Couldn't Resitst this:
The Makiwara
At a nearby lumberyard I had a six-foot post cut and shaped for me. At the bottom it was four inches wide and four inches thick, but the back was cut away so that it tapered to only three quarters of an inch in thickness at the top. This tapering gave the board a little springiness, not too much, but enough to give a little under strong pressure. In a corner of the garden, hidden by walls and trees, I embedded the post in the ground, bracing it with large buried stones. Now the tip of the post came just above the tip of my solar plexus, and to this tip I secured a pad of hard rubber and canvas. This post and pad is an essential training device of a Karateka. It is called a makiwara. The traditional pad was plaited from straw rope, but it was some months afterwards that a teacher taught me how to make one. The straw rope pad is much rougher on the hands, and quickly develops calluses.
Over the following months I directed millions of foot-pounds of energy at this target. The canvas became flecked and mottled with blood when I punched poorly and grazed my knuckles. I used the makiwara every day. It was (and still is) a deeply personal fight. Nobody could watch me, see my little victories and defeats.
From the mind came power. In essence it was the mind that willed the leg to thrust, ankle to tense and root the foot to the ground. The hips to pivot, the punching arm to lance out and tense, twisting just on impact, while at the same time the opposite hand clenched and drew into the opposite side. At impact the air was forced out of the body as all the muscles of thorax and abdomen tensed. For a given portion of each day, the makiwara target became the object of concentration, of focus. It was stationary, passive. It had dignity. In facing the makiwara, I had to become composed, just as later I would have to learn composure before a human opponent. My body was like a spring. I worked fifty punches on the right side, fifty on the left side, fifty right, fifty left.
Breath inhaled as the spring coiled, exhaled as the fist contacted, smacking the board back. Thwock! Even in winter I sweated at the makiwara. Each victory over my body, in delivering a good punch or a strike, was yet still a victory for the makiwara> It absorbed good and bad blows with impunity, and took its toll from me in skin, blood and wrist sprains> I faced it and worked. From the punching exercises I would shift stance and strike with the edge of my open hand – the “shuto” or knife hand. I would also strike with the edge of the closed fist, and with the back of the closed fist. I also tied a pad of canvas and sand to a stout old plum tree and used that for kicking. The muscles of the leg are so powerful that even a resilient makiwara could break with a well-focused kick.
The makiwara demanded a great deal of me, to stand thus alone, sometimes in the rain, sweating and striking, thinking and non-thinking, watching my form and trying to muster strength, speed and focus, hitting the pad so many times. Yet though demanding, I found great peace in it. The target was simple, the conflict between nerve, bone, muscle, sinew, mind, rubber, wood and earth. Through my conflict with the makiwara I brought slow change to myself and without humiliation or change to the target. This training was not a mere pounding of fists, it was an exercise in concentration and release, it had rhythm, and the gradual building of awareness in timing, distance and strength.
In the karate dojo in Yotsuya, there was a large sign in flowing black characters, the words of Gichin Funakoshi:
“The ultimate aim of the art of Karate lies not in victory or defeat but in the perfection of the character of its participants.”
From the book “Moving Zen” by C. W. Nicol.
