 Hey everyone, as we start to approach the holiday season coming up, we thought it would be helpful to put together a list of gift ideas for martial artists or for people who are interested in starting the martial arts. I mean, let's be honest, what exactly do you get somebody who likes to punch and kick things? Mainly things that they can punch and kick. So today, we're just going to talk about some gift ideas that you can get from martial artists. And also just for our heads up, none of these items are sponsored. These are just some tools that either we've had or that we've encountered before and we thought they might be a fun addition to your training regimen. And also all items that we talked about today. If you go down to our description, the video description below, there will be links to every single one that we're talking about. So that way, everything's all in one place for your convenience. So the very first and foremost thing you should get anybody who likes to martial arts. The best gift ever is buy our stuff, man. We got a whole bunch of shirts and towels and mugs and tote bags available. So number one gift for any martial artist, link below our store. Can't go wrong. Next on the list that we've actually covered just before are these rebreakable boards. These come in various different strengths and different brands. I don't recommend any particular brand over the other. This one, this one specifically is Tiger Claw. I like this board. I have worked with other ones centuries. They're all good and they come in different thicknesses. So the black is the black belt level. This is equivalent roughly to about a half inch pint of wood. So breaking this is the equivalent of breaking a wood board. They do make easier ones for like the smaller kids and beginners. They're red, yellow and blue. Those are usually the easier ones. Like, I mean, honestly, if you're starting with the blue, you can pretty much sneeze at it and it'll break, but it's really good for like the little kids preschoolers who are just starting to work out. Great confidence builder too. Yeah. So these are fun and they're great training tool and also it saves the environment. These are reusable. They last a good amount of time and they're fun to work with. I recommend these. Go pick some of these up. Now, this item, this is great for a gym or if you're working out in the school or if you have your own home dojo, it's the Century versus Grappling Dummy. And these are stand-up dummies that they've got a few different versions. The V1, the V2 and the V3. And the V2 actually has arms on it. So you can practice striking. It does stand on its own. So you can work with like leg takedowns or it's got arms. You can do throws. It's actually really versatile. The school I taught at had one and it was kind of fun to play around with it. They're heavier than they look and they're weighted so that, you know, you have to put effort into it. So it's a great training tool if you want to practice your takedowns, your throws, your grappling and be able to strike at the same time. So it's a Century versus. Pretty cool. Check that out. Now, if Ground Game is more of your preference, Century and other manufacturers also make ground dummies, grappling dummies. And most of the time they're made of vinyl and they're pre-stuffed and they've got the arms and basically they're good for working submissions in arm bars in different positions, side control amounts. And we also had that in class as well, especially with the kids. It really gave them a good idea of how to work their techniques on each other. And if you're able to pick them up, I'd definitely recommend it. Now, they're a little bit more expensive if you get like the nicer vinyl dummies that are pre-filled. Another option is if you want to cut down on the cost, it's picking up one of these. These are unfilled grappling dummies and they come in all different brands. Most of them look the same. They're a tough canvas. They're really meant for grappling on the ground. So if you find them, we're going to have these things below. They're in the sitting position. So they're meant to do groundwork. I rigged this one for my own purposes. I wanted to practice more stand-up work and I couldn't quite afford the really nice ones, like the versus. But this is the job. So basically what you do is you get the cloth, you just get the skin. You fill it with your own material, towels, clothes, sheets, whatever. He's got a rug inside of him. And what I personally did was I took PVC pipe that runs from his leg all the way up to his head. I wrapped it in cloth and towels so that way it wouldn't puncture the seams. But basically he's good for working throws and working takedowns. And I actually took him to class one night and we kind of had fun throwing him around. It was especially fun for like, we have like some of the younger students who were able to grab him and throw him full speed, full waza without having to worry about hurting the person. So it was actually kind of fun throwing him around. He fit the purpose. Like I said, again, this is not how he's meant to be used, but I'm finding great use this way. Maybe you guys can find great uses too. I do recommend if you are going to rig him to stand up, I do put a gi on him so that I'm not grabbing and pulling at the seams. I don't want to test that too much. I mean, he seems to be pretty good quality, but with a gi, you can actually grab material and throw them. So yeah, so you've got your options if you're pre-filled grappling dummies or you've got the ones that are a little more cost effective because, you know, not everybody has the money to spend $300-400 in a grappling dummy. I mean, we're martial artists. Nobody likes us that much. Now, this next item I actually just found out about as we were doing research for this list. I have not tried it yet, but I'm going to be picking one up because it just looks fun at the very least. It's a boxing reflex ball and there's a bunch of them. So there's different brands. We've listed a few different links below so you can choose from them. In a nutshell, it's a headband that you wear around your head and there's an elastic string with a ball at the end. It sounds ridiculous. It sounds stupid, but what it does is it lets you work on your coordination. So whether you're doing boxing, the ball will go out and come back, but it actually takes pretty good precision and practice to actually get it just right. So it goes and comes back. It's kind of like a punching yo-yo, which sounds weird, but awesome at the same time. And if you go on Amazon and you watch some of the user videos when they post their own testimonials, you see big grins on their face. You see them having a ball and they're doing combinations. And you can see when people get good in the fad, they'll hit it and they'll let the ball come back out and they'll do like a dodge. They'll do a side step. So they kind of work dodging drills on top of it. So like I said, this definitely looks like a lot of fun. I wouldn't mind getting this as a gift, but no, I definitely recommend checking it out because it looks great. Next on the list are Wing Chun sandbags. These are really cool. I have a set of these. I've had them for about maybe 15 years now. And what you do is you can either hang them up. If you fill them up with sand, you can either hang them up or you can lay them flat. And you'll see a lot of Chinese arts or Wing Chun, they'll do