed for babies’ arses.

when i was doing the pro wrestling training i got ink done i found that if your training is on a saturday then get the tatt done on sunday that way full week to recover

but if you look after it one week should be enough

tangent: a friend of mine has a tattoo of two judoka in mid-throw on his shoulder. Its done in such a way as to make it look they are kind of moving and completing the throw when he moves his arm. Its actually pretty cool.

The correct answer is you wait until the thing is healed.

There’s no specific time frame. If you’re getting detailed work done, or anything of significant size, you should wait until it’s healed up before you start trying to roll around with sweaty people who may or may not have the best hygiene standards.

There’s really nothing worse than seeing someone with what could have been a well done tat (a piece of art, really) that got fucked up from being impatient and doing something they know they shouldn’t have done in the first place.

Two weeks at the very least (more if it’s a large/elaborate tattoo with colors and shit, specially on your back.) Do not roll on a gi w/o a shirt or something (otherwise, it may crate the living shit out of it.)

I have tats on my left chest and left shoulder, for which, like a TARD, I didn’t wait enough time.

Pieces of skin fell off them where skin grew back up naturally without the ink (so I have to go back to re-touch them, but I’m too fucking lazy to do so.) BTW, the one on my left shoulder kept bleeding and bleeding. Nothing painful but freaking annoying.

Two weeks minimum. Dude, you just started jits. It’s gonna kinda blow to take a few weeks off if you just started with a contract.

Yeah, Macho, that’s why I’m gonna be putting it off for a bit.

When I was just doing the stand-up it was easier, I could take only a couple of days off. Even still, I fucked up the one on my leg and had to have it retouched from blocking leg kicks in sparring the week after having it done.

It’s frustrating to have the work just sitting on me half done, but I’m lovin the jits and I don’t want to take a break any time soon.

Interesting. I wonder if it was indeed a toxic effect of the pigment. All inks are made from different ingredients, even those of the same color if purchased from different companies can have entirely different make-ups. Perhaps in those cases it can be attributed towards an allergic reaction of some sort? Hm.

Thanks, Tom. Hey, check the PM I sent you regarding tags if you get a chance.

Seconding bepanthen.

It probably was, at least for the one who got a red & green tattoo. Red tattoo pigments are supposed to be the most problematic kind.

http://www.emedicine.com/DERM/topic512.htm

I heard somewhere that people with tattoos aren’t able to have MRIs done. Due to they rip the ink pigments out of the skin like a magnet and hurt like crazy (obviously). Anyone know if that’s true, or if it’s just an old wives tale?

^^^ it was busted on Mythbusters.

Old wife’s tale… I’ve got tattoos and had MRI scans done with none of the stated effects.

I’m pretty sure that was on House… patient couldn’t get the MRI done (actually they ended up doing it anyway) because he had prison tats which had lead in them. Dunno how much truth is in that.