Home training by Mike Young

[jun_erh]

I just wanted to reccomend this book I've found very helpfull. The author is a boxing champ of the LAPD Olympics or somehting like that. He is suitably obsessed with martial arts enough to write a book, I think. Has studies tons of styles etc.
What's striking about it is how cheap the stuff is. He recommends things like cellaphane bags (like you get with chinese food) for kicking drills (his bag chamber is ridiculous/awesome) and a simple towel for punches. Another key training apperatus is an oversized tire, which doesn't have to be new and can often be got for free at a garage. It has a bunch of other stuff like this, some for two people and grappling but all extremely simple and affordable.
Also, I think it could be great if you've just started and don't know what style you want to study yet, as it focuses on improving punches and kicks in a non-form driven way. :D

[yenhoi]

interested in what the cellophane bags were used for...

im assuming the towel is for punching techniques... much like hanging a piece of paper or using one of those "key" bags...?


tks

strike!

[jun_erh]

The bag is just slightly different from either shadow boxing or hitting a regular gym bag in that it is a better target than nothing and it gives unlike a bag so you can follow through. The towel is similar, you can practice say a wing chun 1 inch punch till it really snaps. Some of the drills are sort of whimsical, like kicking the bag to keep it from hitting the ground, a la hackeysack, but it doesn't go flying like a hackeysack.
He shows how to build regular gym bags too, notably one involving a telephone pole size (width)piece of lumber that's rooted in a cement filled tire. I also like this one where you're standing on a tire and their's a small bag in front of you, so you punch it and when it swings back you dodge it like boxing.