I like the Asics Rulon wrestling shoes.
[QUOTE=doug maverick;864403]i must have a pair. now that would make a awesome give away. one thing that stood out to me thou in the articles they said shaolinquan(mandarin for martial arts) i thought that was Chinese for “little forest fist”. am i wrong?[/QUOTE]
You are correct:
Xiao(Shao) = Little or Young or Small
Lin = Forest or Woods
Quan = Fist (i"ve heard also, hand)
Wu-Yi = Martial Arts
But I am not proficient enough in the language to say for sure. 
Xiao and Shao are actually separate, almost identical, characters.
Last year when we went to Shaolin for a school trip we went to the kit shop as I like to call it like a bunch of silly school kids in a lolly shop looking for swords and shoes etc.
We could not find original Feiyues!!!
But they did have Feiyun’s - anyway came back home an within about 1 month I had to throw them away as they just fell apart and had even less foot support…if that is possible than the originals.
Ya got to love it though - the guy behind the counter must have been thinking silly western tourists 
SimonM is right, xcakid
Xiao = small, tiny or few. It can also mean young
Shao = young (note: change the tone from 3rd to 2nd and the same character means few, little or lack)
The difference is one Nike slash. 
This causes a lot of confusion, especially with xiaohongquan.
BTW, SimonM, why for you apologize to me? :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Blacktiger;865555]Last year when we went to Shaolin for a school trip we went to the kit shop as I like to call it like a bunch of silly school kids in a lolly shop looking for swords and shoes etc.
We could not find original Feiyues!!!
But they did have Feiyun’s - anyway came back home an within about 1 month I had to throw them away as they just fell apart and had even less foot support…if that is possible than the originals.
Ya got to love it though - the guy behind the counter must have been thinking silly western tourists :D[/QUOTE]
yep feiyun do fall apart a lot faster!!!
[QUOTE=GeneChing;865563]
BTW, SimonM, why for you apologize to me? :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]
LOL Being overly polite or overly formal probably as feed-back from whatever call I had just taken prior to posting the message while at work.
[QUOTE=SimonM;865487]Xiao and Shao are actually separate, almost identical, characters.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=GeneChing;865563] Xiao = small, tiny or few. It can also mean young
Shao = young (note: change the tone from 3rd to 2nd and the same character means few, little or lack)
The difference is one Nike slash.
This causes a lot of confusion, especially with xiaohongquan.
[/QUOTE]
Never knew that on the character. I’ve always just lumped them together. :o
Thanks!!
Anyone get a pair of Shaolinquans yet?
Nike blew me off. :rolleyes:
The Shoe Olympics
Nike rolls out 28 specialty shoes, for each sport in the Games; Adidas has 27
By MIKE ESTERL and NICHOLAS CASEY
July 5, 2008;
Engineers have been burning the midnight oil designing vast infrastructure, security and crowd control for Beijing’s Olympic Games. Not to mention a better table-tennis shoe.
Nike is using the Beijing Olympics as a springboard to help it gain a larger share of the Chinese market. MarketWatch’s Andria Cheng reports.
On a converted U.S. Army base in rural Herzogenaurach, Germany, six designers at Adidas have spent the past several years tinkering with specialized footwear for badminton, fencing and two dozen other sports ahead of the games. Among the challenges: Rowers must not sink with their boat, wrestlers shouldn’t be able to untie shoelaces and – perhaps most important – nobody’s feet should sweat too much.
On the other side of the world in leafy Beaverton, Ore., a similar process has played out at the campus of Nike, where buildings are named for Olympians such as Steve Prefontaine. The Adidas archrival has rolled out specialty shoes for all 28 official Olympic sports this year. That’s up from the 11 it designed at the 2004 Athens Games and one-ups Adidas, which is supplying 27 specialty shoes after steering clear of an equestrian model.
It’s a serious business. Since China is the companies’ most important growth market – more than a billion pairs of feet – they’re in a neck-and-neck race for dominance. Both want to showcase their footwear technology during the Olympics and generate brand buzz – even if they don’t end up selling many archery or weight-lifting shoes.
Each company prides itself on its history of inventiveness: Adidas founder Adi Dassler began designing shoes in his family’s laundry room after World War I, while Nike co-founder Bill Bowerman forged his initial sole designs in his wife’s waffle iron.
The Games’s official sportswear sponsor, Adidas, likes to point to its longer track record, having outfitted Olympians in Amsterdam in 1928 and, later, sprinter Jesse Owens and boxer Muhammad Ali.
But the boldest experiments don’t always pan out. After the 1968 games, for example, Adidas invited U.S. high jumper **** Fosbury to Herzogenaurach. He’d won gold in Mexico City with his revolutionary “Fosbury flop,” turning the straddle technique on its head by going over the bar head and shoulders first. Adidas designed a new shoe with him in mind. “They didn’t work. I tossed them,” said Mr. Fosbury, now 61 years old and himself an engineer. He found the prototype too slippery and dubbed it the “Cyclops” because it replaced several spikes in the ball of the shoe with a single one. Mr. Fosbury says he appreciated the effort and still wears only Adidas running shoes: “I’m a loyal guy,” he said.
