Grappling Dummy Review
Earlier this year were contacted to review a grappling dummy produced by Elite Sports LLC. This dummy was sent to us unfilled, free of charge for an honest review. The company had no say in my review, and these opinions are mine alone. For those reading this who do not know me, I am a black belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu with a background in Shooto and Combat Submission Wrestling as well as a host of other Martial Arts, and I have been teaching grappling for nearly 20 years.
To see their products, visit: https://www.elitesports.com/collections/brazilian-jiu-jitsu-bjj-gis
Filling the Dummy
It took me a good three weeks to find enough material to fill this dummy. I opted to use some old plain black t-shirts for this. I had a number that had worn out or were stained and not in use, which I had not yet thrown out or gotten rid of. Maybe 30 in total. I tend to go through these quickly, so I had them sitting in storage. I also used some foam strips that were about 2″ thick, around 7″ wide, and maybe 30″ long. One was folded to fit inside the head of the dummy, the other went into the chest and seat of the dummy. I also had about 20 lbs of fiber fill from an old heavy bag that I used to fill the limbs.
The dummy has a single opening on the back, which has a rugged velcro fastener and a rather small opening along the spine. From this you are required to reach deep to fill the legs and arms, head and torso of the dummy. This was an arduous process and quite the workout. I would alternate between pushing the fiber fill material into the limbs as deeply as I could, then using a stick to push this down, while pulling on the dummy to try to compress this into the deepest corners of the feet and arms. I then stuffed folded t-shirts into the hips and shoulder areas, and torso. I ended up having to re-stuff the dummy twice because it did not fill out easily and didn’t sit right early on. Ultimately I had to cut the t-shirts into small slices and squares of fabric to get them to fit tightly into the legs and arms.
I decided that I wanted to have the chest and head areas padded with foam for striking, to protect the hands. This made stuffing the head more difficult, as the neck area is not very wide. After stuffing each area as best I could, I would sequentially beat the dummy with a stick to get things to settle. It took this abuse well, although there were scuff marks in the vinyl along the back and shoulders from early use. Once filled, we trained with it for a bit before the gi I ordered came in. I would definitely recommend putting a gi on it for longevity. I don’t think the vinyl would last as long without it.
Given the strength of the opening on the back of the dummy, I think it would be a better design to have similar openings in the back of the arms and legs to allow for more easy access to fill the limbs fully. There is also something odd about the cut at the hips, they are wider and flatter than a normal person’s hips, which makes for an odd fit with the gi pants. The neck could also be a bit longer, and the head less flat and more dimensional, allowing for better chokes and striking. Even some semblance of a chin would be an improvement for choking demonstrations.
Dressing the Dummy
This was by far the most difficult part. They suggested an A2 – A3 size gi for it. I would honestly give it a size up and maybe shrink it a bit in the washer using hot water and the dryer, as the A3 I put on it was ridiculously tight and hard to dress.
Try as I might, I could not get the pants to sit high enough to not look like they were falling off the backside of the dummy.
Putting the jacket on was the worst part. I had the arms stuffed fairly well, and the sleeves only just fit with a lot of wrestling. The hardest part was getting the arms to both go into the sleeves, because of the angle at which they were set and the limitation in their range of motion, you basically had to put the gi on upside down, yank the back and collar over the head, then slowly twist and wrench the sleeves around until it sat down right.
Dimensions of the Dummy
I have posted some photos below with the dummy next to a large ruler, so you can get a sense of the size of it.
The email they sent me stated that fully filled this should weigh between 70-90 lbs. There is absolutely no way that achieving that weight is possible. The way I filled it using shredded t-shirts and heavybag fiber fill with two strips of foam, plus the gi I put on it, the total weight is just over 40 lbs. Maybe they sent me the wrong size? I just can’t imagine what else I could have done to fill it further, given the space constraints and the angles I had to work around, short of filling it with sand, which would be an absolute mess with striking. You would have to wrap the sand in plastic and tape, and I don’t know how long that would last, or if the seams would leak sand all over the place if they opened.
