I am looking to purchase some mats so that we can do some casual rolling but I'm not really sure what to look for, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
What size mats (as in area) would we need to do some rolling starting from our knees? And what size would we need if we were wanting to practice takedowns/throws?
What material is viable?
How thick should the mat be?
For mat size, I am listing the official competition mat sizes as a reference to help you assess the difference between practicing throws and takedowns and practicing ground techniques: keep in mind that these are large competition areas meant to minimize out-of-bound stoppages and injury risks, and they are a reasonable upper bound for a mat used by two people. For a lower bound I would advise not to go below 3mx3m for ground work though, 4mx4m for throws.
Here are the official sizes:
For mat construction of both the floor and side panels, you might want to consider these three layers, starting from lowest:
an optional shock absorbtion layer, in order to minimize training injuries from throws. This one (another example) is a cheap and effective solution: it is made of tires and plywood. There is another way that uses foam blocks instead of tires (source, video).
a mandatory soft layer, which is the essential layer of your mat. They are usually made of some kind of foam 40mm-50mm thick, there is a wide variety of types; you can find a good discussion here.
an optional cover for marking areas, good grip, soft layer protection, continuity between soft layer blocks, easy cleaning. They are usually made of vinyl.
Make sure to check out this video, it shows pretty much everything said.