it to toughen up their fingers, their hands. There's a lot of drills for it. Or you can hang them up and use them for punching. Great for conditioning. I actually really enjoy using them. I'm not going to show you mine. I'm going to show you a picture of them. So what they look like. I have them. I made the mistake. I live in Florida and they're hanging up outside. So they're kind of mildewing right now. So that's my bad. It's not a smart man, but they're still in good condition. They are durable and they will last you. So I do recommend picking some of those up. I hang them up on a tree, hang them up on the wall, lay them out. All sorts of applications for that. And also if you prefer, they also make them in leather and vinyl versions as well if that's more of your style. Now the next one on the list is called the Strike Meter. I have not personally used this yet or even seen this in person yet, but I am intrigued. It's basically an accelerometer. It's a sensor that you strap onto your sentry bags. And what it does is when you strike the bag, it measures the strength of the impact. Now they have their own system. It goes from one to 5,000. Now, according to their website, they say that a score of 400 is equivalent to a half inch board of pine. So like breaking one board, 700 would be equivalent breaking two boards and a thousand would be like breaking three boards. I have not used this one in particular. I am intrigued by it because I have used some other accelerometers in the past and I enjoy them. And it's kind of interesting because it puts you in the mindset of like tracking your progress because you hit it and you get a number back. And in the next one, when you want to hit it harder, you want to hit it harder. So it's definitely great for tracking progress and developing strength. A great focus tool. And if you run a gym or teach, it's great to motivate students because of course everybody wants to get the high score. Okay. If you guys are like me or many other martial artists, you like to be aware of what's going around you at all times. Whether you're paranoid or you're just trying to take in stock of what's going around you, we like to be aware. I actually recommend these rear view glasses. I had a pair of these when I was a kid and I love them. Basically, they look like normal sunglasses, but on the sides and the inside, they're mirrored and it's concave a little bit. And these mirrors actually let you see what's going on behind you. So it's perfect for if you're in a city or if you're on vacation in an area you don't know and you kind of want to keep eyes all around you, you can walk straight, see what's behind you. Or if you've got that smart ass friend that likes to sneak up behind you and cheap shot you, you can see him coming from a mile away. Having eyes on the back of your head are invaluable and make a great gift for the holiday season. One of my personal favorites on this list and one of my personal favorite training tools is the on guard stun gun knife. And there's actually different versions of it, but you can find this for pretty decent on Amazon. This one's one of the lower price ones, so it's definitely affordable. What I like about it is, well one, it's advertised as a self-defense tool because basically in short, it's got a stun gun built into the blade. It's got a little metal ridge around it and it shoots, you know, the sparks. It does give a pretty good bite. So I'm not necessarily endorsing this as a self-defense tool. It may or may not work, but it's awesome as a training device because, you know, we do knife drills and, you know, when you're training, you can't really practice easily for a knife because someone pulls a knife on you, it's dangerous, it's nasty, you're gonna get cut. When you get in the groove of working with like the wooden or the plastic knives, I feel that you get, you fall into a sense of complacency and like, okay, oops, oh, that got me, oops, it's just a piece of wood. Mentally and psychologically, you're saying it's just wood, it's not gonna hurt me. When you bring this out in class and someone comes at you in class with this, your mind jumps to like, ah, I don't want that to touch me. It at least amplifies your awareness and it heightens your sensitivity and your brain triggers this, don't touch me. At least if anything, it's gonna help you improve knife defense or at least be better aware of the blade at all times because I tell you right now, you're working with someone in class who's got this, they're not gonna let go of that button. Nobody in class goes, gotcha, it's going around all over the place. So it's a lot of fun, it's also not a toy, so I, you know, do not let children play with this. It does have a good snap to it. It's like, it's like a static shock on steroids. We actually did a full review on this before, so if you are interested, check out our video, The Stun Gun Knife. I'll put a link down below and that way you get a full in depth review of this product. The next one of these items my wife's wears by. They are foam massage rollers and there's actually a couple different kinds. This one is her favorite, so she's got, you know, she gets muscle soreness, she comes back from the gym, whatever, and even I'll admit this feels pretty good when you've been working out. You basically roll on it. It's a thick PVC pipe with the padding on it and you put it on the floor and you just roll on it. It feels good. It's a little self-massager. They come in this size, smaller size, and they also come in larger varieties like this, so that way they can do more of a full back roll on it. Very lightweight, very cost effective, and like I said, my wife's wears by it and a lot of people I know will actually use this for massage and I mean, you know, we've all had those days. We come back from the gym or maybe you've done the thousand kicks a day. You might not be feeling your best right after. It might have some soreness, or in my case, as you start getting a little bit older, you know, doing two hours of throwing, you might be kind of John Wayne walking the rest of the night. So these are really good for kind of easing the massage out and working out the kinks and knots of a hard day's training. So you could go check it out. So those are just 10 ideas of gifts that you can give somebody this holiday season, have to practice martial arts. As a bonus idea too, I came across this in my search wet laundry bags. It may seem simple and stupid, but how many times after class, you know, whether you've been rolling all day or you've been wearing a gear all day, you want to go home and you're changing, you've got a handful of soppy wet clothes or a gi, you know, you want to put that in your bag or you put that in your car or even carry that or have a loved one carry that. So just, you know, it's a nifty little idea. So it's just a small thought. Tuck it away, tie it up, take it home, throw it in the wash, you're good to go. So those are just some basic gift ideas that you can give for yourself or to someone in the martial arts. If you guys have any other suggestions, please, by all means, recommend them in the comments below. We might add them in the future video. And for each item that we mentioned today is listed in the video description and in many cases, we have several options. Take a look, tell us what you think. Thank you so much for watching, like, subscribe, Patreon, and we'll see you guys next time. Happy holidays.