Pell Training

[Jake_Norwood]

We recently built Greg Mele's h-frame steel pell and padded it with carpet and pool noodles. We modified the body a bit to allow for attachments and variation in body-shape.

Thoughts-
(1) It's easy to build, portable, and very versatile. I like it.
(2) It cost us about $100, and that includes some competitive and comparative shopping. Who knew that steel pipe was so expensive?
(3) Pell training is *so* important. After about 3 days training on it I found that my sparring and free play improved dramatically.

How many of you train with a pell or pell-like object, what do you think of your "model," and what benefits are you seeing/ Any favorite excercises?

Jake

[Jamie Fellrath]

Jake - what kinds of attachments do you use? I'm interested in this since I don't have a study group and I'm always looking for new ways to practice.

[kyle cook]

can you post a picture of your pell, i too have no study group here in victoria. I would like to build one to help my pratice time.

kyle cook
Victoria, arma

[Tony_Indurante]

I think this is the pell that Jake is talking about

http://www.karateconnection.com/dummy.htm

really strong design, it'll probably last a lifetime.

I made my portable pell for around $15-$20 and so far I'm really pretty satisfied with it. I took a 2' x 4' piece of 1/2" plywood and attached a 2" galvanized floor flange to it. The flange was placed in the middle of one of the 4' sides (this gives you 2' of bracing at the rear and 3' to either side). I then screwed a 12" long piece of 2" galvanized steel pipe into the flange. I made the striking surface of the pell from a piece of ABS plastic pipe (I used a pipe diameter that was just big enough to fit inside the 2" galvanized pipe. I covered my striking suface with several layers of carpet with extra layers at approximately shoulder and hip height and several extra pieces on the top for reinforcement. This is all covered in duct tape. It can easily withstand the hardest blows and is light and extremely portable. The only downside is that thrusting straight on tends to knock it over, however if you move so that you are thrusting with one of the longer sides as the brace, it won't fall over.

Cheap and easy. I don't have a picture of it available right now, but can take one for anyone who is interested.

[Jake_Norwood]

Actually it's not, but those are dang, dang cool and now I'm gonna want to build one. Mine comes from the article "The Ubiquitous Pell" on this site.

Jake

[Tony_Indurante]

Ah, after re-reading the article I see what you're talking about. My portable pell is similar, though lighter and definitely cheaper. When you guys host NTP 1.3 maybe I'll get a chance to see the new pell <img src="/forum/images/icons/wink.gif" alt="" /> .

As far as using the pell, I usually do a bunch of repetitive strikes with power and speed to work on wind and accuracy or I run through the 8-cut segno with the same intent. Cutting air is good, but I tend to develop a distorted view of the flow between blows when you don't actually strike a target, the pell gives you a chance to see how strikes flow when you do strike a target.

BTW Jake, did you guys happen to write down the 10 cutting exercises, I was so overloaded with info I forgot 6 of them. If you have them would you (or any other ARMA member who has them written down) mind emailing them to me.

[Casper Bradak]

I use a "tire man" pell that I based off a design I saw, I think from a link at the purpleheart armoury site, but I don't remember for sure. If you have old tires, all you need to do is arm it and buy some nuts, bolts, and washers.
I won't say it's too portable, but it's quite versatile and life like. Even binding and grappling work well on it, and it's tough enough for using blunt replicas on.
The pell is a martial artists tool that's probably been around as long as wasters, no swordsman should be without one!

[Jamie Fellrath]

Here's an interesting pell/dummy.



Found this at http://www.fantasydojo.com/ma_training.html

It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to make... you'd just have to figure out a way to keep the sword from flopping around too much.

[Jake_Norwood]

Yeah, Tony, I've got all 10. They're grrrrreat. I'll email them to you later, or maybe we can write them up and John will put it in the Armaria.

I still want to see your pell (maybe I will next month).

Casper-
I'd love to see the tire man, too. I thought about making one, but the steel was more portable and (for me) more readily available.

Jake

[Ray Brunk]

Jake,
Could you please send me a copy of the 10 cutting excercises email also. Attended the Florida workshop last week and seem to have overloaded a bit myself.
Thanks
Ray
Colossus10@hotmail.com

[Jake_Norwood]

I'll post them to the e-list.

Jake

[Guest]

Yeah,

I saw that Pell at Kendall Giles home in Richmond when our study groups got together last Summer. I didn't get a chance to play with it, but it looked quite functional. The only kind of pell I have used is really just a padded post stuck in the ground. I don't strike it hard, just use it as a sort of focal point as I move around and sort of shadow fight with it.