Homemade Martial Arts Equipment

[RapidAssault16]

Hey. I was wondering if anyone could help me out. I recently headed to a garage sale and got the following items:

5 old tires
several pieces of unused styrofoam boards
3, 72" stretchable cords with hooks on the ends (the kind you use on luggage)
20 feet of yellow nylon rope
some old baseball padding (shin guards, face guard)

Okay, so I've tried to find ideas as how to make a tire dummy for weapons and empty hand training (mostly weapons). Can anyone give me any tips as to how to construct one? I plan to hang it from a tree outside my home.

The rest of the objects are more obscure. I was thinking of turning the foam boards into a striking pad. How can I use the stretchable cords?

The baseball padding is more obvious. Shin guards will probably work well for practicing kicks to the shins :-)

So yeah, if anyone has any ideas, feel free to share. I saw a book by Michael Janich called "Homemade Martial Arts Training Equipment". I'd rather spend my money on the parts necessary to build the gear as opposed to buying the book...so if anyone could give me some advice I'd appreciate it. Thanks

[DrAgOn-T]

when I first learned how to box, it was in this guys garage where he had made an uppercut bag out of duck tape and tightly compressed styrophome pads

[Hardball]

I made a Great Modified Wooden dummy on a tree in back of my house. I use it to practice parries blocks and it also has a Makiwari attached to it. Since my primary system is not wing chun, I'm not concerened with learning wing chun "sets". I do freestyle and non premeditated sets. I don't know if it's improving my skills or not but it is very fun and a minor part of my training.

You can get a lot of great ideas about a "Home Dojo" from Bruce Lees' four training books. {The small ones that have the different colors on the front page}