I also decided to be a nerd and use the timer feature on the camera to take some pictures of me working the bags and makiwara.  As you can tell, the “Wrecking Ball” bag is my favorite!  I actually hit the makiwara more than the bags but it’s a little hard to get action shots on that because you punch it and drive through and hold at the end of your motion, so you either get something really blurry or something totally stopped that looks posed.

This is what my hand looked like after the makiwara work

This kind of thing is a great asset to our dojo and we are very glad to have it!  It has two mounting arms on the front for heavy bags to hang over the mat, and those can have their height and distance from the frame adjusted.  There are mounting arms on the back for a speed bag and bob-and-weave bag, both of which are adjustable and the speed bag mount can actually be removed and replaced with any number of custom attachments that he builds.  There are pull-up and dip bars for both adults and children (adult ones are mounted higher and further apart).  There are also two makiwara mounting brackets which can be clamped securely onto just about any point on the frame–on the bottom as a standard makiwara, or it can be hung upside-down from the top or even at an angle from one of the support struts.

We made liberal use of this new tool in class on Monday and actually snapped the wood in both makiwara mounts (they were just pine 2×4′s and were there as temporary makiwara until Jason makes oak leaf-style ones), but the makiwara mounts are at the perfect angle and have just the right amount of give.  Jason actually just dropped by today and installed the new leaf-spring-style makiwara made of oak, and they are awesome! We also found how great the heavy bag mounts are!  Jason built them at angles so that the one closest from the wall is much less likely to actually hit the wall than it was when we had a standard heavy bag stand, and the one hanging out over the mat is angled far enough that you can actually hit the bag hard and it swings past its support post instead of slamming into it.  According to Sensei Poage, he has already had people asking how much they cost, but we’ll have to leave that up to Jason!

To start class out tonight we did some conditioning drills on the practice target (makiwara). The makiwara is traditionally a rolled up bundle (maki) of straw (wara). Modern ones are made from all sorts of material. The basic concept is that you want something with a little padding in front of (or around) something much harder. You condition the body, in this example our hands, by striking the practice target to build bone density, toughen the skin, and condition the muscles and tendons to the impact of a hard surface (like someone’s face for example).

In our dojo we have a collection of modern practice targets (photos of them are on the site – they have dragons on them). They are [worn out] foam attached to a thin plastic plate and wrapped in canvas. The canvas is then attached to a thicker plastic plate and this is all then screwed into a cement wall. Today we practiced on them with 25 vertical punches, 25 half turned punches, and 25 full turn punches on each hand. It is important to make sure you are striking with the knuckles of the index finger and middle finger, but more important is that you should start slow and gradually get faster and stronger. Worst mistake someone new to practice targets can make is striking so hard they break their hand/wrist. So don’t do that!

Shin Conditioning

After we conditioned our hands, we then went on to condition our shins. I once trained under a pretty cool guy who did Uechi-ryu. They would do some crazy body conditioning, of which included shin to shin conditioning drills. I thought it best to start off slow and rather than do shin to shin kicks, we would kick a practice target. Traditional practice targets for this would be a bundle of bamboo tied together and set upright. Since I don’t have any of those handy, we got out one of the kendo swords and smacked each other with that. As with hand conditioning, take it slow and increase speed and power slowly.

Corkscrew Punch

During our warmups I noticed some people doing the corkscrew punch incorrectly. They were chambering their hands correctly (palms up) but rotating them before they fully extended the punch. The correct method is to shoot the hand out palm up and then rotate it so that the palm is down at the point of contact. To demonstrate the increase in power I smacked a few people with a regular punch and then with the corkscrew punch. Without using anything resembling speed or power – I think I made my point nicely.

Rokushaku Bo

Tonight my goal was staff initiation so we got out the six foot staffs (Rokushaku Bo). I went through the proper way to hold the staff in Matayoshi style weapons (Kobudo). The big thing is that the stances are narrower than Karate and deeper. The most common mistake is not keeping the back of the staff on the outside of the forearm rather than against the hip or under the armpit. The benefit is added protection to the arms and increased speed of attacks. The “con” is that the staff is not as secure – this is a matter of practice in my opinion, whereas the benefits are inherent in the positioning and no amount of skill is really needed to benefit. Posting some more videos on staff is long term goal for the rest of this semester, but until I can do that I will not pretend that I can explain good staff techniques using only words. Sorry.

