Homemade Martial Arts Training Equipment
By Michael D. Janich - 8 1/2 x 11 Softcover, 101 Pages, 2002
Available From Paladin Press
Review by Pete Kautz, 2007

Train at home?  Strapped for cash?  Then you'll appreciate the book Homemade Martial Arts Training Equipment by Mike Janich.  In this book he guides the reader step by step through making 20 different pieces of training equipment ranging from very simple things like a Gripping Jar (basically a heavy jar used to develop grip in some of the Okinawan styles) all the way up to building a ratcheted stretching machine!

Included are simple plans to make such favorite pieces of equipment as the air shield, the heavy bag, the top-and-bottom bag, and safe sparring weapons.  Each chapter of the book is devoted to one piece of equipment and contains numerous black and white photos that make following along with the text a breeze.

Also included are numerous little tips that will help you to produce a better end product.  Often these are just simple things you might not know - like always running tape the long way on padded weapons so as to not compress the foam (most people will instinctively spiral wrap padded weapons and this can compress the foam, making them less safe than they can optimally be)  For the novice these tips will save you a lot of trial and error.

If you are trying to set up a Dojo on a shoestring budget or just like to tinker around building your own training gear (as many of us do) then you will enjoy Homemade Martial Arts Training Equipment.  For the few bucks you'll invest in the book you'll save many times over if you need to set up on the cheap.  Presuming you were going to set up a school and wanted to have a couple of heavy bags, a few top-and-bottom bags, a couple of air shields and a dozen "paddle" style targets then you would easily be looking at almost a thousand dollar layout for all that!

With this book and a little "elbow grease", however, you'd be able to *make* all of that gear for literally pennies on the dollar.  A homemade paddle target might cost 75 cents to make, the airshield or top and bottom bag maybe $10, a homemade heavy bag maybe $30.  Plus if the equipment gets "beat to hell" then so what - make some more!

Homemade Martial Arts Training Equipment
Is Available From Paladin Press