A heavy bag is ok but, as previously stated, a car tire is better for a few reasons. First, if you've ever hit someone full blast with a stick, I think you'll find that the tire more closely approximates that feeling than a heavy bag does. Second, tires are more versatile than a heavy bag in the way they can be arranged and struck with a stick. Finally, the tire is much more durable than a heavy bag when using a stick. A bag just won't last long under pull power thrusts and punyos.
We have two types that we use. The first is a hanging tire. Drill 2 holes through the tread (into the center of the tire) so that the holes are on opposite ends of the tire from each other and put eye bolts in each hole. Now you can hang the tire just like a heavy bag at different heights depending upon what you're working on. The bottom eye bolt can be used to anchor the bottom to some sort of heavy base so that the tire doesn't swing as much. A good base is a tire filled with cement and an eye bolt in the cement. "Bungee cords" work well to anchor the tire to the base. If the tire is hanging near a wall, you can further anchor it to the wall using another eye bolt and "bungee cord". You can also just let the tire hang and put a few bricks inside it. Each of these configurations is used for different purposes.
The second one is what we call a "tire dummy". It's a 4 x 4 post set in a base consisting of two car tires stacked on top of each other and filled with cement. You can bolt two tires to each side of the post. We put a smaller tire at head height and another, larger tire just below it at torso height. Between these two tires and the base, you can move up and down the entire "body" while striking, thrusting, punyo-ing with your stick; punching with your live hand, elbowing, kneeing and kicking. You can use your foot work to move around the dummy and if you have tires on all four sides you can put it in the middle of the floor and use your foot work to move all the way around the dummy. Hitting this one feels the most like hitting a human body. I think Keith saw and used this one at the seminar with Eric Knaus, though we didn't have the tires up on all 4 sides that day.
A couple of draw backs to tires are that they will destroy rattan sticks very quickly and they can do a real number on your hands, knees, elbows and feet. The solution is to use hard wood sticks (but not expensive stuff like kamagong, bahi, cocobolo, etc) or wooden dowels (wrapped in electrical tape), and wear bag gloves, elbow & knee pads and shoes unless your body parts are already well conditioned.
For less than what you'd probably pay for an average heavy bag, you can build both of these tire dummies and both are great supplements to a heavy bag for empty hand training as well. Best of all, you probablly will not need to replace them in your life time.
Sorry for the long post, but I hope it helps.
Respectfully,
Dave Fulton
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Full Contact Martial Arts Association.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
[This message has been edited by Dave Fulton (edited 05-31-2000).]