Kihon no Bo Shodan no Yamashita

The last thing we went over in class was the first of the basic staff katas created by Tadashi Yamashita. The first is “The First Basic Kata of Bo [Techniques] of [Tadashi] Yamashita” (Kihon no Bo Shodan no Yamashita). To think that everyone thought the Karate katas had complicated and nonsensical names? We could call the kata “First Staff Form”, but what fun would that be? As I mentioned before, more Weapons vidoes (including kata) are on their way, but until then, you will just have to use your imagination and know that we did the kata with “the spinny thing”.

Types of Makiwara

There are several types of makiwara used for empty hand striking but the type you really want to avoid are the type that are nothing more than padded boards and the wall-mounted type with slots cut in them.  The problem with these is that they do not flex, so you might as well glue foam to the wall and punch that, which is a terrible idea for your hands and wrists in particular.  What you want is a makiwara that will flex and move when you strike it, so stick with post-type makiwara and hanging makiwara.

The standard post-type (sometimes called tachi-makiwara)  is typically a tapered plank of strong wood that is either treated and sunk into the ground or mounted to a platform for the user to stand on (although I have seen some mounted to ceilings).  I have seen some that do not use tapered planks but several straight planks that decrease in size, similar to how a leaf spring on a truck is designed.  This allows the boards to flex but makes them much easier to replace if you break one because you just have to get another board from the lumberyard instead of getting a post and cutting it to a taper.  Either of these styles are good, but make sure that you do put some form of padding on the striking area, whether it is layers of leather or fabric or foam or straw.

The ude-makiwara or maru-makiwara is (usually) a straight, round post that has had slots sawn down the center in two directions in order to split the post in to four approximately equal pie-slice-shaped sections.  I suppose you could make more slots but after a while you are going to weaken the post and it won’t hold up very well.  The post is then padded in some way, generally either by wrapping foam around it or wrapping thick natural rope around it.  This type of makiwara will allow you to strike from all directions and will flex in all directions.

Age-makiwara typically hang from the ceiling, although frames can be built for them, and there are a few types of these as well–there are padded boards, there are sand-filled canvas bags, and there are padded logs (with the round face as the striking area), and all of them are hung by either ropes or bungee cords.  These typically provide the least resistance, with the exception of the ones made by hanging a log (the weight adds resistance) simply because they are hanging free or using the resistance of the bungee cords.

Using a Makiwara

The way that these devices work is by providing resistance that increases as your power increases, unlike a heavy bag which provides less resistance as your power increases because it swings away from you.  Hanging makiwara will act much like a heavy bag but I consider them useful for speed training and little else because, with the exception of the hanging log, they do not provide much resistance but they do snap back into position.  In order to use a post-type makiwara and benefit from it you should push your strikes into it, which means that you can train either slowly or quickly.  The whole purpose of these devices is to get you accustomed to striking a hard surface like a face or chest without injuring yourself, so while your knuckles may callous and the bones of your hands may become more dense, you are really strengthening the tendons and joints of your wrists and elbows to absorb impact.

When you strike you should drive through, really using your hips to drive your power, and the makiwara should shove back.  Since it is a spring, essentially, it should push back the harder you push into it, and that action is what will strengthen your arms and wrists to take impact.  Another benefit of this action is that the resistance is going to travel through your entire body which will strengthen all of the muscle groups used to drive your strikes.  Be sure to practice different types of strikes, as well, so that your body learns to absorb shock from different angles–if you only work your reverse punch, for example, your hammerfists, elbows, etc. will not get any stronger.  Kicking can also be done on the makiwara but keep in mind that your kicks are going to be stronger than your punches so you may want a separate, sturdier one for kicking and kneeing.

The Dangers

No physical activity is without its dangers.  My biggest caution with the use of the makiwara is that children should not use them.  Striking a hard surface can cause calcification of the joints over time, and children’s bones are still developing so they can be much more adversely affected by this, causing them to deform their hands or develop arthritis at a young age.  Adults can also have problems with joint calcification and arthritis from makiwara use and that is something to keep in mind, but you can always add more padding to your striking area to combat this problem.  Another danger comes from repetitive stress injuries like sprains and tennis elbow–if you injure yourself you should stop immediately to allow yourself to heal.  There is no shame in stopped to rest an injury and continuing to work while you are injured is asking to cause permanent damage.

The last issue I would like to point out is the possibility of the post breaking.  This concern is not usually discussed but I wanted to bring it up because it can be dangerous.  You need to be sure to inspect your makiwara before you use it and if you use it for an extended period of time you should check it every now and then to see if any cracks are developing.  You must remember that you are striking a piece of wood, and if it breaks it is going to send splinters flying and who knows where the board itself may end up.  You could end up with a skinned knee but you could also end up blinded by the splintered end flipping up into your face.  Always check all of your training equipment to make sure that it is safe before you use it.