The Bat Dojo...

...is simply a two car garage with $1000 worth of Dollamur mats. Three 5 ft wide, by 15ft long black sheets of fall protection are held in place by a wall on one end, storage units on the adjacent side and my dog opposite the wall. The garage door, installed by yours truly creaks loudly like a medievel drawbridge when operated. A black, decade old WaveMaster water filled punching bag hangs silently over one end of the middle mat. Amazing it has survived this long as the target of a variety of weapons and aggressive-jumping guard hangs. A cold, steel pipe setup as a homemade chin up bar hangs over one end of the first mat. The bar has tie straps for height/angle adjustment, along with a set of gymnastics rings for added torture. A very old, dirty blue gi I hauled from Berlin, Germany hangs over the bar for gi grip pullups.

A large variety of experimental tortures sit wrecked in the corner. Several basketballs filled with 25 lbs of sand lay useless. Cracked and leaking the heavy ballast, doing nothing more than holding down my foundation. A PVC kettle bat with a broken handle sits upright to stop the 20 lbs of sand from getting everywhere. Two consumer purchased 25lbs medicine balls suffered a fate a 6th Century war hammer hitting a skull would be proud of. Both expensive balls failed during our training and exploded during some form of high energy smashing exercise. I think I'll fill the carcass (now a mold) with cement and make 70lbs atlas balls out of them. Concrete kettle bats weigh in at 30 lbs; the most medieval and dangerous of the devices lays crushed on the floor. A product of a misguided swing hitting a kneecap or perhaps trying to smack someone who failed to push 101%.

Some items do make it through a workout or two. Home made PVC pushup bars, the only device to survive the last 4 years, mostly because we never threw them at the floor or each other. A mini basketball full of 10 lbs of sand is surviving, but we're not sure how much more punishment it can take. A pair of mini basketballs, filled with concrete and a badass wire handle suffices as the requisite kettlebells. 15lbs each and they are rock solid, and could handily crush a mountain goat.

A variety of consumer dumbells, soft/heavy exercise mini balls, plates also adorn the floor. Then there is the jumpbox. The infamous, overly engineered 2ft square jumpbox. For one of our brethren blue belts is also a mechanical engineer and designed the box to withstand the crushing forces of a pissed off, 40,000 lb midget covered in chainsaws and barbed wire. If it breaks, NASA should study the guts for the next space station, it's truly remarkable. There are more devices for self expression of pain, but some(actually all) were taken by the Air Force, strapped to a laser guidance system and dropped from a bomber onto the Taliban.

The main wall is a canvas for a 4 ft black painting of the Shotokan Tiger. Painted by hand, by me it emblazons The Bat Dojo with a bit of pride. Tiny U.S. and Brazilian flags flank the Tiger.

Training at The Bat Dojo was once very frequent, meeting in secret before our actual BJJ class to cover new techniques and strategies. Showing up to class already sweating, others wondered WTF we were up to. Over the last year training there has waned due to work, and the expansion of our primary school.

The Bat Dojo serves as the breeding ground for new ideas, a chance to practice the old ideas, push our cardio to the limit and experiment with various tortures. It's called the Bat Dojo, because it is hidden like the Bat Cave. Only the few are invited.

I tried to Google some badass quote about bats. Something akin to Vlad the Impaler emphatically chanting about how wicked the wolf was and if one could harness the power of the wolf one would rule for eternity blah blah blah... Well I found one, while searching for the world "bat" and "quote" together I found this gem, "Nobody bats 500. We all make mistakes. - Desi Arnaz". I think I'll keep it until I find something better.

This blog is to detail a bit of our training here. Today was day 1 of the Summer training cycle at the Bat Dojo, and to provide a bit of a guilt trip to train more often and update this blog. For those who train at home this is a place to hangout and trade ideas. I'll post what I've done and happily accept intelligent ideas from others.

Mark!