homemade makiwara?

[JGBurnum]

Any ideas on making my own makiwara?

[tallgeese]

I've made a couple.

You can take a suitable length of wood, say a 2x6 and cut it down to about 6 in or so. Tack or staple down a length or bike tire inner tube. wrap it tightly around the wood and tack or staple it down securely at the other end. You'll now have a chunk of wood wrapped in inner tube. Then, you're going to wrap this all with small diameter rope. Stay away from the nylon and kermantle line. Use some of the rough natural stuff you can find at hardware stores. Tack it down, wrap it tight and then you've got it. This one is small and portable and lets you hammer on it almost forever if you've secured all the components well.

The problem I have with this version, which I built and used for quite some time, is that it's really only good for tearing up your knuckles. If you're into heavy conditioning for striking surfaces, it's probably a good choice.

For more functional work, I take two lengths of 2x4, about 1.5-2 ft in length and cut closed cell foam (think the blue wal-mart camping mats here) to fit specifically to them. Leave a couple of inches of exposed wood at each end for bolting later. Usually 2 to 3 layers of foam is good. Use duct tape to keep it affixed. Wrap the tape around the whole construct, it'll hold better. Make sure that you cover all the matting or it will fall apart prematurely.

Now, take one and mount low, say knee or shin level to a wall stud with a lag bolt. Set the other head height. This will allow you to cut angles off them, throw strikes, fold strikes, parry and strike, integrate hands and feed, ect. They are really good tools.

On the down side, you'll have to replace the foam occasionally. Or at least wrap another layer on.

Hope these help. There are probably hundreds of other designs. These are the ones that I've actually built and used.

[furry_Homeboy]

I've actually been intending to make one for about half a year now. I have the materials, though i think i need a new post since the one I was going to use has a knot in it.

But anyway, I've never actually made one, but for a standing up makiwara, the way we were planning to make one was to take a 4 inches by 4 inches by 7 or 8 feet post, then taper it to one end so that one end is about 1/2 an inch in depth when standing upright. Then dig a fairly deep hole until the makiwara post is about shoulder height (so the hole may be around 2-3 feet), and place a brick behind the post at the very bottom, and one in front of the post near the top of the hole. These can be substituted with pieces of wood, or something else, but the purpose is to keep the makiwara from moving in the ground. Then you fill the hole back in, sometimes gravel is used to keep water from getting trapped by the post and rotting it, however what we were planning to do is use a pressure treated post. Then you can put on any kind of padding you want.

Another nice and simple method that I have heard works very well (this is what my sensei did) is to take a normal plank of wood (fairly long again), then just stick it in the ground (dig a hole) without tapering it or anything else, although it probably is a good idea to do something to keep it from moving. What i have heard works very well is to use concrete and just poor it in the hole, however this isn't neccesary if you don't wish to use concrete. Then again, apply padding,

I have also heard that it can be a smart idea to tilt the post slightly forward so that you can hit the post with the proper part of your knuckles.

As for padding, there are many many options. You can take a towel or t-shirt, bundle it up real tight and tape it to the post with duct-tape or something else. What I am thinking of doing is to take a pair of kneepads that don't have plastic on them (which I believe can be found at hardware stores such as home depot or lowes) and place that on the post. If you want it higher you can slide it up, or slide it down to make it lower. There is also the traditional way of taking straw, then wrapping it with a rope. This way would be interesting, but probably not neccesary. Foam can also be used, or rubber, or anything else you want.

Good luck building it!

Edited May 28, 2009 by furry_Homeboy

[Kuma]

If my camera was working, I'd show you mine. We had an old clothes line in the back of our yard so there was already a solid pole in the back that has some give to it due to it being pretty flexible already. I took a lot of hemp rope and pounded it out with a hammer to soften it up some, then tightly wound it around the pole right about chest level. Works pretty well and because you pound out some of the roughness of the rope first hand it doesn't destroy your fist after only a few strikes.