How to fill a heavy-bag

I'm filing this under Life Enhancement because you certainly don't need to buy a heavy-bag and become a dedicated martial artist in order to defend yourself, however it's a heckuvalot of fun!

As Rory Miller says, "It's OK to start training because you're scared but you should continue training because you love it. If you're still scared a year later then there's something wrong with your training."

I love it! I love martial arts and self-defense training! 

Due to the pandemic I can't do what I love. I can't practice martial arts in person because my job is too dangerous and I don't want to risk accidentally infecting anyone else. So, to help keep my sanity for the rest of the pandemic I set up a home dojo in my garage. To save money I bought an unfilled heavy bag and filled it myself. Friends have been asking me how I did it, so I decided to write this blog post for them.

I started by asking martial art friends for advice on buying a heavy bag stand. Eric's heavy bag in his garage hangs from his ceiling, and I actually like that better than using a stand because both you and the bag can move more freely; but my husband and I think that our garage ceiling isn't strong enough, so I need a stand. A couple of friends told me they liked using double-end bags better than heavy-bags so I bought this stand that can hold both, the left side is for speedbags but I put a double-end bag on it.

Originally I wanted to buy the bags locally but I couldn't find what I wanted, so I purchased them online. Buying the double-end bag was fairly straightforward, I simply bought the one I found most aesthetically pleasing. In choosing a heavy-bag I quickly realized that to save money I needed to buy a heavy bag unfilled and then fill it myself.

After watching some You Tube videos I decided this was the best way to fill my bag:

My unfilled heavy bag,
with ten pound bags of sand,
sealed with Gorilla Tape,
and a jo staff to pack it down.

I bought 100 pounds of "Playground Sand", divided it into ten ten-pound ziplock baggies, sealed the baggies with Gorilla Tape so they won't open up, and I layered the bags with old clothing and bedding like lasagna. It's recommended that you pack down the clothing using a broom handle, however I have actual bo staffs and jo staffs so I used those. 

Playground Sand is best because it's dry, wet sand will harden over time and feel like a brick. The sealed ziplock baggies are to hold the sand in place in the bag, or else it will eventually run down to the bottom of the bag. 

I used old clothing because I recently went through a dramatic weight-loss so I have plenty of clothes that I no longer wear. Plus my kids are now in college and I have piles of their old clothes that I never got around to giving away. 

If you don't have lots of old clothes to fill your bag then you can also use insulation that you can buy at a hardware store.

Clothing needs to be shredded before it can be added to the bag. Cut off anything hard that you wouldn't want to punch through the sides, such as zippers and rivets, then shred the clothes into strips that are around six inches wide. I'll be honest, this became boring after a couple of hours and I stopped cutting the clothing into strips. I might regret that later on because the clothing at the top of the bag isn't packing down the way I want it to.

I quickly discovered that ziplock baggies aren't strong enough to hold ten pounds of sand. One bag broke when I picked up, and a second bag broke felt like it broke as I was packing down the clothing on top of it. So I double bagged the remainder of the ziplocks in plastic shopping bags tied off at the ends. That should hold the sand in place over time.

A martial art uniform from a previous style,
Tum Pai, also known as soft style Kajukenbo.

I topped the bag with a uniform from a martial art style that I used to practice. I like the idea of my previous styles helping me continue to train today. 

And then I was done! In total I included six of the ten pound ziplocks and made up the rest of the weight with shredded clothing and old bedding, it weighs about 105 pounds. 

I now have a heavy bag in my garage!

Me with my heavy bag!
"From Strength to Strength"
is one of the sayings of #500Rising,
a women's self-defense organization
that I belong to.

Well, I'm not completely done. As you can see from the photos the top of the bag is packed a little bit loose. I became concerned about going over 100 pounds in weight based on the reviews of other bags, but then I re-read the description of this bag and it can support up to 730 pounds, so I'm going to add one more ten pound sand bag and stuff it as tight as I can with more clothes. 

My garage dojo! 
Left side: Double-end bag. Middle: Heavy bag. Right side: BOB

I made some modifications to the stand and to BOB that I want to point out:

Double-end bag: The bungies holding the top and bottom of the bag are blurred out in the photo, but they're there. I bought a floor weight to hold down the bottom of the bag, but my husband and I decided that the plate weights weighing down the stand worked well for the double-end bag too.

Heavy bag: We had to shorten the chain. Also it came with two pegs for plate weights which I removed, you can see the holes in the feet where they were. I felt that the weights would interfere with me stepping around the bag, so I removed the pegs and instead I'm using two 60 pound bags of traction sand underneath the supports where they are out of my way.

BOB: First all, BOB isn't really that huge, that's just a weird perspective thing because he's closer to the camera than I am. More importantly, I gave him "arms" in the form of my old Aikido blue belt, and then I put my son's old shirt on him. My current martial art style, that I practice with Eric, is Okinawan karate which has a lot of stand-up grappling, so the arms and the shirt will help me practice those techniques.

Again, you don't have to go through these great lengths in order to defend yourself, I'm doing this because I love it. Eric and I aren't currently teaching or even training with each other in person because of the pandemic, we're both protecting people who are close to us who are at high risk for complications. So this should help maintain my sanity for the remainder of pandemic until we can train and teach in person again.

What are you doing to help maintain your mental health through the pandemic? How are you trying to keep some sort of sense of normalcy?

Posted by Amy.