“I seem to remember you making some comment about how a wrestling canvas on springboard floor was the best surface to train stand-up grappling on, in an article a while back. If you were in charge of designing & setting up a combat sports hall built with nothing but stone/concrete, wood, metal, and natural fibers as materials, what would that look like?”
-MC
That is flattering. My father once built me a gym out of wood in a basement in Washington, PA. I, unfortunately, have zero building skills. Yesterday, I found a framing hammer, three screws, two ancient finishing nails and two aluminum nails, oh yes, and a large staple and managed to nail two blocks to a garage wall to keep the raccoon from getting into the living room. I’m a city hick that looks at a room and tries to install equipment without doing nay damage.
There are two structures I like for training, neither of which I have trained in. A wooden “ampitheater” was what James Figg trained his men in. Was it bleachers built up around a stage? I like the idea of the viewers being level and above the fighting surface, rather than looking up at a boxing ring from the floor. To bring back masculine culture, one HAS to get away from the money. The best way to do this is to have local gyms that double as neighborhood fight venues.
While we are on the ring, I really like canvas over boards for a median footing. Deck boards and polished wood floors are my favorite, since I’m a blade man who has been boxing with two wrecked shoulders for over 40 years. But, the traditional dancing floor is dangerous for falls and gets slick. Further, it is not as grippy as concrete and asphalt. Almost all violence takes place on concrete and asphalt. I have done most of my training on these pavements simply because they are available. Concrete is just bad all the way around for joints. Carpet covered concrete is the worst, as it adds knee and ankle turn pivot hazards and traps dirt to trash your lungs.
Canvas over boards that are not nailed in and have some give is a good compromise.
The other training area I would like to try is the Xystos, the covered walkway around a central training area.
How would I set that up?
The central training area, let’s make it a padded pit, like the karate combat pit. Better yet, lets just make it timber and a sand bottom, the place where they throw my Irish ass into with Conan at the beginning of the movie.
For the four sides of the xystos, lets say its 48 by 48 feet. We have four runs. I like each run with a different footing: Hardwood deck, asphalt, concrete, flagstone. These covered walks would be supported by beams. The beams themselves could be training posts, some polished, some roped, some with punching bags tied to them. I like rope snakes which I have made seven of, maze balls, flying bags, heavy bags, etc., hung between the posts. I like the four corners to be home to speed bags and flying bags. See Fitzsimmons Physical Culture and Self-Defense from 1906 for the ultimate speed bag platform. Most speed bags are mounted wrong. We need them bolted into timber and weighted. Cinder block is the worst speed bag platform mounting surface.
I like each of the rungs to be multi-purpose fist, stick, club, blade training areas.
If we have an interior building, what I think is needed is a tactical maze, with various hallways, and stairs, brick, plank, fence, padded taking one to rooms of various shapes and sizes. I really want a phony public restroom without plumbing with real fixtures coated in pipe insulation and rubber. There should be an office, an ATM, a BAR, a diner set with table and booth, a public venue with seating.
Working with a builder would be a rush. This coming February, by the time this posts, I should be helping set up a public gym in rural Missouri. I’m a scrap yard person without a mind for building.
-JL
“Side question: Looking through your archives trying to find the aforementioned article, came across this:
‘Although I have boxed competitively with gloves and without I am primarily concerned with surviving criminal attack. Hence I practice boxing the way bare-knuckle and ancient Hellenic boxers did, which is in many ways indistinguishable from the approach of Asian-based martial artists. For instance I do not punch the heavy bag, I slap it. I punch a rope and canvas covered wooden board bolted to the wall. I will devote a future article to such hand disciplines for the survival boxer.’
“You ever end up making that article?”
-MC
…
Sir, I don’t know what I wrote last month, or last year, let alone when I was a punk in my 50s. I also don’t know how to search things on the site. Let me take a stab at bare knuckle conditioning. It is mostly about developed relaxed sensitivity of the hand and fist.
Do not spread fingers.
Do not straighten fingers.
Keep the hand bent and loose, until…
When you hit, clench the fist, unless you feel yourself hitting something hard like a skull crown or wall, then you break the punch while opening the hand. You can practice punching a skull without hurting your hand—or him—by not wrapping in sparring, and when you catch a hard target or he walks into something, opening your hand in the glove as safety.
I do punch the heavy bag, boards, beams, rope, light bags, all for different reasons. My hands are mostly dead, particularly the right hand.
I will cover my conditioning while in transit, since I spend 30 to 40 days a year on the train, in some later article, unless I forget.
For starting the hand towards bareknuckle uses I suggest hitting the following like so:
-Water, open and closed
-Paper, open and closed
-Heavy bag, open
-Speed bag, closed
-Light bags, closed
-Rope snakes, open and closed
-Beams, door frames, open and closed
-Padded wood, open and closed
-Roped wood, open and closed
-Rise bucket/sand, open and closed
-Matted floors/walls, open and closed
-Grounded dummy, open and closed
-Heavy bag return, mitt style “old school” gloves, with double wraps, then tapering down to single wraps, then no wraps, then bare knuckle
Double wraps are gauze from wrist to knuckle and elastic from thumb back to forearm, casting the wrist against a sprain.
Having worked with all of these mostly still targets, spar slowly, not quick. Never “pull” punches, but brake them by not driving through with the elbow. Practice in ¼ speed opening the hand when hitting the skull and elbow, clenching it like a whip head when hitting rips, face, and soft targets. Move to half speed. Don’t break his ribs.
Do defense rounds, when you through nothing. Defense, for realistic survival should focus on getting hit. I don’t train assholes who want to throw up dukes and brawl at a traffic stop or bar. Therefore, if awareness fails, you are in the situation that begins with you getting hit. The most useless type of defense drills are those that focus on never getting hit. Roll with it and counter/get to your weapon. Even in the ring, you are either a lot better than him and dishing out bad intentions from the Red Corner, or you’re in the Blue Corner and eating leather. The further one can get away from martial arts point scoring the better. Then do countering rounds, never punching until you get hit.
Do it all slow so you can calibrate the only weapon God gave us.
