ok, heres the problem. i cant always work with a partner and i need 2 hit something! so i want 2 start working a tire, but i live in an apartment and there is no room n the basement. anybody have any ideas about what i can do/build? not 2 thrilled about the idea of holes in the wall and my girlfriend wont be 2 happy about a tire standing around so, i would prefer something free standing. any products out there?
ptotts
The first dummy I had for hitting with a stick was inspired by a similar dummy my friend and former training partner Steve DelCastillo had built. It was a sewing dummy, as in the type tailors and seamstresses use, mounted onto the bottom of an office chair. He put an old WEKAF body protector on it and jammed a stick into the neck with some balled up t-shirts hockey taped to the top where he put a WEKAF helmet. He'd put his gear bag over the base of the office chair and voila, a dummy. It worked great for his apartment.
I was living in an apartment too. I didn't have any old gear so I needed to come up with something different. I went out scouting garage sales until I found a chair and bought it. I disconnected the seat and then stuck a thick 6' long hardwood dowel, the kind used for curtain rods, into the base. I took an eskrima stick and duct taped it across the top to make a "t". I took all the t-shirts that my wife was going to give to Goodwill, about 5, and wrapped the top part of the pole so that it was thinly covered. The wood of the pole was soft and just a single hit from a stick left a sizeable dent and further strikes took chips out. The t-shirts stopped the damage to the dowel. I took duct tape and wrapped it like a mummy so none of the t-shirt material was showing. This also muffled the sound so my neighbors wouldn't get bothered by the noise. I lived upstairs and that was a concern. I then weighted the base with sandbags. It worked well for everything that I needed. It wasn't the same as a tire dummy, but it did the trick.
The total cost for this dummy was about $20, mostly for the dowel. I later unwrapped it and replaced the t-shirts with a towel which gave it a better feel. That dummy lasted for more than a year and fit perfectly into my coat closet in my apartment when I wasn't using it.
A recap of the materials:
1 wooden dowel about 6' long about 1.5" diameter
1 new eskrima stick
1 wheeled office chair
2 25lb bags of sand
1 roll of duct tape
5 t-shirts or 1 beach towel split into 2 lengthwise
I hope that helps.
