How To M a k e Your Taiji Wooden Dummy H
“
e Ain't Pretty, He's My Brother”
The mission if you choose to accept it is to build yourself a Taiji Wooden Dummy as outlined previously in the magazine. Yes, Taiji has its own wooden dummy and as I have found out it is cracking good fun to play with once you have gone to the effort of building it. The more I play with it the more uses I find for it in my training and teaching. Now don’t over think this small handyman or woman project…it’s a pole with one or two holes through it and a piece of wood sticking out of it. You can make it as simple or as fancy as you like. There is only one thing for you to remember and that is you are using this training tool to map out your own body. The Taiji Wooden Dummy is in Essence, You. My theory goes like this…I am in an eternal struggle with myself and the height and dimensions of the wooden dummy will be determined by my height and the areas of my body that will most likely be under attack. Near enough will have to be good enough when you are working out the height of the arms as they will be straight pieces of wood rather than the slightly bent arm of the attacker. So work out approximately the height the attackers arm would be if the target was your head and your ribs. I am 185cm(6’2”) tall and I had someone simulate a punch to my face and stop short then measured from the ground up to work out the height of my top arm and then repeated the process to the ribs for the lower arm. In the historical image of the Taiji Wooden Dummy there was only one arm but you know us Aussies we are born to be renegades and I have added a second hole for a lower arm.