Most martial artists have seen the so-called “Wing Chun dummy,” which is actually called a muk yan jong in Cantonese, or mu ren zhuang in Mandarin, meaning “wooden man post.” This training tool was widely popularized by Bruce Lee and, more recently, the Ip Man series of movies, starting Donnie Yen. While these dummies were developed for Chinese martial arts, […]
These days, karate is often practiced without the aid of any training equipment, but that has not always been the case. Hojo undo (supplementary training) has long been a vital component of martial arts training not just on Okinawa, but also China and India. While it is certainly possible to develop a great deal of knowledge and skill without using […]
Hojo undo kigu on display High quality hojo undo kigu–literally “supplementary training tools”–can be hard to come by. Thankfully, you can often improvise, or make your own! Chi-ishi (stone mallets) are the most common tool for people to make, and I’ve actually written about that before. For ishi-sashi (stone locks), most people use kettlebells. For the tan (barbell), most people […]
A valuable training tool that many traditional karateka choose to abstain from is the punching mitts, or focus mitts. These come in many different styles, from very basic to high-tech, but all of them facilitate the same thing–a way to turn a training partner into a mobile, modular platform for practicing full-speed striking combinations to various targets without injuring that […]
The equipment that Jason built for us has been working out very well, and I’ve decided to call it the EMB Station. While I was at the dojo today, I decided to take some nicer pictures of it to upload. This is probably the most pictures I’ve ever put into one post, so hopefully people with slow connections don’t have […]
