Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 12

Thread: Free standing striking bag and grappling dummies?

  1. #1
    Site Supporter
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    Georgia

    Free standing striking bag and grappling dummies?

    After finally making room in the house I'm looking for a good free standing striking bag/dummy. I'd also like to pickup a bjj grappling dummy.

    Any suggestions? Anything to avoid? Just pick one and order it?

    I'd like to stay under $500 combined, if possible.

    Thanks for any help.

  2. #2
    banana republican blues's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2016
    Location
    Blue Ridge Mtns
    Definitely interested in seeing what comes up here...in regards to the striking bag / dummy.

    I've given thought to one on and off for a while without acting on it.
    There's nothing civil about this war.

    Read: Harrison Bergeron

  3. #3
    I used to own a wrestling dummy that was very solid that could actually be used for both. The local high schools wrestling team had one and the coach ordered one for me. It seemed a lot better quality than what I was coming across on my own. I rigged it up to hang from the rafters of my garage for striking, but I also had a regular heavy bag, double end striking ball and makiwara, which were all really cheap. A quick google turns up lots of options, but I would want to see whatever I was buying in person before I ordered it.

  4. #4
    I got an unfilled grappling dummy off of ebay a few years ago and filled it with rags. Works just fine.

    I used the Century free-standing bags that you fill with water about 20 years ago and they worked fine until they leaked. People fill them with sand. They also move around a lot. I believe they are the standard and wouldn't mind one of the humanoid ones for knife training.

  5. #5
    If possible, you're probably better off doubling your budget and getting a dedicated free-standing bag for striking, and a dedicated dummy for grappling; I'm not aware of one that can practically accomplish both without notable limitations.

    If you can truly grapple with it and employ realistic techniques based on the dummy's physical proportions approximating a human's, it isn't going to free-stand adequately for strikes.

    If you can truly strike it repeatedly with force without it going over, it isn't going to have the realistic proportions and weight distribution for grappling.

    My compromise solution was Century's Versys VS.2:https://www.centurymartialarts.com/s...sys-vs-2-10185

    Various hand and leg strikes are doable, but past a certain amount of force or combinations, it goes over. This does make one practice speed and snap, which is good, but increases the chances of overreach and hyperextension if you don't maintain discipline. In a way this is fine for me, because wear-and-tear really started to catch up in the last couple years and the bag of necessity forces one to ease off and concentrate more on form, precision and control. But you can't open up and unload on it like, say, a proper heavy bag, and that may be a dealbreaker for you.

    I can grapple with it, too, and work types of sweeps, choke holds, takedowns, etc., but the size and offset weight distribution required to make it a free standing striking device also make it unlike a human body, so the transferability of muscle memory for techniques, while serviceable, isn't ideal.

    But it's weakness as a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none, is also it's strength: if you're okay with the aforementioned limitations, for an acceptable cost it's proven durable and sufficient in facilitating journeyman-type training of mixed striking and grappling techniques simultaneously. It's also proven useful for more realistic dry-fire training and entangled work with both firearm and blade.

    Be warned, it can and will nut-punch you when you're lifting it off the floor (assuming that's an issue for you). You'll think it was a fluke, which is why it will happen again. I've decided that for training focus and mild rage strength, this is a feature, not a bug.
    Last edited by Wingate's Hairbrush; 06-19-2020 at 04:08 PM.
    Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by spelingmastir View Post
    I got an unfilled grappling dummy off of ebay a few years ago and filled it with rags. Works just fine.

    I used the Century free-standing bags that you fill with water about 20 years ago and they worked fine until they leaked. People fill them with sand. They also move around a lot. I believe they are the standard and wouldn't mind one of the humanoid ones for knife training.
    Even with a lot of sand in them they tend to move around a whole lot.

    I’ve got a grappling dummy from Pro Boxing Supply that’s great, as far as they go. It was about $400 though.

  7. #7
    Site Supporter
    Join Date
    Nov 2013
    Location
    Illinois
    Following with interest. I have a cheap fabric grappling dummy I got from Amazon and stuffed with the clothes from my garage sale pile. I like it as a means of working in positions I've not seen much, like when I was trying to nail down some leglock positions, half guard, or truck position (I was bored, the academy was closed and BJJ fanatics is always having a sale)

    I also like it to practice basic passing drills and transitions between positions and attacks. I've also been trying to improve my sweeps with it some, but I think that's asking a bit much.

    It has some drawbacks, namely that the legs are really too short and too floppy to establish lockdown or many leg locks except for ironing out the details of my legs position. The fabric of the clothing I shoved into it tends to pack tighter and the limbs are floppy from all the various directions they are being bent. I also don't strike it very much, preferring mostly shadow boxing lately to try to make myself look like I'm not an idiot with my hands.

    Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk

  8. #8
    Site Supporter
    Join Date
    Jun 2014
    Location
    Georgia
    I've really enjoyed having the BobXL striking dummy and recently figured out a way to make it even better. After a motorcycle ride I walked in the room and draped my jacket over the BobXL. When I later went to do a workout I zipped the jacket up onto the dummy to have a different striking surface.
    It worked well so I dug out an old motorcycle jacket that is too big for me now and put that one on BobXL for strikes with my flashlight and knife trainers.

    As workouts progressed I found myself using the empty sleeves to practice trapping the arm. Which led to me looking for something to make the sleeves feel like they were arms. I ended up with shapeable pool noodles and pipe insulation. This setup is working well, I just need to find a good way to attach them to the jacket.

  9. #9

  10. #10
    Banned
    Join Date
    Oct 2021
    Location
    West Coast
    No, don’t do this again in a tech forum, thanks.

User Tag List

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •