AF HEMA Black Washable Leather Jacket (S ~ XXL)

UPDATE: in a sparring session using Purpleheart Armoury's Pentii langesmesser on 17 January 2015, my opponent somehow managed to rip the right sleeve all the way from the wrist to the armpit. While I can repair the jacket, I have decided to retire it. If this jacket were to fail during a competition, I would be disqualified and left without equipment. I plan on purchasing the SPES Axel Peterson jacket sometime soon to replace it.I got this jacket about half a year ago when I started learning longsword. My teammates told me that I ought not get this jacket and get the jacket made by SPES instead but I had a surplus of Amazon credit to use and decided to get this jacket.The padding on the torso is great. It is considerably thicker than other jackets I have seen and can take quite a beating. There are pockets on the inside of the torso, too, that can be filled with foam for greater protection. The back has no padding at all. This is problematic against more, uh, "enthusiastic" fighters who will strike with full force at an opponent's back but strikes to the back rarely ever happen. The splints in the forearms are excellent and a step up from the protection offered by the SPES jackets. The rest of the arms, however, are very thinly padded. My right upper arm is almost constantly bruised and just a few days ago someone managed to thrust through it.I plan on making some modifications to this jacket. I want to add extra padding to the right arm and maybe a thicker fabric overlay. After some time doing HEMA and dabbling a little in classical fencing, I came to realize that this jacket is actually an Olympic fencing coach's jacket that has been re-branded as a HEMA jacket. It works well enough, but prepare to get your arms bruised up.