Dojo's at home

[silatman]

At the moment I'm starting to build my new house and I want to build a dojo in the backyard, I'm hoping to put a colourbond shed with dimensions about 15ft x 18ft x 8ft and am wondering what people consider to be essential equipment.
Im thinking that ventilation would be a priority and will be putting in two doors on opposing walls and a manual roof venturi extraction point.
I am going to concrete into the floor a self standing h/duty kick bag and a floor to ceiling bag. The plan would be to put carpet down first then get some mats to cover 16sqmtrs and leave the rest just carpet.
Any other suggestions would be gratefully recieved as I'm only going to get one crack at this and I obviously want the best training set up that I can afford.

 

[Shodan]

Mirrors are good as are those foam puzzle mats for the floor. Some sort of board to put important upcoming dates, seminars, class closures, etc. on- like a calendar board with quick dry pens, for example. Some bins for personal items of students- storage bins for gear too- to keep them up off the floor and out of the way.

Hope some of that helps and best of luck to you in your new endeavor!

 

[MJS]

You might want to look into getting some focus pads as well as some Thai kicking pads, so that combos can be working while moving around.

Mike

 

[Makalakumu]

Are those the only dimensions you have to choose from? 15/18/8 would only allow two people to work out in my art. I would go with 20/25/10. This is about the size of a large garage. It would give you room to do weapons and you could have lots of people working out in there and possibly have room for heavy bags.

 

[dsp921]

I'd also recommend rethinking the dimensions, at least the height, you will probably find an 8' ceiling to be too low. I'm not too familiar with your style, but I believe weapons are a part of it. Depending on what the weapons are, that 8' height could be a real problem. The length and width may or may not be OK, that depends on how many people you'll have in there at once.
The important part for now is gettig the structure right, mounting points for heavy bags, etc, which it seems like you have a handle on. All the smaller stuff can be added as you go, like the pads and mats. Focus on the stuff you can't change once the structure is up. For me, mounting a heavy bag and maybe a double ended bag would be enough, I'm not sure what you would require for your art beyond that.
I'd probably throw in a window or two in addition to the doors and roof vents.

 

[Mark Lynn]

I trained for a long time in my instructor's home dojo and then put one in my garage as well and taught there for several years. So here is my $0.02

Both my instructor and I had a mat area of aprox 18x13 and it worked out pretty good for small classes. When doing stand up sparring at my instructors place we could get two pairs of people at once on the mat. It was tight but you can easily adapt and learn to fight in close. When I taught kids in my garage, I could get 5-6 kids doing basics, excercises etc. etc.

I also used stand up bags (Wavemasters, and kid wavemasters) and stuffed them in the corners around the room. Again they worked out pretty well. And I had a metal shelf system where I kept other pads and such. In time I also taught adults arnis in my garage and over at my instructors place, but there depending upon the drill only 1-4 people can be on the mat area at a time. Also that mat area allows adults to generally do the majority of the katas that we profromed as well.

Mirrors: my instructor didn't use them, I did because I was teacking kids, and I didn't do much sparring in my garage dojo. However in my instructors dojo we did. If you plan to do a lot of sparring than forget them, they will probably get broke, and then you have a potential injury of your hands. In the close in space of a garage type dojo we tended to slam into the walls a lot. In fact at first my instructor had sheetrock on the walls and soon we had holes in all of the walls from us getting slammed and kicked into them. Later he was smartter and when he redid the dojo he replaced the sheet rock with sheets of plywood, after that the problem was fixed. This is why we didn't spar much at my place because, I didn't go to the expense of putting in a wall where my garage door was (like my instructor had) and put plywood on my walls etc. etc.

Flooring: I went and had a canvas/vinyl cover made for the floor and had some thick industrial type foam pad (about 3/4 inch thick) we did alot of takedowns/sweeps and stuff so I wanted everyone safe from injury. Also since we were doing this on a concrete floor there was no give so I needed good padding. I think it cost me about $200.00 for the covering and about $1-200.00 for the foam, boards for the border, screws to hold down the cover and several hours of time. Also the mat was easier to clean than the puzzle mats.

However one thing I hadn't planned on was heat. In TX it gets hot and the sun would come in through the windows in the garage door and heat the mat. Well I would go out there to get ready for class and the mat would be risen up in the middle from the heat (wierd) also it would be real hot to be on.

To heat the dojo in the winter I used a real small space heater, at my instructors dojo they vented the dyer out to the dojo and did laundry. For coolness in the summer I would open the garage door and had a small air mover fan, my instructor would open the entry door and we found coolness outside on the TX heat. Now he has a small stand up fan.