Structural Problems
When I tried training with the dummy, (keep in mind I am 6′ 1″ and around 250 lbs), I found it to be very lightweight, and small. When I would mount the dummy, the space between the arms and legs felt very tight around the legs and hips, almost cartoonishly small compared to an adult person. This particular dummy seems better suited for kids.
The biggest problem I saw was the angle of the arms, because they bent upward towards the head, relatively in line with the shoulders, the arms would not really hug you when you adopted a top position. I think it would have been smarter to have the arms tilted more inward towards one another as it would have lent itself more to practicing armbars.
The dummy is really only useful from its back or from the turtle position. There is a triangular D-ring on the top of the head, which is badly placed and not very useful. I wouldn’t trust this to suspend the entire weight of the dummy, and while you could hang it from a heavy bag stand to get the dummy to sit more upright, having it suspended that way would make it largely useless for training sweeps or triangle chokes. If they were going to do this, it would be better placed at the base of the neck, at the shoulders, so the carabiner would be hidden under the gi collar. As it sits, there is a risk of the D-ring hitting the trainee in the face.
Limitations
I am going to be very critical here because there are a lot of grappling dummies out there now, and many of them do not have these problems. First, there is very little stretch in the arms or the shoulders, which limits how far you can rotationally torque them at the shoulders, or extend them at the elbow. The arms are also relatively short compared to a full grown adult. In my opinion, this is really a kid-sized dummy.
The feet are cartoonishly small, which makes showing foot locks or ankle locks impossible, as the toe will slip out from your armpit when you try that. The legs are also proportionately short, and set at a fixed bend in the knee, so things like kneebars don’t work well on it. You can do some guard passing demonstrations, getting to Headquarters and working around the feet, but it’s less than ideal.
Uses
So the big thing is how do you use this? I had my kids using this in a number of ways, from dwarf tossing (literally picking it up and throwing it as far as they could), to positional drills, to some half-kneeling movement and striking drills, to some calisthenics training, carrying the weight of the dummy on their backs.
It is helpful to have a dummy to use to demonstrate to a class of beginners some relative positions and movements, so that I don’t have to repeat the demonstration for the person I would usually demonstrate on, particularly in a class of kids, where the kids are really to small for me to work on, but because of how small this is, I don’t use it often for that use as it is a bit uncomfortable and the limitations in how it will sit or stand means that there are limited applications for that type of demonstration.
I have found the easiest positions to demonstrate are top across-sides positions (Cross Body, North-South, Knee on Stomach), and the Turtle position, but the later less so, since the dummy won’t support my weight if I try to get my hooks in and Back Mount it. Since the neck is relatively short, and the gi collar is tight, it is difficult to demonstrate collar chokes, even from the back.
Since it won’t stand, you really can’t demonstrate throws or takedowns. Since it won’t sit up on its own, you really can’t demonstrate a lot of guard material for a postured opponent.
In terms of striking, the head is so flat, that it really sits too low to be useful as a striking target. It works, but it is less than ideal. I think the Motion Master from Erik Paulson is a better design for that, or even just a mid-sized heavy bag without a chain.
Summary
After several months of use, I can safely say that this dummy has limited uses due to some of the problems and limitations I listed above. I think in general this is a decent Kid’s sized dummy, which could be improved with a few changes, but I really don’t have a lot of use for this for my adults classes (which is the majority of the grappling program that I offer). That being said, it is useful to have this to demonstrate for kids without having to squash one of them.
If I had to replace this dummy, and acquire another unfilled dummy from this company, I would not pay more than $60 for it. Given the amount of material, time and effort required to fill it and the cost of a gi for it, that’s just my take on the value of this item. If it cost more than that, I would likely just live without it. I think if it came filled, it might be worth a little more, but the shipping costs would be outrageous.
All in all, I would rate this a 6 out of 10 compared to some of the other grappling dummies I have seen.