Tatami
畳
A traditional Japanese floor mat made of rice straw and rush. In the dojo the name also covers today's foam mats used for training and competition.
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Tatami (畳) is a traditional Japanese floor mat. The core was made of stitched rice straw, the surface of woven igusa rush on a warp of hemp or cotton. Modern tatami often have a core of pressed particleboard or extruded polystyrene. Size varies by region in Japan: the Kyoto kyoma measures 1.91 × 0.955 m, the Nagoya chukyoma 1.82 × 0.91 m and the Tokyo edoma 1.76 × 0.88 m. In martial arts, people train and compete on tatami in the dojo. For judo, aikido and jujutsu, where people fall, cushioned foam mats are used today, with a surface imitating the traditional mat, and these too are called tatami.