When I first started Jiu Jitsu I was looking for any advantage I could gain to speed up my progress. I found that too often life got in the way of me getting to the mats more than a few days a week. I would sometimes make it to open mat and find someone willing to do a little drilling, but as we all know, drilling quickly turns into full out rolls.
I wanted to find a way to drill at home by myself. I learned some solo drills (check out Henry Akins solo drills for some good ideas for drilling at home: Henry Akins Solo BJJ Drills), and these helped some, but I really wanted to get a grappling dummy to practice my moves on. The grappling dummies I found online were pretty pricey (if you’re interested in checking those out, here’s a link: Grappling Dummies on Amazon), so I thought it might be fun to try to build one myself and save a little cash.
In doing so, I tried to document as well as I could my process in building the grappling dummy. I created a website and YouTube video which shows the steps I took to build it. You can find it here: Build a Grappling Dummy
I used this dummy a lot as a white belt. I don’t use it as much now, but it does still come in useful when I want to solidify a confusing move that I had learned in class. I think for the amount of money that I spent building this grappling dummy it has served it’s purpose well. If you decide to build one I hope it works out well for you too.