Adidas expects to outfit more than 3,000 of the estimated 10,500 athletes. Consumers will be able to try on some of the Olympic specialty shoes at Adidas stores, and all of them will be on sale at Adidas’s online site and catalog site eastbay.com. Nike says it’s supplying “thousands” of athletes (like Adidas, free of charge). Nike isn’t planning the same broad Olympics shoe campaign, but says many of its shoes will be available on Nike.com, as well as some retailers, later this month. The company is already selling its redesigned basketball and running shoes in China.
As for smaller shoe companies, Japan’s Mizuno and Asics, Germany’s Puma and Adidas’s Reebok unit are outfitting athletes and touting Olympic credentials, too, from volleyball to track and field.
Tackling a Martial Art
Change comes slowly for the age-old Chinese martial art of wushu. But this year, it’s joining forces with the swoosh.
In an unlikely move for a U.S. footwear company, Nike is joining the small Chinese market of wushu shoemakers. The modern version of the sport, a close cousin of kung fu, emphasizes aesthetic and athletic performance over basic fighting. While it isn’t an official Olympic sport, an Olympic-sanctioned tournament will take place this summer.
That was enough for Nike to jump in. The shoes would have to survive a host of punishing moves: rapid accelerations and braking; 720-degree gymnastic-like spins; and the use of weapons including broadswords, staffs and double-edged swords (see picture).
In a Beijing park, a four-person Nike team sought out septuagenarian Master Wu Bin, who was teaching hundreds of students, for his help. He agreed, and work eventually shifted to Nike’s Beaverton, Ore., campus, where researchers slapped scores of reflective markers onto U.S. wushu athletes and their weapons while 16 high-speed video cameras recorded data. “Reflective markers were flying,” said Jeff Pisciotta, who studies athlete biomechanics in the Nike lab. Researchers from the University of Beijing and the University of Shanghai eventually pitched in.
The final shoe, to be sold for $80 at Nike.com, uses sturdy kangaroo leather instead of the typical canvas and a lightweight gum rubber for more-precise pivoting during moves. An unexpected problem: painful shoelaces, because wushu athletes traditionally hit their shoes with their palms as part of their performance. Nike created pockets to hide shoelace tips for easier slapping.
its funny that martial artists will slap sand, water , rock , concrete and whatever else in attempts to have hands like iron but nike thought it was important for something on the shoes for “ease of slapping” haha
Click “Wushu” at the bottom. They look pretty sweet.
It’d be nice if they had sizes to fit normal people… :eek:
I know you can order them…
…but $70 is too rich for my blood. That’s more than adidas.
I’ve never liked Nike honestly & the Adidas shoes are fragile after a few good sweeps series on concrete.
Fei Yue’s… that’s a different story. Hightop Fei Yue could be a even better story!:D;)
[QUOTE=GeneChing;878308]…but $70 is too rich for my blood. That’s more than adidas.[/QUOTE]
not as much as these. but these shoes make me drool
http://www.martialartsmart.net/a90-lk.html
I think i’ll be placing an order for either a pair of these or the other addidas’ pretty soon. I like to run in mat shoes and mine have seen far better days.
its bad when you realize your skin is touching concrete while you run.
[QUOTE=Lucas;878318]not as much as these. but these shoes make me drool
http://www.martialartsmart.net/a90-lk.html
I think i’ll be placing an order for either a pair of these or the other addidas’ pretty soon. I like to run in mat shoes and mine have seen far better days.
its bad when you realize your skin is touching concrete while you run.[/QUOTE]
Adidas fall apart, as do Tiger Claws.
I run in Feiyues.
we’re hoping to get hi-top feiyues in for the holidays…
i’ve heard plenty about adidas and tiger claw - they’ve been around for years - but has anyone tried some shaolinquans? i’m horribly curious…
[QUOTE=MasterKiller;878321]Adidas fall apart, as do Tiger Claws.
I run in Feiyues.[/QUOTE]
dang, thats bad news. ive been running in feiyues lately…
i have this pair of mat shoes that I got from this tae kwon do school a few years ago that held up pretty well. I wish I knew what company they were from.
im not allowed to wear Nike. it burns, oh it burns.
How about Disipline Brand
Sign me up for those new Nikes.The best martial arts shoes I ever had, back in the late 80’s were Nike They are not made any more. The soles of Feiyues last but are a bit too grippy for me. Those metal eyelets hurt when you kick a bag and when they start to break free OUCH!!!. I recently tried Addidas TKD’s but they had no latteral support & the soles were too narrow even for my average width feet. It’s hard to have a stable stance when you are rolling off the sides. The soles also started to peel off after only a month or two. I’m trying Disipline brand now and loving them. Excellent lateral support, wider soles, and soles designed not to peel off. Anybody tried the ringstar brand yet?