Teaching out of the house was great, I loved it and training at my instructors dojo was great as well. Many fond memories there. Go for it but protect yourself leagally and do it right first, but thinking through your set up for the dojo. If you can go with a bigger place and you want to earn some extra money by teaching than diffinently get a bigger place if you can afford it. If you only have a few students and you don't plan to teach every night, then the small place will be fine (probably).

Mark

 

[TigerWoman]

If you get mirrors, get the unbreakable ones, more expensive but when we spar and inevitably in a small space, someone gets slammed into one. Something you can add later anyway. You might want to get one of those small window air conditioners. I know my brain doesn't work well when the heat gets over 85° so its hard to expect the kids to. Space heaters work good for winter. Actually we had a safer heater for a shed - an oil heater like the towel warmer version. It was electric but we could leave it on all the the time and it slowly did the job. It really worked well especially since it gets way below zero here. Wish I had my own personal workout room at home. Well, I do but its half a room really, not enough. Good luck! TW

 

[searcher]

Maybe I missed it, but what about a bathroom. Unless you want to run to the house to use the one there and if you have students you might want to think about that. I would also re-think the size of the workout floor. If you ever want to make a good go of it you will either have to expand or build a new one. Make your equipment where it can slide to the side so you can also increase your space. If it works out for you consider setting up a space to workout outside. It is always a pleasure to take students outside to give them some variety. Consider putting in some small storage shelves for students and yourself to have a place to put shoes and personal effects.

Do a search on the net for pictures and layouts of other dojos. Most schools will be more than glad to share their floor plans with you.

 

[okinawagojuryu]

Makiwara......dont forget the Makiwara .

There's an old saying , The Dojo w/o a Makiwara is just a dance studio .

 

[Grenadier]

At the moment I'm starting to build my new house and I want to build a dojo in the backyard, I'm hoping to put a colourbond shed with dimensions about 15ft x 18ft x 8ft

Too short of a ceiling, especially if you are going to engage in any kind of weapons training. That's not enough room to swing around a bokken, much less a jo or bo.

 

[IWishToLearn]

I have a Kenpo Ultraman from the IKCA, it's fantastic for beating the heck out of actual targets rather than a generic round bag.

Got it from GM Vic LeRoux, http://www.karateconnection.com

 

[silatman]

Cheers for all the feedback some great ideas there.
Just to clarify the space is for personal use only, maybe with a partner and yes my system does use weapons. I am trying to fit the dojo at the side of the garage between it and the fence line so space is limited. I will have about 200sqmtrs outside the door that will be grassed so if I do need extra space I will have that option.
The main use of the dojo will be a waterproof area that can remain set up and wife and kids free, I'm getting real sick of putting up my heavy bag and taking it down once I've finished, and I think I'm more likely to be motivated to do a bit more practice if I can walk into my space, do my thing and walk out again. Thats the plan anyway.
Might try to rack up some brownie points with the wife and push for a bigger shed. Dont like my chances but you always learn from your defeats.

 

[Mark Lynn]

The main use of the dojo will be a waterproof area that can remain set up and wife and kids free, I'm getting real sick of putting up my heavy bag and taking it down once I've finished, and I think I'm more likely to be motivated to do a bit more practice if I can walk into my space, do my thing and walk out again. Thats the plan anyway.

Yeah that was my plan to Wife and kid free. First it was the need for room for the bikes, then slowly but surely other junk creeps in. Finally I got taken over by EBAY junk (buying and selling) of my wife's. Now I work out/teach in a park.

Seriously if you want to keep it kid and wife free have a couple of paying students maybe. Then you can use the excuse "Well dear I can't have that stuff in there I've got student coming over." Worked for me for several years.

Mark

 

[VSanhodo]

Yep I agree keep it simple, If you can mat a small area thats great. Ive had ppl train at my home for years. Ive tied two fromt motorcycle tires together and hung them from a tree for stick training. Filled an old army bag with clothes and some sand for a heavy bag. Used PVC for escrima sticks and so on and so forth. But the one thing I woudl always do is to speakw ith my insurance rep to make sure I was covered and if necessary take out an umbrella policy to CYA.

Just for what its worth.


Good luck

San

 

[TallAdam85]

this past summer at my sensei house he had a small class for people to go to it would be in his Garage and one of the parents who owned a carpet store gave him carpet for his garage dojo. It was also nice cause he lives on like 50+ Ares also on a lake so it was some good training.

 

[DavidCC]

A bathroom or shower might be overkill, especially since it is just for yourself, but a water fountain or sink might be very useful.

You might want to wire in a video camera and sound system. Also a TV or monitor where you can watch or playback recorded video. This and more can be done with some fairly cheap PC-based equipment.

Telephone. Intercom to the kitchen. "Do Not Distrub" signs for the doors. First aid kit. a fire-proof safe. a fire extinguisher. a white board or chalk board (even though you won't be teaching you migth find it useful for making notes to yourself)